Being a big fan of Your Name, I wasn’t sure what to expect from Makoto Shinkai’s latest film. I didn’t watch any previews for the film, the only information I knew about the movie was reading the basic premise and looking at the poster. I went into the theater with zero expectations and I came out with this film as my favorite from 2019.

Weathering With You might be one of the most gorgeous 2-D animated films I’ve ever seen, and for damn good reason. Judging from what I’ve seen from Makoto Shinkai’s filmography, he seems to be the master of using digital effects to their fullest in 2-D animation. From start to finish, Weathering With You is always breathtaking to look at. From the beautiful blue skies, to the ultra-detailed Tokyo skyline, this film is non-stop animation mastery.

Of course, visuals aren’t everything when it comes to animation, and thankfully, Weathering With You nails it in every other department as well. My favorite aspect of the film has to be the characters. While his character design isn’t very strong, the protagonist, Hodaka quickly became my favorite character in the movie. He’s not very typical when it comes to anime protagonists as his blend of seriousness and childlike wonder is a very refreshing personality trait to watch. Because of this, he feels like a real human being, the same can be said for the rest of the cast as well. The other main character, Hina, while not as strong personality wise, is still very likable and entertaining. The life of these characters really shines through in their voice performances. It’s always nice when animated characters are voiced by actors close to their age and using teenagers in this film is a fantastic choice. I genuinely believe that something would be lost from this film if they didn’t decide to use actors close to the characters age and is something I hope they replicate when they eventually produce an English Dub for this film.

Another thing that I really loved in this movie was the soundtrack. While the instrumental pieces are great, much like Your Name, the vocal songs by the Japanese alternative rock band RADWIMPS really stole the show. I was worried at first that using RADWIMPS again wouldn’t make this film stand on its own against Your Name, but I’m very glad to say that I was wrong. While I don’t think the RADWIMPS songs are as memorable as the ones in Your Name, one song that does stand out is ‘Celebration’ by female vocalist Toko Miura. This song really stands above the rest in this film and might be my favorite from both movies soundtracks. The scene that this song plays in is pure perfection and might be my favorite scene in the movie.

For the sake of objectivity however, there were some very minor problems I had with the film. I won’t spoil anything here, but some aspects of the ending I found to be a little strange and didn’t fit with the rest of the movie, but it wasn’t enough to make me dislike anything from the film.

Shinkai has been proving himself as one of the best animation directors with every new work he puts out, and Weathering With You might be his best one yet. While I would rate a 9/10 now, I have no doubt in my mind that my appreciation for this film would only increase on repeat viewings. There are not too many films that can make me as happy and appreciative of life as this one did, and I feel very lucky that I had such a wonderful experience watching it, as I’m sure many others do as well. This was by far my favorite film of 2019, and if you haven’t seen already, I hope this review convinced you to do so because this movie really deserves to be as big as Your Name. It's a shame it wasn't even nominated for Best Animated Movie at the Academy Awards because by god this movie deserves it more than anything that was actually nominated.