Lightning Doesn’t Strike Twice…

In looking back at my preceding Film Review of Your Name published four year ago now, and what I subsequently went onto mention in regards to the landscape of the Japanese animated landscape seamlessly changing ever since Hayao Miyazaki seemed to had departed from the directing high-chair (and is in fact animating a feature dedicated to his grandson), it’s intriguing to perceive how much the animated landscape has changed since Makoto Shinkai’s last animated feature released. Indeed, no more do we see the likes of Studio Ghibli nimbly crafting a poetic yet memorable animation that lingers in the creative recesses of our minds; that time is now passed-us. Instead, we’re greeted with a landscape of fair-game – an evolved industry which was seen not only young and aspiring animated directors taking their chance to create something that is just as culturally imperative as the anime of yesteryear, but we’ve also gazed at this recognition of anime films being given their chance for all the world to see. What I mean by this is, anime films being distributed to a large range of audience demographics through box-office exposure. What’s encouraging to see is how much cinemas are finally dipping their toes to anime products that would intrigue devotees and general audiences alike. You only have to look at the likes of A Silent Voice, Dragon Ball Super: Broly, Mirai, Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You! and both of the My Hero Academia spin-offs to fathom how much anime is becoming more mainstream in comparison to the days when animation such as this was ignorantly seen as something that was for a certain type of audience. Arguably, forever leading this rather new ‘identity’ of anime to the big-screen is Makoto Shinkai, who’s famously and unfairly renowned as “the new Miyazaki” following his success of Your Name; a soulful yet bountiful and comical body-swap romance that unfurled into something far vaster and apocalyptic than we could have imagined from its light-hearted set-up. Considering the aforesaid film’s critical acclaim and the return it received from the box-office from when it was initially released in cinemas, both domestically and internationally, it can’t go unnoticed how much this is perceived as a tough act to follow for a visionary in Shinkai who bestows his audiences through visceral and photo-realistic concepts and stories that always take the same romantic tone. There’s no question that Shinkai’s latest cinematic feature of Weathering With You will undoubtedly feel reassuringly real for those familiar with the directors work. However, does Shikai immerse our experience once again through this YA narrative, or does it become a commodity that’s outlasted its stay?…

Upon running away from his home island, and always wanting to move to Tokyo for a fresh start, high-schooler Hodoka Morishima fatefully encounters and befriends orphan Hina Amano, a girl who has the ability to manipulate the weather. Inspired by the legend of the water maiden, Hodoka proposes to Hina a business plan; a deed which would see Hina clearing the rainy weather for events such as weddings and parties. However, when such intriguing power becomes publicly known to everyone, all it takes is one bad day for that power to be tampered with in some way. As good of a deed as this may seem, in Hina clearing the weather, consequences are sure to be met when tampering with nature itself…

As briefly highlighted within the introduction, considering how Your Name became an animation that was universally adored by fans and critics alike for its visceral and colourful animation as well as its intricately converging narrative that blends comedy and tragedy seamlessly, it can’t go unnoticed how not only is this a project that Makoto Shinkai has to better himself in terms of providing a story that is equally as endearing and relatable, but it’also fair to say that it’s a project that a lot of cinema-goers would naturally be anticipated by. From a personal point of view, Shinaki filled the void with Your Name in terms of cinematic audiences finding a Japanese animation that people adhered to for its way of projecting a story that fantastical yet grounded and beautiful to look at where you’re going to want to watch it multiple times; to see how the effective lighting of shimmers on buildings or the way in which a simple logo of a brand stands-out amongst all the other. With everyone adhering to Shinkai from watching Your Name, it’s feasible to suggest that a lot of audiences will be inherently excited to Weathering With You, a film which, more or less, hits the same narrative and animated notes of its predecessor. To many, including myself who was first introduced to Shinkai through his whimsical work of 5 Centimeters per Second, the said directors latest feature will feel begrudgingly familiar in presenting characters driven by so much emotional intensity and fevered inward focus you’d expect from a story about teenagers forced by peculiar circumstances and shouldering responsibilities that seem too great. However, like with a lot of Shinkai previous films, the said director doesn’t stray-away from his own filmic ideology and begins with us either sympathising/empathise with the central characters. In this case, our perspective is plunged into the perspective of Hodoka who’s seen to wondering around the streets from Tokyo, alluding to him running-away from his former life, and trying to find a new one. This is perfectly exemplified in a small sequence with the said character resting in McDonald’s and while he’s eating a free Bic Mac given to him by an employee (who turns out to be Hina), he remarks that maybe its the best meal he’s ever had in his entire sixteen years of life, which is trying to pull on our heart strings straight away. It’s from this catalytical point where the feature in question gradually goes supernaturally epic in presenting metaphorical motifs of climate-change concerns with its relentless rainfall – exploding into typhoons delivered by grandiose clouds. With it’s inherently mystic narrative, one would also expect to see gorgeously surreal twists and turns whilst also offering a grim take of what our non-too-distant-future could look like as Japan’s capital inevitably takes a turn for the worst. Having said all of this however, what’s significantly lacking from Shinkai this time around is the films narrative clarity and potency; having the incapacity to not hit the emotive beats that Your Name effortlessly did. By no means is Weathering With You a decrepit visual experience, of which we’ll soon discuss, but it’s clear from the moment the said film reaches its second-act that it doesn’t necessarily know how to transition from a sympathetic start to a conclusion that uses all of its formalities and YA charm to be as equally emotional. It certainly doesn’t reach the emotional heights that Your Name beautifully did in terms of presenting characters that are likeable and relatable in terms of romantic interaction and angst behaviour that surrounds that. As much as you feel sorry for the character of Hodoka in this film, in the many predicaments he faces, you can’t help but feel that you’re never truly on his side sometimes especially with some of the hasty decisions that he makes. However, one of the more profound reasons as to why Weathering With You didn’t feel as impactful as it should have is due to this notion that the said films narrative and structure feel disingenuous; rather imitative of Shinkai’s previous film. There’s no distinctive narrative qualities that really differentiates from Your Name and its almost as if this feature was an attempt to recreate that success without trying anything new. Indeed, it’s not as if Shinkai hasn’t ever created a film to do with star-cross lovers before. It’s just that Weathering With You just follows the same contextual formula and doesn’t really attempt to bewilder its audience through any new narrative aspects. It can’t be helped to mention either that the feature begrudgingly spreads the use of the perky J-pop a little too thickly on the soundtrack and its overused to the point where it skips character development that should have been addressed. The fact that it was used too frequently for its own like through the myriad of musical montages or internal-monologue sequences was bothersome to put it simply.

Where Weathering With You makes-up for its underwhelming and conventional ways in which both the characters and narrative are displayed, the said film significantly succeeds in establishing a beautifully lavish animation perpetuates Shinkai’s realistic stylisation methods. Throughout his 20 years of crafting short/feature-length animations, Shinkai is best known for not only adopting a filmography that is praised for it’s exquisite detailed and highly-stylised animation and this is very much evident in his latest cinematic endeavour. Retaining much of the colour palette and fluid movements used in his previous workings, particularly Your Name which brought forward a photo-realistic view of Taki’s urban Tokyo life and the verdant hues of Mitsuha’s countryside home, Shinkai’s careful deployment of juxtaposing the thrilling and spectral landscapes with the intricate close-ups of a door swishing open, or a phone screen scrolling, certainly provides the audience a rich grounded presence that many can relate themselves to, despite the film’s contextualisation elevating itself into the ever fanciful scenario. Even the scenes of the fantastical skyline and the natural disasters (a comprehensible motif of Japanese animation features), which appear later in the film, bestow to us a degree of grandeur that will enrapture even the most sceptical viewer to a reverie realm; a realm which that many live-action blockbusters can’t transit to the silver-screen. What’s specifically appealing to take note of Weathering With You, in comparison to Shinkai’s previous film, is the manner in which detail of the smallest things take precedent compared to the grandeur of the illuminating landscapes. It’s nothing short of astounding when pondering how a single water droplet shines through an iPhone screen, or recreating the bounciness of a Big Mac bun from McDonald’s. Again, it’s this meticulous detail of all these different things that we know and use in our daily lives that helps to connect with the world in which we’re perceiving. One of the better sequences in which Weathering With You’s animation shines is in a little moment where the camera pivots 360 degree’s around a character and we’re presented with a moment establishment that is breathless.

Whereas the employment of the ever known popular Japanese rock band of Radwimps certainly exemplified the mystic-relationship that both Taki and Mitsuha shared with one another in Your Name, the implementation of the said band’s music in Weathering With You comes across as crude and rather forceful. By no means is the quality of the aforesaid band’s music wasteful by any means – their composition of a song titled ‘We’ll Be Alright” eclipses a sweet and emotional moment perfectly. However, their music is majorly used for a means that doesn’t come across well. There are too many occasions when Radwimps’ music is played and it does nothing but scratch over any significant development which could have been seamlessly integrated in, which is rather weird to say and fathom considering how the enforcement of the music in Your Name rather heightened the shown relationship and the predicament of that narrative.

Very much so, with it being the truly first Shinkai feature to employ a vibrant photo-realistic visual language and a narrative that advances Shinkai’s distinctive contextual themes of romantic longing in an emotional and dramatic sense, it’s no wonder Your Name became the highest-grossing in Japan this year by taking more than 10 billion yen at the box-office; a feat previously achieved by Hayao Miyazaki’s fantasy-adventure animations. Yet, with that success and this establishment of Shinkai finding an animation aesthetic that is overwhelmingly beautiful, non of the same can be said of Weathering With You which doesn’t uphold the narrative substance that Your Name projected. For all its consistent visual glory that deems this film to be one of the most visually alluring films you’ll see this year, Weathering With You woefully lacks in terms of its forced narrative that seems to try too hard to emulate the emotionalism of Shinkai’s last film. Being that there’s an over-reliance on Radwimps’ music in a multitude of montage sequences, the film never reaches the emotional heights that it’s supposed to…

On that note, it’s time for me to end this week’s Film Review. As always everyone, thank you for reading my latest Film Review of Weathering With You and if anyone wants to share their thoughts on the film or review itself, then you’re more than welcome to comment down below. For next week, I’m going to be talking about My Hero Academia’s 4th season and where it ranks compared to how and where the said anime show started…With that said, thank you once again for reading my latest Film Review and I hope you’re all having a nice weekend! Adieu! 😀✌

★★★☆☆ – Alex Rabbitte