Weathering with You was the well earned recipient of the Audience award from the Animation is Film Festival this year. The film was the most highly anticipated follow up to Your Name. So highly anticipated that second screening that was added for opening night was also sold out.
Director, Makota Shinkai, continues with the same flavor of aesthetic and sound in Weathering With You. Instead of a meteor, we are now focused on an unrelenting rainstorm.
From the GKIDS snyopsis:
“The summer of his high school freshman year, Hodaka runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every day, as if to suggest his future. He lives his days in isolation, but finally finds work as a writer for a mysterious occult magazine. Then one day, Hodaka meets Hina on a busy street corner. This bright and strong-willed girl possesses a strange and wonderful ability: the power to stop the rain and clear the sky.”
Anime is Film Festival opened their festival with Weathering with You at the TCL Chinese theater in Hollywood. Th
e lobby was crowded, every space full of fans. Everyone, attendees and press, were all beyond excited to see the movie. When Makota Shinkai (Director) and Genki Kawamura (Producer) walked the carpet for interviews, it was a crush trying to conduct interviews and being mindful of all the fans trying to reach through. We were able to conduct an interview despite the chaos, which can be viewed here:
We were granted special access to see the screening and squeezed into the first available seat. Once the movie again, we were transported back into this stunning universe created by Makoto Shinkai.
Just like universe created in Your Name, we are transported into a modern world of bright and yet soothing visual palette. Rain was the villain in the story but it did not detract from the beauty of earth. What stood out the most were the vision hope in the containers of growing plants tucked in various scenes.
Weathering with You was also a romance movie at an even grander scale than its predecessor. As our heroes figure out their budding romance and trust, it all comes to a critical moment where it is challenged. For whatever they choose is a crucial moment for the fate of the world.
Of all the natural disasters that could be chosen, why was it weather in general? It doesn’t seem to scary like a meteor or earthquakes. When weather goes beyond a normal expected pattern, it is indeed a frightening phenomena as most of us are not able to fix it. During an unterview, Makora Shinkai shared the following thought on weather as the driving force in his movie:
“When creating an animated film, various pillars are necessary: the pillar of the story, the pillar of the visual aesthetics, the pillar of the staff and crew. Among them, the pillar of film’s theme is the weather. Weather is such an animation-oriented motif, and I’ve always thought that it would make for catchy imagery if I took it on in a serious way. Also, anyone can relate to the weather. Most people would think about and mention the weather at least once a day. Weather is not only a vast, global cyclical phenomenon but also a personal event for humans. The weather of the day could change your mood and actions. I thought it would be interesting as a theme for an animated film.”- Makora Shinkai
During the Q&A after the film, Shinkai mentioned that he had many artists wishing to collaborate with him on this project. Once she mentioned that they would have to animate rain, there was some hesitation since that would be extra work in animating reflections and distortion in puddles. It all paid off as it added another level of detailed creativity.
The film also brings back the music of RADWIMPS. RADWIMPS provided the main soundtrack for Your Name, featuring a sound that would hook your ears while delivering the chills. It was a special treat to hear their distinct sound again while also tying the two movies together. The group and the director was a tight collaboration to help set the mood and setting. In an interview, Shinkai highlights one example of this collaboration in regards to highlighting the different backgrounds that the heroes come from. One if a runaway,one is hiding but both are young people just learning to survie.
The lyrics in “Grand Escape (Movie Edit) feat. Toko Miura” that RADWIMPS wrote specifically for this film is exactly how they feel:
“Of course it’s not that we’re not scared, but we can’t stop.
Even if we anticipate perils, there’s nothing we can do about them.
Our love, our voices, are telling us to go.” – RADWIMPS
It was flooring experience to watch this film in a room full of such devoted fans. Devotion and admiration that you can sense cascading upon the director during the Q&A. Everyone can tell how genuinely touched and happy Shinkai was with seeing our reception of the film. Even though we laughed at a part he didn’t expect us to laugh at, he admitted during the Q&A, he was still happy to see how well received the movie was. Sorry Shinkai but that cat scene was pretty cute and funny!
For those who were not able to catch the movie during the Anime is Film Festival, GKIDS has announced that Weathering with You will be screening in theaters as a Fathom event in January 2020!
Here are the reported dates:
You can find more information and update HERE.
