Weathering with You

• (Japanese: 天気の子, Hepburn: Tenki no Ko, lit. ‘Child of Weather’)
• Written and Directed by Makoto Shinkai
• July 19, 2019 (Japan)

Voice Cast

• Morishima Hodaka-Brandon Engman
• Amano Hina-Ashley Boettcher
• Keisuke Suga-Lee Pace
• Natsumi-Alison Brie
• Detective Takai-Riz Ahmed
• Priest-Dino Andrade
• Araki-Kentaro Araki
• Ayane-Emma de Paauw
• Moka Suga-Lexie Foley
• Fumi Tachibana-Barbara Goodson
• Scout Man Kimura-Wayne Grayson
• Amano Nagi-Emeka Guindo
• Yotsuha Miyamizu-Catie Harvey
• Katsuhiko Teshigawara-Kyle Hebert
• Sayaka Natori-Cassandra Lee Morris
• Kana-Echo Picone      
• Detective Yasui-Mike Pollock
• Mrs. Mamiya, Fortune Teller-Barbara Rosenblat
• Mitsuha Miyamizu-Stephanie Sheh
• Taki Tachibana-Michael Sinterniklaas
• Sasaki, Additional Voices-Faye Mata
• Additional Voices-Kimberly Brooks, Erin Fitzgerald, Victoria Grace, Joe Ochman, Zeno Robinson, Kirk Thornton, and Jaden Waldman

A 16-year-old high school boy who ran away from his troubled home befriends an orphaned girl who has the ability to control the weather.

This is something that I saw regularly sitting on a shelf whenever I went shopping. Weathering with You was omnipresent in my shopping life so when it popped up consistently as well on my streaming search on Max I decided to watch. The initial description that I saw seemed to indicate that this was about a young kid or even a young adult struggling in his life. It sounded much more grounded than what I eventually got. Not complaining. Liked the switch.

What we get is sort of like my initial perception but with much more fantasy elements present in it. The story of the movie focuses on Hodaka who is a 16-year-old runaway living on the streets of Tokyo scrounging for any way to make money or to just simply survive. It’s how his life intersects with another young runaway named Hina who is what’s referred to as a ‘sunshine girl’ who has the power through prayer to create moments of sunshine in the current perpetual rain of Tokyo.

The relationship between Hina and Hodaka feels a little more real than what you normally get in Japanese animation. At least I thought so. Their mutual connection is more organic but that might have to do with both characters being better built and coming together natural rather than feeling tossed together.

While this movie does have its fair share of exposition it is not as exposition heavy as other films I have encountered. It takes plenty of time to build up its characters with events logically connecting. It shows rather than tells. You experience rather than getting an info dump. Not all dumps are a good thing.

Though a runaway, Hodaka eventually finds himself working for a guy named Suga who investigates local urban legends to sell the articles to other people. At least that’s what it sounds like but there’s also the possibility he might actually have his own paper? Maybe I’m just misunderstanding something that’s a little more unique to the writing community or just to Japanese news. As it stands, there’s a subplot with Suga involving a daughter he doesn’t get to see often because her grandmother prevents him from seeing her because of her asthma when it’s raining. This is a narrative shortcoming since it adds a problem that never really goes anywhere or gets resolved.

Hodaka is a lost soul. He was unhappy at home and finds himself unhappy in a new way on his own. A simple act of kindness on the part of Hina sparks growth in him and you can see from that moment on his life starts to get better in the story. After she gives him a burger just so he has something to eat he finds a job and starts becoming his own person. 

Hina is a sensitive soul. There’s something sad about her. You want to take care of her. I’m just impressed with the characterization in this. One thing that usually annoys me are exaggerated character reactions. Weathering with You does contain some but overall they are portrayed realistically.

In the story there are hints of sacrifice perhaps for love or for others as well as how love can save people and help them mature. Our central couple goes through much of this in the entire story from the beginning to the very end. There are consequences and you get a feeling that what happens matters.

Tokyo is going through an unnatural rainy period. Apparently the concept of a sunshine girl is connected to all this and she eventually will have to sacrifice herself in order to restore the balance. I’m not exactly sure how the imbalance came about but she’s the cure for the rainy time blues. I also learned (I did do research to be certain) that Tokyo started out as a fishing village as Hodaka made a mention about how it was largely water. I guess from one point of view that is correct. It didn’t become anything important until the 1600s or 1700s when it went from being called Edo to Tokyo which means ‘Eastern Capital’. That much is accurate.

Tokyo was given real character in this film. It’s seriously lived in and kind of dirty. It’s not all bright and shiny new things. The backgrounds in general can be as intriguing as the foreground animation. The amount of detail that goes into crafting the environment in Japanese animation is largely lacking in anything hand-drawn in the West. It truly is art. 

There is a bit of uniformity among the character designs with one or two reminding me of individuals from other films or animated shows such as Cowboy Bebop. That’s the vibe I get. But as things go the animation is rather beautiful.

Weathering with You is not quite what I expected but I’m very happy with what I got. It’s a very well-done film that touches on growth and love. I don’t highly recommend it, but I do recommend it.