It has been three years since the release of Makoto Shinkai's Kimi no Na wa., much to international success. It's probably less known, though, that an equally-felt pressure of backlash accompanied this success. The shadow of Kimi no Na wa. is unquestionably present in his latest project, both in its production and story. But to confine my review to be just a contrast-and-comparison to its predecessor would be disingenuous, for Tenki no Ko is, without a doubt, an incredible film with qualities unique to it and, as such, it ought to be praised for its presentation and critiqued for its flaws. Nevertheless, a back-and-forth will be established between Tenki no Ko and Shinkai's previous works, especially Kimi no Na wa.. Presence of spoilers will be minimized and, if necessary, be approached through allusions; I really don't wanna spoil the experience for you.
Let's start with a short summary:
Hodaka Morishima is a runaway teenager who moves to Tokyo for better prospects and experience freedom. Quickly going broke, he looks for Keisuke Suga, a sketchy-looking guy he met en route to Tokyo. He hires Hodaka as an assistant, collating weird stories and urban legends for an occult magazine. One of Hodaka's many assignments is to search for "the girl who brings sunshine everywhere she goes." Her name's Hina Amano, the same girl who he didn't yet know he had already met. Along with her younger brother and his fellow co-worker Natsumi, Hina and Hodaka uses this power to control the weather for the benefit of the people of Tokyo deprived of the blue sky.
Sounds pretty simple, right? For those familiar with Shinkai, it will be noticed that Tenki no Ko leans more on the story side of things rather than the characters, which is a kind of misnomer since the characters are the plot, in a slice-of-life sense, yet the film clearly emphasizes the impact and consequences of their actions to themselves, to others, and to the world. Although the Shinkai-defining emphatic-visual storytelling is there, it never lingers more than what is enough for conveying the setting's atmosphere.
It is through Hodaka that we see the film. He opens the film with his monologue, monologues which will recur throughout, and it is his struggles that frame the story, and drive the development of the other characters, particularly Hina and Keisuke. It is still surprising for me to see an ample amount of screentime be devoted to Keisuke, who is the kind of character I expect to be delegated to being a static side character. His circumstances are explored during these, how he came to be who he is now and how he reacts to the events surrounding him. He's an overall interesting guy, and I'd like it even more if the execution of his character's more polished, rather than shown in short bursts throughout.
Hina, meanwhile, is more of a plot device rather than a developing character herself. One can argue that this can't be helped; unlike Mitsuha in Kimi no Na wa., we don't see the world through her perspective, which means that everything we know about her comes from what she tells Hodaka (and, subsequently, us the audience) and Hodaka's reactions to her and her actions. The first half of the film keeps the effort to cloak her in mystery. How did she get her power? What led to her and her younger brother's situation? I particularly accuse Shinkai here of never actually developing her as a character, and that Hodaka's only there to give her that one push towards a decision that is the closest she gets to a "development". All in all, it's a kind of a letdown that the same treatment Keisuke got isn't applied to her.
As the ground of the answer to one of the questions that shape the enigma that is Hina Amano, the film presents us with an exposition of mythology. The world of Tenki no Ko is a crazy one, full of chosen ones, manifestations of magic, buried histories, and the elephant in the room that is the bizarre and abnormal weather of Tokyo. Many characters corroborate that the downpour the city's been experiencing has been going on for a long time. One character laments that their children has had the misfortune of growing up in these conditions, of not experiencing the radiant sunlight the same way they did during their own childhood. This is a statement of a general sentiment, shared by all characters present, of a longing to return to what is familiar and accepted as traditional, a treatment of which is somewhat novel.
Another, equally significant side of the world of Tenki no Ko is its society. Both mythology and society envelop the characters, interweaving in its ebb and flow, dishing out the consequences of their choices. I dare say here that they're two sides of the same coin in the film. Hina and Hodaka share a concern that is central to their development, that of seeking their own place in their society, each in their own ways. In their pursuit of this, they find themselves faced with the decision of either integrating themselves to it or breaking away from it — it is here that Shinkai departs from his usual treatment of the familiar tropes of love and separation, and approach a new trope that's already been implicit in his previous works: individuality.
I'm pretty sure you've noticed that, in a sense, all of Tenki no Ko is an echo of Kimi no Na wa. You could even go as far as saying that all of Tenki no Ko is just a rehash of Kimi no Na wa. That would be an overblown exaggeration though, as you'll see that Shinkai here is doing something different to his familiar theme of love, that he'll take a somewhat subtle swerve midway, with a surprising continuity with his previous works. I could even argue that it is here that Shinkai is at his most ambitious.
As it is in most anime, love is a central motif in Shinkai's works; this is most prominent in Byousoku 5 Centimeter, Kotonoha no Niwa, and (especially) Kimi no Na wa. Heck, one of them need not even be a person for there to be love, like in Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko. Generally defined, love is a bond between two people, instatiated by a feeling of liking or caring for a person, and more specifically as romantic love, which is characterized by sexual attraction. We may now use the single word to express the many-varied kinds of love, but the Greeks had different words to refer to the variety of senses the word "love" now contains, and chiefly among them (and pertinent to the film) are eros (passionate love, and the closest to modern romantic love), philia (friendship), philautia (self-love), storge (familial love), and agape (charity). The development of Keisuke, Hina, and Hodaka are all marked by philautia, intertwined with the other kinds of love. As they continue to know each other, they also reveal to themselves, explicitly or not, the lack of philautia that contribute to their flaws and, in turn, lead them to overcome it. Tenki no Ko differs from Shinkai's previous works in the eventual emphasis the film places in philautia, an emphasis already implicit in Kotonoha no Niwa and Byousoku 5 Centimeter.
Another is the propensity to violence (I am here working on a general description of violence as violence to the other), which is more present in Shinkai's more plot-driven works. Notable examples would be bullying (in Kotonoha no Niwa) and a deliberate bombing that teeters on terrorism, were it not for the overall context (in Kimi no Na wa.). In Tenki no Ko, this would be the presence of guns, a rarity given the strict gun laws in Japan, and the underbelly of Tokyo, as embodied by that one piece-of-shit jerk (you really can't mistake him). Guns are present in the two critical moments of the film, which most probably symbolize the unwanted intrusion of Hodaka (and his eventual self-assertion) into the society of Tokyo.
In the topic of society, I mentioned earlier the nature of myth and society as a two-sided matter, both of equal importance to the characters and the plot. They are complementary to one another, yet they signify the opposing tendencies that the characters may take in their development. As is already said, the society represents the familiar and what is followed in tradition — in a word, permanence. Meanwhile, the forgotten history of myth tells a story of flux, of uncertainty in what is natural state of things, and of the inevitability of change. There is a remarkable analogy between the microcosm that is the world and society of our characters and the macrocosm that is the earth and sediments of mythology they're acting on, which can be then extended through a passing remark on the vastness of the sky compared to the calmness of the sea. It is these connections that I admire most in Tenki no Ko.
There's nothing much I can say on the technical production of Tenki no Ko. The music are almost outstanding, they convey the atmosphere the scenes they made for. The insert songs are absolute stand-outs here, which does more than enough to give the scenes they're in the force they need. The music made many scenes memorable to me, particularly the climax. The visuals are nothing short of stunning. I can certainly say that Shinkai out-Shinkai'd himself here! There are many many beautiful shots and moments of elaborate cinematography that actually made me gasp. Kimi no Na wa. is nothing compared to what is shown here; I'm the source on that.
Overall, Tenki no Ko is a film of overcoming obstacles, whether it be external or hidden in oneself. The director once said in an interview that the success of his previous production revealed to him what he wanted to do here, and that is to make a film that is more open to criticism. Tenki no Ko, then, is also a film about openness, of being open to what oneself is, to change and come what may, and to the new things that they didn't know they can do.
When it opens in your country, go watch it. The experience is worth it.
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