Weathering With You has seen tremendous box-office success in the UK, it's opening weekend doing 10 times as much business as the superb Your Name, it has been a cause celebre for anime fandom in general.
The film itself, which I saw last night with fellow bleary-eyed new Dad and self-employed business mogul Tom, was a splendid affair. It's not as good as Your Name, it lacks the urgency and emotional payoff of Shinkai's earlier masterpiece, but on its own merits this is film-making of a very high standard, with engaging characters and the signature natural wonders we've come to expect.
Runaway Miroshima's early adventures in Tokyo are made all the more riveting by the sheer detail of the city writ-large across the scene. As a regular visitor to Tokyo, the atmosphere of the city captured in the film, from the architecture to the neon signs and crowded train stations, made me yearn to return there. There's a feel to Japan's capital that really is unlike anywhere else on Earth, and while I love Seoul and Hanoi when I visit for work, it's really Japan that calls to me for endless variety and spirit.
Hina, the sunshine girl with the power to change the weather, is a likeable character. Strong-willed, kind and thoughtful, you can absolutely see why Miroshima would fall for her. Remembering her kindness for leaving him a hamburger when he sits in McDonald's looking half starved, there's a nice touch of chivalry to the young man as he "saves" Hina from being whisked away by a couple of sketchy looking men.
The supporting cast really stole the film, however - in a pre-screening interview, Shinkai himself said that he most closely identified with Suga, the main adult in the film who had his own issues beyond just being a parental figure for the two young leads. Likewise the boisterous Natsumi, who helps Suga at his conspiracy article company, has several outstanding scenes that really add a lot of humour and humanity to the film.
Lastly, a special word for Hina's younger brother Nagi, or "Sempai" as Miroshima comes to call him after witnessing his ability to charm the ladies. Vulnerable, determined and full of energy, he's more worldly wise than the other two, and his escape scene later in the movie, invoking the help of two of his admirers, is absolute genius of the highest order. Everyone needs a younger brother like Nagi.
What marks this film out as a Makoto Shinkai feature, aside from the lavish detail in every scene, is the skillful direction. Very subtle "camera" movements are employed, where the subtlest of motion is employed to make it look like the scenes are being filmed and not animated are rife. Several scenes panned upward about an inch or so, where any other studio would have simply kept the scene static for ease of animation, but not here. This lends a weight and realism to the film which in turn makes everything seem more immediate and relatable. You may not know why a Shinkai film resonates so strongly with you, but trust me, the camerawork has a lot to do with how you can subconsciously connect to the characters and the world they inhabit.
It doesn't hurt that Radwimps return on the soundtrack to push the emotion up to 11 when called for, that final ingredient to make scenes fly by with a flourish. They're great at feelgood pop, and there's nothing to complain about here.
If I were to nitpick, the police element seemed unnecessary to the story, the central drama didn't require their presence and in the face of supernatural Armageddon, they just struck me a superfluous. They feel like a weak plot device to amp up the tension, when instead they distract more than they add to anything meaningful. On the flipside, they do set up Nagi's best scene, so I'm not wholly dismissive of their involvement overall.
So is Weathering With You a keeper? For those who appreciate the peak of Japanese animation, certainly. It's a slow-burn at times though, and the ending is nice but not the home run it could have been. Many elements remain unexplained, and some early seeded plot points seem to have been left on the cutting room floor (I could have sworn we were being set up to find out Morishima was the Dragon spirit a mystic describes earlier in the film, especially when he's given a hat with a dragon on it) but the vagaries of the film leave much to speculate on, and that's part of the fun.
Overall this is a film that should be seen on the big screen wherever possible. It has breathtaking attention to detail, memorable characters and some genuinely moving and emotional moments. It's another reason that Japanese animation is rightly hailed as an art form, bringing the unique cultural perspective of a contradictory culture, at once super-modern and deeply spiritual, to the world stage. Nobody embodies this more in a post-Miyazaki age than Makoto Shinkai.
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