WEATHERING WITH YOU: Romantic Fantasy Planted In Reality

I’m a rather curious demographic. On the one hand, I have a decent affinity for film, anime notwithstanding. Also, I spent a couple of years living abroad in Tokyo. Still, despite these points of intersection, I never got around to seeing one of the biggest cultural phenomenons to come out of Japan in recent years. This is, of course, Makoto Shinkai‘s Your Name (2016). Maybe, it’s the hint of a contrarian in me; regardless, I came into his follow-up Weathering With You with little to no context.

It opened only a few weeks before I left Tokyo for good. After two years. And so I watch it, and in many ways, it feels like a relic to a certain time in my life. It’s true the film’s premise is not totally fanciful. The summer I left, the rainy season pounded Tokyo, and the broader country, to an astronomical extent. It serves as serendipitous free marketing courtesy of nature more than anything, though Tokyo’s perennially inclement weather helped mold my experience much as it does this movie.

In fact, one of my greatest pleasures comes in appreciating the distinct contours and references to the city itself. In an interview with the Japan Times  Shinkai said, “I want people to feel as if this is something taking place in our world right now. It’s not a piece of fiction that has nothing to do with you and I — it’s happening here and now.” It’s true.

Fantasy & Reality

Weathering With You is a typhoon-infused fantasy grounded in a tangible reality. This is a story of an island kid named Hodaka (Voiced by Kotaro Daigo) who runs off to the big city. Understandably, Tokyo is scary. I feel for him.

It’s a dizzying, isolating place at times and he’s forced to wander the streets looking for a job and meager lodging. He’s all but destitute. Likewise, he’s got the alienation of urban youth down to a tee with a copy of Catcher in the Rye lying in his box-of-an-apartment. This angst proves universal. 

Given the infusion of technology and youth culture, Weathering with You is a partaker in the dubious screens-on-screens phenomenon. There are lots of phones, computer screens, instant messaging, and the like. But many Japanese films also have a persistent quality of mapping out the mundane aspects of life exquisitely. Restaurants I know all too well, train stations I got lost in, internationally recognized crosswalks, and icons like Tokyo Skytree.

The various scenarios infiltrate the every day and then overflow until everything bursts forth with this surrealistic bent. Because Hodaka goes to the one lifeline he has — the grungy and yet somehow likable Mr. Suga (Shun Oguri) — a middle-aged journalist who tracks down urban legends amid a steady diet of cigarettes, beer, and pachinko. The boy follows his vivacious colleague Natsumi (Tsubasa Honda) in searching out a story — at least that’s the pretense. Because it leads him indirectly to the Sunshine Girl.

Boy Meets Sunshine Girl

He makes a specific choice to save the girl, Hina (Voiced by Nana Mori), who paid him a favor with a free handout, even as he soon learns how very special this “older” girl is. Together they take on an entrepreneurial gig, using her special talent in a contemporary Japan saddled with climate change and urban decay. The people crave sunshine, and in an incremental way, she is their deliverer — bringing light into the pervasive darkness. More on this in a moment.

The ensuing story presents itself as part urban legend and part fated love story destined for heartbreak. The doorway of a shrine acts as a gateway between worlds: the cloud ecosystems up above inhabited by fish-like symbionts pulling Hina away, and then the visible world down below drifting toward apocalypse. This is what Hodaka must cross to get back to her. Obviously obstacles abound. 

The police have a warrant out for his arrest since he is a runaway carrying an illegal firearm, and so his love affair takes on this cataclysmic even insurmountable tone, forcing him to rely on the good graces of his newfound friends. Weathering with You paints with all the shameless elements at its disposal, nicked from any teen romance and melodrama you’ve ever seen, but Shinkai uses them quite well. Similarly, its epilogue, like all the great sobfests, delivers on the goods.

Romance, Fantasy, Etc.

The English title itself works as a double motif, both meteorological and romantic. It’s not so much preaching a message about how humans have ruined the world so much as suggesting the world will essentially regulate itself. If nothing else, it’s all a perfect excuse to tap into the tropes of teenage fantasy. But implicitly there is another question being posited. What matters most — the individuals enraptured in star-crossed love — or society at large?  The movie’s not terribly concerned about raising an answer.

Instead, we get a Radwimps soundtrack a la Your Name. This is anime remixed with romance and rock opera ballads — much more of a confection than a social critique. It literally is a firework display, and it takes on the syntax of the 21st century with its expansive aerial shots and 360 views that might as well be painting in the skylines with brushstrokes from a drone.

There’s also this observable undercurrent of casual objectification played for laughs based solely on the teenage hero’s perspective. I can think of all the Japanese teenagers who get a  blood rush of passion wishing they could have something this invigorating to be a part of — friends who they could call on in a pinch — and love that would see them through the rainy days as well as their high school classes. Pretty girls and dopey, blushing boys are the ideals.

There’s also an intriguing ongoing relationship with the spiritual world. Hodaka literally prays to his version of god, in whatever form, to allow him his little slice of a paradise with his gal. It looks like a giant hotel room with baths, karaoke, and pillow fights.

This is their heaven, and it makes some sense given the depiction of the Tokyo on display here. Likewise, Hina is this effervescent being of goodness and light sacrificed to take the darkness out of the world and restore it like some kind of Messianic godsend. They are forever wallowing in an eternal gap of sorts while employing the kind of fitting hyperbole romantic love is meant to bridge.

Weathering With You: Conclusion

I’m no longer in Japan, but Weathering with You reminds me of all the distinctly Japanese sights and sounds I miss dearly. Certainly, absence makes the heart grow fonder, but the movie also instills how we are all alike. Looking for the bit of paradise to slice through our gloom. Searching for something or someone we can save for a rainy day.

The question remains can they save us. Is it enough? When you’re a teen, high on butterflies it certainly seems so. We have yet to face the full brunt of reality and all its torrential fury. Shinkai‘s movie is more than content to face the onslaught with the naive fantasies of youth. To his credit, he’s unabashed about giving himself over to them totally.

What movies have succeeded in presenting a futuristic or fantastical take on real-life locations?

Weathering with You was initially released in the U.S. theatrically on January 17th, 2020.