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Weathering With You is the newest film directed by Makoto Shinkai who was the director of the world-renowned Your Name, a movie that went on to become the highest-grossing anime film of all time. Following the success of Your Name and his other projects, Weathering With You is a massively anticipated release especially within the anime community.
The film follows sixteen-year-old Hodaka who runs away from his home to go to Tokyo. The city is being devastated by the weather because Hodaka wants to make it to the capital. With no real plan or money, Hodaka runs into some troubles until he goes in with Suga, a tabloid writer who owns his own company. Suga hires Hodaka to write and edit for him as well as doing tasks around the house.
Throughout his time at the magazine, he keeps crossing paths with a seventeen-year-old gamer named Hina who can control the weather and make the sun shine again. The two of them set up a company together where they go out to different places around the city that need sunshine for their events and Hina makes the sun shine for them. Unfortunately, there are consequences that neither of them is aware of.
Weathering With You is an unforgettable fantasy, full of real-world problems, a beautiful soundtrack, and relatable characters. And, we can say with complete confidence that it didn’t disappoint us and was most definitely worth the wait.
One of the best things overall about the film was the soundtrack. The music was composed and performed by RADWIMPS who also composed and performed the music for Your Name so we knew it was going to be special and indeed, the music just fit the film perfectly. When seeing a film, the music is such an important part, if the music doesn’t fit, the whole film seems a little bit off but in Weathering With You, the soundtrack was the perfect accompaniment to the action happening on screen. The way the music moves at the right moments varying between aggression and calm is just incredible. Honestly, the music was part of the reason we cried at this movie, it just took our breath away.
Along with the music, the animation in this movie was just absolutely stunning. Your Name set some expectations and we were not disappointed. Everything in the movie is just so realistic with incredible attention to detail on where in Tokyo the scenes are taking place. Not only was the scenery perfect but so was the animation of all of the characters, not just the main characters but even the people who were just walking along the street. It’s a massive treat for your eyes.
Not only did they look amazing, but the characters in this movie were also relatable. We’ve all felt a little bit like Hodaka, wanting to run away from our home town to start a new life. To have the freedom of being alone before we realize that it’s a bad idea and our bedrooms are the perfect place for us of course. Hina was such a kind-hearted character who just wanted to protect those around her and wanted to make sure they were okay. Also, one of her main goals throughout the whole film was just to make people happy. She wanted the people she spent time with to be happy because of what she had done and we think we can all relate to that can’t we? Suga too, the dad suffering from the grief of losing his wife wanting the rest of his family to be okay, to be able to love and support them. He works so hard and cares about those around him. We love these characters so much.
The love story in Weathering With You may not be as beautiful and tragic as Your Name but the real-world tragedy that’s going on in this movie is definitely more grounding. Director Makoto Shinkai talked about how the weather is scary in Japan at the moment and you can definitely feel this throughout the movie. It rains every single day to a dangerous degree and there are record-breaking temperature drops, a threat that is very real at the moment. The way that Weathering With You deals with the threat of climate change just feels so real, so scary and grounding. It tells us that as young people, we really have to step up and save the planet that is being destroyed around us at an alarming rate. So, where the romance may not be as incredible as in Your Name, the stakes and threat feel much more real and scary.
Overall, Weathering With You is an incredible movie that is definitely worth the watch. Anime fan or not, give it a chance!
Have you watched it? Share your thoughts via tweet @Fuzzable.
