Weathering With You [DVD]

ive watched enough of his movies to know what to expect. it may not be as good as kimi no na wa (your name) but its still beautiful and the radwimps soundtrack is great as always

This is a review of the September 2020 Region B2 Blu-ray from Animé Ltd. The quality is excellent in all respects, and there are several extras.We first discovered the director and writer of this exquisite animé, Makoto Shinkai, when, having worked our way through Studio Ghibli’s entire catalogue, we felt sufficiently confident to dip into other Japanese animé studios. We came across his 2007 masterpiece, ‘5 Centimeters per Second’, and fell totally in love with Shinkai’s breath-taking artistry and delightful storytelling. His 2014 ‘Garden of Words’ was equally gorgeous to look at, but the story fell just a little short. But the double disc of ‘Voices of a Distant Star’(2002) and ’Place Promised in Our Early Days’(2004) is again magnificent, as is ‘Your Name’(2016).All Shinkai’s films share what is, to our mind, some of the most beautiful, detailed, colourful backgrounds in any animation we have ever watched. His skies and clouds, his flowers and trees, and water in any form, is always a sheer delight. That is undoubtedly true in this film, and here, he also shows a feel for cityscapes, given that the majority of the action takes place in Tokyo. The detail and complexity of every shot is quite amazing. His characters too are always interesting and varied, and here he has a substantial cast of both heroes and some villains.The story, by Shinkai, was influenced by the fact that climate change has apparently led to increases in summer rainfall in Japan. The direct translation of the Japanese title is ‘Child of Weather’, and the film focusses on a young girl who appears to be able to temporarily halt the constant downpours plaguing the capital one summer. And whilst Shinkai has used Sci-Fi motifs in previous films, here, he uses ideas that feel as though they may have been taken from traditional folk tales, or stories from cultural myths and legends, perhaps associated with religion. Certainly, a traditional red Shinto archway or shrine features during the film. It seems the story is not traditional, but that is the overwhelming feeling, and it is very effective.The interlinking of the weather story and the human interest aspects of the film is very good, and quite sad. It also feels very modern and current. The interplay of the characters is nicely done, and very sympathetic. However, we both felt just a little disappointed. The story meanders a bit. It might have benefitted from slightly tighter direction and more rigorous editing. It just seems a fraction too long, and perhaps a little bit self-indulgent. It is as though someone needed to remind Shinkai and his team that sometimes, less can be more.That perhaps seems ungenerous, given how gorgeous the film is to watch. We were desperate to really love it, having looked forward to it and originally seen publicity about it months before the film became available. However, our assessment is that this is an exquisite-looking 4 Star tale, not 5.

Visually pretty, but not as pretty as Your Name, and rather predictable. The message was supposed to be about climate change, but with the whole weather controlling folklore it was just too blurry. It didn't have to be literal, but this just didn't deliver the message at all, in my opinion. Still the movie had some fun moments.

I love this film SO MUCH.I've been a fan of the director's work ever since I saw Your Name (I have never cried so much at a film before or since) and I really like the joyous theme of hope in this one. Your Name was sad, but it had a happy ending, whereas this one was just a joy from start to finish!The plot centres on the love story of Hina, a girl who has the mysterious ability to manipulate the weather, and Hadoka, a runaway teen who has come to Tokyo in search of a better life. Hadoka starts working for an occult magazine investigating the mysterious, and eventually bumps into Hina and they become friends. When Hina shows him her ability to control the weather, taking him to an isolated rooftop so she can clear the rain, the two hatch a plan to make money out of her strange ability, by advertising that she can make the sun shine. People, naturally, are skeptical at first, but once her miraculous talent becomes apparent, Hina becomes dubbed 'The Sunshine Girl' and the offers come flooding in.I won't go into more details, you should really watch it for yourself, as frankly, the animation is beautiful, as is the story and the characters. It has just the right touch of fantasy, but has a foot grounded firmly in the real world, which I really liked, and the depiction of Hina controlling the weather are jaw droopingly cool.All in all 10 out of 10, go watch it!! :D

Although it’s still a very good film, this will naturally be compared to its predecessor, “Your Name”, which is truly excellent. This is a slightly darker film in comparison, showing a less shiny/attractive view of Tokyo and some people, situations vs Your Name, and although the characters are good, didn’t feel quite as engaging. Animation and use of light (a characteristic of Makato Shinkai, the director) is excellent. I didn’t feel the music score / songs were as strong as Your name, although done by the same band. The ending also felt somewhat strange and almost incomplete. The cameo appearance of Taki from “Your Name” was a nice touch, but didn’t really tie it to the other film and even raised questions by doing so like what had happened to Mitsuha and where this fitted in timeline to the other film (afterwards I presume).Overall worth watching, but if you just choose one of the two, then go for “Your Name”.

It is a great movie, it will hit you right in the feels.

The cinematography is exquisite and the characters have great depth… All the family loved it

This movie is from the same studio that made "Your Name" and to be fair, there was a high expectation that Weathering With You would recapture the "lightning in the bottle" of Your Name, unfortunately this was not the case...I will not provide any story spoilers, but will say, the artwork in this film is incredible, the level of detail is exquisite, small tiny details are captured in the backgrounds, the characters are well developed and charming in their own way, but I found the story a little weak.In conclusion, if you have watched Your Name and enjoyed it, you will enjoy Weathering With You, In fairness, I probably had higher expectations due to the previous "Your Name" movie, and Weathering With You is definitely worth watching, however, in my opinion, Your Name is the superior of the two movies.