(Disclaimer: I do go into spoilers beyond my favorite character section as a warning.)
Makoto Shinkai is far and away my favorite director/storyteller/writer in anime. There's something so relatable, so raw and human, in Shinkai's work that simply speaks to me on a level that nothing else ever has before, leading me to state that Your Name is my favorite piece of entertainment of all time. Not anime, not movie, but of all forms of entertainment. With that being said, I was obviously beyond hyped to see Weathering With You. I was so excited to see how Shinkai would follow up his magum opus, whether he would try and emulate the success or continue to try to innovate and refine his style. Thankfully, Weathering With You is more of the latter, despite possessing many of Shinkai's trademark themes and stylistic choices. All the familiarity is there with Weathering With You despite it being a slightly different kind of story told.

Before I dive more into the themes and such, I've got to touch on the technical aspects of Weathering With You, starting with the outstanding visuals. What new praise could I possibly heap upon Weathering With You and CoMix Wave for their stunning aesthetic, impeccable animation quality, and the most beautiful burger ever put on screen? I mean, what more is there for me to say about this beauty?

Musically, Weathering With You is equally as phenomenal. RADWIMPS return after their masterful work in Your Name and put together yet another spectacular soundtrack. While the OST is on par with Your Name, the insert songs don't quite reach the same standout level of Your Name's "Sparkle" and "Nandemonaiya". That isn't to say that Weathering With You's insert songs aren't good, they certainly are with "Celebration" and "Grand Escape" highlighting the soundtrack, they just don't quite have the same emotional punch that Your Name's inserts do. As far as audio goes, Weathering With You is obviously incredible, but it's the voice acting that I really want to touch on. I saw the dub first, mostly by accident, but I rewatched it subbed the other night, thinking that I'd like it more that way, but I really didn't. I actually preferred the dub, not really for the voice acting per se, but more for the dialogue choices. Outside of translating "itadakimasu" as "bon apetite", it did a fantastic job at keeping meanings consistent, whereas the subbed was just weird with some of their translations.

Favorite Character: Nagi Amano

This would have been the perfect chance to throw in Hina as best girl, but that really would be disrespecting Nagi, the womanizing little brother. His humor and personality really won me over in my rewatch, despite Hina being the character that stood out to me the most. Though, you have to understand that, being a movie, there really aren't many characters involved and even fewer that get any meaningful development. A point which brings me to my first big thumbs up for Weathering With You: it's much better at developing all of its characters, not only the main two. Nagi, Natsumi, and Keisuke all receive tangible development as the movie progresses, despite them not being super important to the grand scheme of the movie's plot. Contrast this with Your Name and you'll see very much the opposite, which isn't really a strike against either movie, just different focuses which work for both movies in their own way.

Weathering With You is a movie about choices and how those choices affect those around us. Keisuke makes a choice to help Hodoka get to the shrine to save Hina, despite it not really being in his best interest to do so. Hodoka makes a choice to save Hina over all of Tokyo when, typically, this where the trope that the hero has to sacrifice something precious to him to save the world. It's really interesting, especially because of the light in which utilitarianism versus moral idealism is displayed in Weathering With You. Usually, you see utilitarianism take precedence, but in this movie, we see the moral idealistic choice win out. Hodaka chooses to save Hina and not respect her sacrifice to save Tokyo, because to him, she's the precious one, not the city. He chooses her because he "wants her more than any blue sky"- a line that hit me harder than a ton of bricks and one that is going to stick with me for a very long time.

I think Weathering With You doesn't quite reach up to the masterpiece that is Your Name, but it doesn't need to. While Your Name is such a tightly woven narrative, with such a laser focus and little room for sidetracking; Weathering With You is more broad and sweeping, focusing on more of an experience as a whole, instead of telling a tight story. It's really such a different movie that you can't really compare the two on that level, despite everyone, including myself, doing so. It won't supplant Your Name anytime soon, but its such a cute and heartwarming movie with such different strengths that it would be a shame for anyone to miss out on experiencing it out of prejudice or simple belief that it could never match up to the titan that is Your Name.