A Lovely (But Flawed) Anime Romance | Weathering With You Review
Weathering With You was written and directed by Japanese filmmaker Makoto Shinkai. He is known for his filmography that mainly consists of stories focusing on star-crossed lovers. This trend continued up to the release of Your Name, which received almost unanimous praise and became the highest-grossing anime film of all-time. You can probably imagine, then, what Shinkai tried to accomplish in recapturing similar success.
Versions in the original Japanese with English subtitles, as well as an English dub, are both currently available in theaters. Actors such as Lee Pace, Allison Brie, and Riz Ahmed lent their voices to the dubbed version.
Here’s my brief synopsis of the film:
Versions in the original Japanese with English subtitles, as well as an English dub, are both currently available in theaters. Actors such as Lee Pace, Allison Brie, and Riz Ahmed lent their voices to the dubbed version.
Here’s my brief synopsis of the film:
16-year-old boy Hodaka decides to run away from his sheltered, disappointing life on a Japanese island in favor of a new life in Tokyo. Things initially don’t go quite as he expected for him, but he eventually lands a job and befriends a girl named Hina who can seemingly manipulate the weather simply through prayer. Their situation steadily becomes more serious as the two realize that their bond might have larger ramifications on the world around them.
This review is the transcribed version of the YouTube review linked above; that video is 6 minutes and 39 seconds long. Regardless of the way you take in my opinion, I hope you enjoy my thoughts on Weathering With You!
So it would seem that the popular criticism of Weathering With You is that it’s very similar to Your Name. It’s an easy point to make that one film is comparable to another, and using that as a jumping-off point for critique can be valid. Still, a fair review should do more than simply say that one creative work is inferior for the simple reason that it emulates the formula of what came before. I believe a review with actual substance shouldn’t look at things with tunnel vision.
But if I’m being honest, this is admittedly an issue with the movie, although that’s only because of very specific structural problems Weathering With You has. No need to worry about any sort of Your Name bias, here: I went to see this movie twice within a few days so that I could get a fairer perspective on what does or doesn’t work.
With that, in the short amount of time I have to share my thoughts on Weathering With You, I’ll do my best to explain my thoughts on an actual analytical level. Let’s start by talking about what really did work for me here.
First off, the characters are very strong! Both Hina and Hodaka are well-developed protagonists that play off each other effectively enough, and I fully believed in the relationship that blossomed between them. A big part of the movie’s themes focuses on teenagers being frustrated with society at large, and how their only wishes are to rebel and carve out their own identity in a world that could swallow them whole. The central romantic duo certainly has slightly differing hopes and dreams, but they find much to relate on due to their troubled pasts and how they wish to leave them behind.
It was fascinating, then, to see how they navigate the complicated emotions of adolescence, first love, and wanting to grow up faster than society would prefer them to. Even though they may be naive about the complications of their surrounding world, I cared about their situation and wanted them to be safe. For me to say that about cartoon characters should hopefully mean something.
Given that Makoto Shinkai made sure to give both Hina and Hodaka sufficient insecurities and positive qualities, their progression both as a couple and individual characters felt plausible, despite how fantastical the story gets.
But if I’m being honest, this is admittedly an issue with the movie, although that’s only because of very specific structural problems Weathering With You has. No need to worry about any sort of Your Name bias, here: I went to see this movie twice within a few days so that I could get a fairer perspective on what does or doesn’t work.
With that, in the short amount of time I have to share my thoughts on Weathering With You, I’ll do my best to explain my thoughts on an actual analytical level. Let’s start by talking about what really did work for me here.
First off, the characters are very strong! Both Hina and Hodaka are well-developed protagonists that play off each other effectively enough, and I fully believed in the relationship that blossomed between them. A big part of the movie’s themes focuses on teenagers being frustrated with society at large, and how their only wishes are to rebel and carve out their own identity in a world that could swallow them whole. The central romantic duo certainly has slightly differing hopes and dreams, but they find much to relate on due to their troubled pasts and how they wish to leave them behind.
It was fascinating, then, to see how they navigate the complicated emotions of adolescence, first love, and wanting to grow up faster than society would prefer them to. Even though they may be naive about the complications of their surrounding world, I cared about their situation and wanted them to be safe. For me to say that about cartoon characters should hopefully mean something.
Given that Makoto Shinkai made sure to give both Hina and Hodaka sufficient insecurities and positive qualities, their progression both as a couple and individual characters felt plausible, despite how fantastical the story gets.
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| (Photo Source: IMDb) |
Fortunately, the side characters complement the main protagonists quite well. I thought this was a definite strength of Your Name and such is the case here, although Weathering With You arguably gave more time for its secondary characters to develop their own distinctive personalities. Either way, leaving the film both times, I walked away having enjoyed the main couple as well as the people that supported them onscreen.
But this leads to my next positive, which is that this movie is GAH-GEOUS!
In all seriousness, this is a truly beautiful film to look at. I can’t even begin to fathom how pain-staking of a process it was to animate these images, but some of the background, weather effects, and uses of light were so impressively rendered that it was easy to forget that I was watching a movie. The grand majority of these images seemed like they were stuck in some kind of dimension that was neither a painting or reality.
All I could do was sit back in my seat and be awestruck with the images Shinkai and his crew managed to create. Effective sound design and the atmospheric score by Radwimps helped to reel me in even more, although the music did get a bit overwhelming towards the end.
As far as other issues I had with the movie, I should give you a fair warning that I’ll be either spoiling some things outright or implying certain plot points in the story. After all, most of my problems with the film rest in what happens in the third act. Tread carefully from here on out, for I will be discussing some spoilers for Your Name to address the point I want to make.
(SPOILER ALERT FOR YOUR NAME)
So there are some very specific reasons why the main criticism of Weathering With You is its similarity to Your Name. These all have to do with not only how the movie looks and feels, but also similar plot points between the two films.
But this leads to my next positive, which is that this movie is GAH-GEOUS!
In all seriousness, this is a truly beautiful film to look at. I can’t even begin to fathom how pain-staking of a process it was to animate these images, but some of the background, weather effects, and uses of light were so impressively rendered that it was easy to forget that I was watching a movie. The grand majority of these images seemed like they were stuck in some kind of dimension that was neither a painting or reality.
All I could do was sit back in my seat and be awestruck with the images Shinkai and his crew managed to create. Effective sound design and the atmospheric score by Radwimps helped to reel me in even more, although the music did get a bit overwhelming towards the end.
As far as other issues I had with the movie, I should give you a fair warning that I’ll be either spoiling some things outright or implying certain plot points in the story. After all, most of my problems with the film rest in what happens in the third act. Tread carefully from here on out, for I will be discussing some spoilers for Your Name to address the point I want to make.
(SPOILER ALERT FOR YOUR NAME)
So there are some very specific reasons why the main criticism of Weathering With You is its similarity to Your Name. These all have to do with not only how the movie looks and feels, but also similar plot points between the two films.
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| (Photo Source: IMDb) |
On a surface level, both are romance films with supernatural elements. But the nitty-gritty of where things get similar is how those supernatural elements threaten to separate our protagonists. Not only that, these situations cause the stakes to get raised much higher than what they were before.
In the case of Your Name, things start out with the main characters Taki and Mitsuha, two high schoolers living in different parts of Japan, randomly switching bodies with each other in a Freaky Friday type of scenario. Over time, they learn to appreciate and even love each other through the process of literally living the other person’s life, becoming familiar with each other on emotionally intimate levels.
Eventually, there comes a day in which Taki suddenly stops receiving texts from Mitsuha, and from that point on the body-swapping stops. This is the point at which the film dramatically shifts in tone from a cute romantic comedy into a very serious fantasy drama, for after Taki decides to go find Mitsuha’s town in the mountains, he’s devastated to learn that it was destroyed by a fragment of a comet three years earlier. Not only was he switching bodies with Mitsuha, he was also traveling back in time. From there the suspense levels of the film basically raise from 10 to 1,000 almost instantly, in which the conflict no longer just rests on whether or not Taki and Mitsuha will transcendent time and end up together, but also if the town of Itomori will be saved in a brand new timeline.
(END OF SPOILER ALERT)
Without divulging further spoilers for Your Name, let me just say that the film manages to resolve both of those conflicts in extremely satisfying ways. In fact, Your Name has one of my favorite movie endings of all-time. But here’s the thing about that: despite how insanely high the stakes of that story gets, I never feel as though the movie’s foundation falls under the weight of its own drama. Somehow, Shinkai was able to make the story’s progression from Point A to Point B natural. By the time the end is reached, everything feels earned and gets even better upon rewatches.
But I guess where Weathering With You suffers is that not all of it felt earned by comparison. Overall I thought that the ending was satisfying, especially since Shinkai was going for something thematically different this time around, but the intended emotional effect was the same, and the road getting there was almost like deja vu.
He basically tried to recapture that same success he had with his previous film by changing a few things here and there. In getting to that inevitable conclusion, though, I felt that he went a bit over-the-top in some places, letting the melodrama and sappy music go unchecked. The attempts to amp up the drama and emotionally suffocate the audience was just a bit much for my liking.
In the case of Your Name, things start out with the main characters Taki and Mitsuha, two high schoolers living in different parts of Japan, randomly switching bodies with each other in a Freaky Friday type of scenario. Over time, they learn to appreciate and even love each other through the process of literally living the other person’s life, becoming familiar with each other on emotionally intimate levels.
Eventually, there comes a day in which Taki suddenly stops receiving texts from Mitsuha, and from that point on the body-swapping stops. This is the point at which the film dramatically shifts in tone from a cute romantic comedy into a very serious fantasy drama, for after Taki decides to go find Mitsuha’s town in the mountains, he’s devastated to learn that it was destroyed by a fragment of a comet three years earlier. Not only was he switching bodies with Mitsuha, he was also traveling back in time. From there the suspense levels of the film basically raise from 10 to 1,000 almost instantly, in which the conflict no longer just rests on whether or not Taki and Mitsuha will transcendent time and end up together, but also if the town of Itomori will be saved in a brand new timeline.
(END OF SPOILER ALERT)
Without divulging further spoilers for Your Name, let me just say that the film manages to resolve both of those conflicts in extremely satisfying ways. In fact, Your Name has one of my favorite movie endings of all-time. But here’s the thing about that: despite how insanely high the stakes of that story gets, I never feel as though the movie’s foundation falls under the weight of its own drama. Somehow, Shinkai was able to make the story’s progression from Point A to Point B natural. By the time the end is reached, everything feels earned and gets even better upon rewatches.
But I guess where Weathering With You suffers is that not all of it felt earned by comparison. Overall I thought that the ending was satisfying, especially since Shinkai was going for something thematically different this time around, but the intended emotional effect was the same, and the road getting there was almost like deja vu.
He basically tried to recapture that same success he had with his previous film by changing a few things here and there. In getting to that inevitable conclusion, though, I felt that he went a bit over-the-top in some places, letting the melodrama and sappy music go unchecked. The attempts to amp up the drama and emotionally suffocate the audience was just a bit much for my liking.
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| (Photo Source: IMDb) |
That being said, I was nonetheless pleased by how this ultimately turned out. I had more issues with the story than I expected, but the characters were likable, the ending was satisfying, and the film was too beautiful and entertaining for me to ignore my personal enjoyment of it. Your Name was definitely the masterpiece of these two films, yet among the animated films to get a theatrical release in 2019, Weathering With You was still one of the better ones.
SCORE: B+
SCORE: B+
AGE RECOMMENDATION: In contrast to Your Name pushing its PG rating, Weathering With You’s PG-13 felt more appropriate. Language isn’t really an issue since there is only a little bit of light cursing, but some of the sexually suggestive themes may be bothersome for certain audience members. For instance, the main protagonist is repeatedly called out for accidentally staring at girls’ chests. Also, a female character opens a bathrobe to reveal what would have been her bare chest to a teenage boy, but for reasons I would rather not say for the sake of spoilers, no nudity is shown. Overall, this is better suited for teenagers and adults. (13+)
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