Weathering with You

Another Bad Movie Night Movie

Weathering with You (Tenki no Ko / 天気の子) is a fantasy, romance, drama anime directed by Makoto Shinkai. And yes, he’s the one who also directed the fantasy, romance, drama anime Your Name. However, Weathering with You isn’t as good as Your Name.

You can think of this movie as being like a cross between Your Name and Penguin Highway. It has a lot in common with both of those movies. Unfortunately, the plot is far more like that of Penguin Highway. And, that explains why I don’t think it was very good.

You see, the things Weathering with You and Your Name have in common are pretty superficial. They’re directed the same way, they look similar, and they have some of the same themes. These movies also share at least 1 character, so we know they’re in the same universe.

What this movie shares with Penguin Highway are all the bad things about Penguin Highway. Well, other than the fact that they both have cute onee-san characters. Everything else they have in common are negatives, such as plots that really don’t make any sense.

And so you’re aware, I’m about to spoil some of those things right now.

Remember how Penguin Highway had a portal into a water world? Well, this movie has something similar, but with a cloud world. And remember how the female lead faded away in Penguin Highway? Again, the same exact thing happens in Weathering with You.

Over-promising and under-delivering are rampant among fantasy drama anime movies. They craft unique worlds to draw you in and set up interesting plot points. But then, they don’t have enough run time to follow through on what they set up. So, they cut out everything that’s not 100% necessary to conclude the story.

Sunshine Girls & Rain Boys

The main premise of the movie revolves around so-called “Sunshine Girls.” These are girls who can make the sun come out on rainy days. And, as you may have guessed, Hina Amano, the female lead, is a Sunshine Girl. When she prays for sunlight, the rain clouds dissipate.

Opposite the Sunshine Girls are some kind of rain people. I don’t remember what they’re actually called, so I’ll call them Rain Boys. These Rain Boys only got a single mention in the movie when we got the explanation of Sunshine Girls.

I assumed that they were going to play a role since it was always raining in this world. It seemed like there could be a Rain Boy behind it all. But, no. We never got an explanation for that. And it was only slightly implied that the main character, Hodoka Morishima, is a Rain Boy.

Anyway, Sunshine Girls are treated as a myth in this world. Most people don’t believe they exist. They might be familiar with the concept, but only from legends and fairytales from long ago. And yet, when a real Sunshine Girls appears, nobody seems that surprised.

When Hina is going to reveal her power to the public for the first time, people are skeptical. However, as soon as she makes the sun come out, they accept Sunshine Girls as part of their world and move on. This isn’t a fantasy-fantasy world. It’s the same as our world, but with Sunshine Girls. So, this acceptance was a bit jarring.

Imagine if tomorrow we found out that the Greek gods are real, live among us, and have magic powers. Now imagine that everyone accepts that fact within a few minutes and starts paying them to do odd jobs. That’s Weathering with You.

A Surprising Crime Thriller

Enough about the bad aspects of Weathering with You. What was the best thing about the movie? By far, the best thing was how it turned out to be a crime thriller. I can’t say I was expecting that to be the case.

Early in the movie, Hodoka comes across a handgun he thinks is fake. That is until he fires it at someone and goes on the run as a fugitive. Then, for most of the movie, the gun doesn’t play a significant role. Hodoka even throws it away at one point.

And, let me just say that throwing away the gun was a great decision. If you’ve committed a crime, you should usually get rid of the evidence. Unless tampering with evidence has a harsher penalty than the original crime, toss it. That’s being a criminal 101.

Unfortunately for Hodoka, he makes a huge blunder at the end of the movie. He returns to where he tossed the gun and retrieves it. And to make matters worse, he then uses the gun to threaten the police. Pro tip: don’t get into a standoff with police if you want things to work out in your favor.

The good news is that since Hodoka lives in Japan, he survived his encounter with the cops. However, what he got was a fate worse than death: 3 years of probation until he graduates high school. Honestly, I’m not sure how he made it through those 3 years.

Oh, and while this is unrelated, I almost forgot the funniest part of Weathering with You. Hodoka saved Hina from the clouds. But, in return, this caused it to rain 24/7 for the next 3+ years. And because of that, the entire nation of Japan is sinking. Classic.

Conclusion

Overall, I’d say Weathering with You is a 5/10. It’s not a good anime. But, it is funny at times. And something tells me I’d view Your Name the same way if I ever rewatched it. So, I won’t rewatch it and I’ll keep pretending that it was one of the best anime movies.

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