- Summary of my thoughts with NO SPOIELRS: Weathering With You is yet another love story done by the creator of Your Name, and like Your Name, this film has gained a wide audience for good reason. However, I personally thought the film was just fine, with me not really finding it anywhere near as emotional as many others are hyping it up to be. But if you are just looking for a nice love story to watch, you can’t go wrong with watching this. There are definitely many parts in this film that I did not like, but I would recommend it to you if you are interested in watching another interesting love story😊 - Spoilers Start Here For The Full Review, SO DO NOT READ IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILEDStory: I’m gonna start this part off with just letting you know, no, I did not cry at all during this film, in fact, I did not even tear up, but that does not mean I did not enjoy the story, in fact, I think this film is really special, but for a completely different reason than most people who watch it. For the majority of this film, to be honest, I was kind of bored, sure I like Hine, Hodaka, and the rest of the colorful cast as much as everyone else, but really the majority of this film is some really basic anime shit with some minor tweaks to the plot, that is until we get to the last 30ish minutes. Guys, I cannot stress enough how much the last 20 to 30-ish minutes of this film somehow redeemed the rest of the runtime for me, because the film did something really interesting that is kind of revolutionary in the anime medium.

In that, it went against the stereotypical confucian principles that most films like this one usually follow, where it’s about the collective over the individual. This promotes this general idea that the individual is not more important than the community they are in, which is common throughout many East Asian cultures, but this film specifically went against that idea, to instead find individual happiness and I really find that to be an interesting choice. Also, unlike Your Name (which I’m comparing this to because it’s by the same person) I felt this film spent more time in the period where they jump ahead after the falling through the sky scene, which I really appreciated because a lesser film wouldn’t have done a jump ahead, that film would have probably ended with them on the roof asleep not really showing us the ramifications of their actions. But no, this film took the time to jump ahead and show us the consequences of their actions to choose individual happiness over the safety of the collective, and this statement is pretty radical when comparing it to other films in its genre.

Of course, this decision does not completely negate the other 3/4 of this 2-hour film where I had to pause twice and walk around because I was so bored with what was happening on screen because of how generic it all was. This especially was sad after I heard so many good things about the film, and before you make a comment that I shouldn’t be influenced by what people say, I have read the comments beforehand for all of my favorite films and I still fell in love with them, a great film shouldn’t need a handicap of me not reading anything about peoples general reactions, so I’ll leave it at that.

- Art Direction & Animation: Honestly guys, the entire look of this film was really the best part of this experience for me. There are just so many shots in this film that are genuinely beautiful, with the animation really doing a fantastic job bringing to life the beautiful style of this film. Seriously, there were so many unique/interesting decisions when it came to the portrayal of this story that really made it a thrill to watch, from the chases scene on the moped, to his marathon on the train tracks, every moment of the film is really beautiful to see, so even during the scenes where I was particularly bored with the story, the animation was always there keeping me at least minimally interested in what was going on. Not to mention that scene at the end with them falling through the sky, was probably one of the most beautiful scenes I have seen in a long time. - Characters: What is there to say really in this section? None of the characters were necessarily annoying to me, with the only character that was even borderline at some points being Nagi because of his continued implied playboy-ness even though he’s like in elementary school, but he’s a good kid so it’s fine. Hodaka’s character really sold me on the fact that he has a very strong connection with Hina, with the desperation in his eyes when he is holding the gun each time in the film actually bringing me to the edge of my seat because you think he might actually do it, and honestly, sometimes I wished he did just to see how things would play out, but this isn’t that type of film.

Both Natsumi and Keisuke were great supporting characters that I honestly wish we had more time with, because their investigation into what the sunshine girl truly is was much more interesting to me than the rest of the plot in the middle part of this film. Finally, there is Hina, ironically this is the only character in this film where I actually preferred her counterpart from Your Name over her, because Mitsuha connection to the plot felt much more integral to her character in Your Name, then Hina was in this film, since she kind of just gets her powers randomly by accident, unlike Mitsuha who because of her family history it made sense why she had that power. All in all, the characters were fine, could it have been better yes, but was it bad, absolutely not.

- Music: Man guys, not all the songs in this film are a bop, but when this film really wants to get you hype it knows exactly what to play. Sure I have some complaints about the number of songs and montages in this film because they felt kind of excessive (it happened like 4 maybe even 5 times) and they all kind of just felt like excuses to play a song, but man that scene near the end of them falling through the sky playing Grand Escape by RADWIMPS was really a fantastic moment. Of course, this doesn’t include the orchestral music from the OST, with every song of the OST being completely beautiful to listen to, with each of them really adding a lot to the scenes they are in. - Conclusion: All in all I feel this was a very nice film, yes it meanders for a bit too long in the middle 2/4 for my liking, but it does serve a purpose to make the last quarter of the film that much more impactful. This is why if I had to pick between Your Name and Weathering With You I would probably go with the latter, of course, just like Your Name, this film is not going to be my favorite movie that was released in 2019, but it has an interesting spin on the typical love story, which was nice. However, I will point out that Your Name did a much better tie-in with the title into the narrative then Weathering With You, in my opinion, but you know tie-ins are always fun. With all of this in mind, this brings me to give this movie a slightly higher score than I did Your Name, so 85/100, no it was not perfect, and realistically if I was ever forced to watch this film again I might lower the score, because the only reason it even gets 85 is because the last quarter with all of it’s surprises really redeemed a lot of this movie for me, but as it stands right now we’ll leave it at that. So, tell me about your thoughts regarding this film in the comments if you want, I’ll love to hear them😊😊😊 - p.s. YES, like I said earlier Grand Escape is a fucking BOP, which is why I linked to it, enjoy it while reading 😆😆😆▶