REVIEW:
So I thought this be an easy "masterpiece" but sadly I have mixed feelings.
If you enjoyed the directors other films such as “Your Name" and "Garden of Words" then you'll probably enjoy this. And though it’s good and has many perfect parts (so many!) when put together it doesn't quite work as a successful film and it may need a sequel before its "finished".
Audio Visual:
English dub is fine. It’s not perfect but it’s perfectly fine and there is a lovely musical soundtrack in English and Japanese.
And it looks amazing and sounds great. Of course it does considering the pedigree and past success. The CGi and hand drawn animation is flawless with super high production values. It all looks lovely though Tokyo doesn’t have the distinct style you might expect.
Acting, direction, editing:
The acting is fine in both languages with believable characters who feel real enough all harmoniously working together and never at odds though the supporting cast doesn’t have much to do or say. The direction and editing is excellent though due to the story it is tonally off and third act is a little messy.
Story / screenplay:
This is where those aforementioned puzzle pieces don't quite fit together...and there might be a few missing pieces preventing the film from fully realising its lofty ambitions as a supernatural love story.
Weathering with you is about....well just the same as every anime you've already seen but with a twist. A young boy (Hodaka) and a young girl (Hina) fall in love while the parents and adults are effectively absent. So yes another virgin boy is charged with saving an attractive, lovely 18 year old anime girl (with magical powers and she can cook!). Hina is designed to be the dream of any 16 year old (and older=yikes!).
And because she's actually 17 or by the end...15 (waiiittt whhaatt!?) the film maker lets you like her too (kind of)...and he even added a slightly older larger bosomed lady (Natsumi) so the virgin boy / audience gets a selection of ladies to ogle (which he frequently is shown to do). The story is not quite this simple…but in many ways it is exactly this simple which isn’t necessarily a cristim with anime but it might be for a Makoto Shinkai film.
We're meant to identify with the male protagonist fantasy of running away to the big city to meet a perfect girl. And it is a fantasy as when we were all 16 year old anime lovers few of us had 18 year old anime girls to befriend, save and fall in love with. And those of us who did usually had a pesky parent or two to interfere with our dreams. But such a fantasy comes at great cost to the characters. As an old man says in the film, “there are always consequences for our actions…”.
Along side the main story of star crossed lovers there is a weird side story where Hina's 10 year old brother is called a 'player with game' and spends his days picking up 10 year old girls on buses who are shown repeatedly to be fighting over him for validation and affection. I guess in Tokyo 10 is the new 20? I don't know but it’s made clear that Tokyo is awesome because even kids are adults. And that is actually a running theme throughout the film.
Due to misfortune Hina is raising her little brother and pretending to be older than she is while working first at McDonalds but then...well she auditions to be a sex worker (yep) but thankfully is saved by Hodaka! (these vulnerable anime girls must be saved by a virgin male haha).
And Hodaka is a runaway kid who implies he has a terrible home life (more on that later) which leads to him briefly living on the streets and working two jobs to survive as a teen without a student visa.
There is also some interesting commentary on homelessness in Japan but it’s quickly skipped over so we can have a love fantasy. And there is a cute kitten because of course… and a lazy /drinking / smoking guy whose rough but kind…so all the anime staples.
Oh and its heavily implied that the busty older girl and the lazy dude are a couple… as they live together etc. (but she's actually his niece so that's another sexually themed oddity). They are supported (chased) by some typical keystone cops as well as a sleazy but lovable criminal whose not that bad (though he really is! e.g. 'I didn't know she was underage when'… :-O).
An example of the uneven plot is when 15 and 16 year olds end up in bed… at the Amore Love hotel (twice the love!; ) with the 10 year old brother …and Hina gets naked ...but it’s all ok because she's ‘transparent’ by then. So very Japanese but not offensive though certainly some questionable narrative choices. Ironically these were already touched upon in other Shinkai films such as the love affair in Garden of Words but in past films it was all handled in a mature realistic fashion even when scifi and supernatural elements were at play.
Beyond this I found it very hard to like the male lead who is unusually selfish. I didn't realise how selfish until it ended. Yes there is a predictable shock ending twist much like Your Name… which i'm sure was controversial in Japan knowing its tragic history but that's not the shocking part.
The doomed romance ending is exactly what most people would expect (choose love!). What shocked me was Hodaka the runaway wasn't abused. Infact he has a loving family who want him but as his life was allegedly strict and boring it caused him to become a Tokyo homeless street kid. When placed next to other characters who have lost their parents and partners Hodaka is kind of a selfish jerk and when combined with the controversial ending... you realise that he's not a great guy though he is a 16 year old teen so maybe this makes perfect sense haha
It is harder to forgive Hodaka for literally saving Hina from prostitution only to (the next day) monetize her magic powers for personal gain leading to her ultimate downfall (and everyone else's). Again it’s not that blatant …but that is what happens and so as a lead he's hard to root. In the directors prior films it was easier to root for the leads and in Garden of Words the male lead who saves the 27 year old female costar was only 15 too but it was portrayed as far more realistic.
Weathering with you as a result is a little immature.
Summary:
For a film which deals with adults behaving like kids and kids behaving like adults it’s all a little childish and under developed at times. But that said it’s still a fun and often funny film and if I was 16 I’m sure I would love it. And it was a big box office hit.
But i'm not 16 so I have to be harder and compare and contrast the film to the director / writer other films and by doing so I found it came up short.
Overall it's a good film but it’s not as good as it could have been or I hoped. And an uneven ending did not help bring me full circle to my initial comment about it needing a sequel to flesh out the ending and build upon what is a solid but uneven foundation.
