Weathering With You Forced Me to Blog: A Review [May contain spoiler]
It has always been my desire to create a personal blog where I can share my thoughts on things that mattered to me but I cannot seem to find the courage to do so. After watching Weathering With You, I finally found the courage to create this blog and share this post. This is simply because I need to rave about the film.
Weathering With You is the story of how a teenage boy, Hodaka, met the “sunshine girl,” Hina and how their relationship progressed as they explored Hina’s power that is connected to the weather. As Tokyo suffers from a seemingly prolonged rainy season, Hina acquired a power to pause the gloomy weather and brings out the sunny sky for a certain period of time just by praying it over.
As both Hina and Hodaka struggled to meet the day ends since she lost her mother, her only guardian, and he ran away from home, they decided to put up a business by providing clear skies for customers who can pay. The business became a success but it appears that Hina’s power has a limit.
According to the legend, weather girls of previous generations eventually became the sacrifice in order for the land to have regular sunny weather. Another legend tells that once the weather girl overused her power, she will disappear to become a part of the weather. Both of these legends happened to Hina, which prompted Hodaka to resolve on the exciting third act.
I read few reviews of experts and some of them tried to compare it to Your Name, another hit anime movie that Makoto Shinkai created, and I understand why the comparison is inevitable — they are both made by Shinkai, cameos of Taki and Mitsuha of Your Name suggest that they share the same cinematic universe, and they belong to the same film genre.
Critics of the movie say that Your Name is superior to Weathering With You and they gave a number of points to justify them. For me, though, the movie can stand on its own and seeing it independently, Weathering With You is an excellent film with a charm of its own.
There are several brilliant and outstanding points that the movie offers, which made this movie excellent on my own standard. Hodaka represents bravery, which influenced me to come out from my shell and pursue my interest in blogging, while Hina represents purity. Hodaka ran away from home and braved Tokyo at his tender age. Hina, despite her ability to manipulate the weather, did not abuse her power in any form.
The real star of the movie is the city of Tokyo. Taki’s grandmother said that Tokyo was originally submerged to the ocean but the activities of men forced the land to ascend in the surface. It appears that the years of continuous rain is the weather’s answer to Tokyo’s prayer to return her home below the ocean. On the other hand, the human spirit remains resilient despite the uncontrollable geographical force — much like Hodaka’s affection towards Hina, it endures and overcomes any roadblocks.
Weather is an active entity in the movie. It chooses a person in every generation to whom it will demonstrate its power. Interestingly, the weather seems to respond if a person is located in a certain location, which is the old shrine at the top of the abandoned building.
There are so many things about the movie that remained unexplored (Why Hina was chosen? Why Hodaka left home? Why the weather chooses the particular area to interact with humans?) but I guess Shinkai chose not to reveal all of them since keeping them a mystery is part of its charm.
I think Shinkai is planning to create a set of movies based on the four seasons with interconnected settings and characters — While Your Name has a sunny vibe, Weathering With You has the “sheltered on a rainy season” feels without the gloomy mood.
Overall, Weathering With You is a special film that compelled me to work on my passion and interests and taught me to overlook the hard work attached to them.
My star ratings
3 stars = Excellent
2 stars = Can be good
1 star = Watch at your own risk
