Everyone complains about the weather. But only a young woman named Hina does anything about it.
That’s the premise behind the animated feature Weathering With You , whose Japanese title literally translates as “Child of Weather.” When teenaged runaway Hodaka (Kotaro Daigo) meets Hina (Nana Mori) on the streets of Tokyo, he suspects she’s a “Sunshine Girl” – not a Page Three pinup, but someone able to control the weather, at least locally and for brief periods of time.
He convinces her to go into business with this power, offering to spare outdoor weddings, fireworks displays and flea markets from what has been an unusually wet summer. People are prepared to pay good money after the storm clouds roll away on her command.
The latest from Japanese writer/director and manga artist Makoto Shinkai ( The Garden of Words, Your Name ) has great fun with its novel premise, though it grows darker when someone suggests that a Sunshine Girl’s powers will eventually be her undoing.
But the real thrill of watching Weathering With You is in the visuals. You’re never in doubt that it’s animation, but the environment is so rich and layered, it feels like it was discovered rather than created.
Shinkai’s compatriots over at Studio Ghibli regularly achieve similar results, but where they specialize in natural settings, this film takes place amid the bustling streets and alleys of Tokyo. The backgrounds are often out of focus, adding to the sense of depth and realism, while the frame can be so awash in detail – a cellphone screen in the foreground, billboards in the distance, not to mention subtitles – that your eye isn’t sure where to look.
In addition to hanging out with and slowly falling for Hina, young Hodaka finds a benefactor in Mr. Suga, who gives the kid a job as an office clerk/writer in his small publishing company. The only other employee is Natsumi, whom Hodaka first takes to be the boss’s mistress. But Mr. Suga’s life turns out to be both less sordid and more complicated.
My biggest complaint about Weathering With You isn’t one often associated with animation; it’s the acting. Hodaka is easily embarrassed, particularly around girls, and the animators choose to illustrate this in such an exaggerated fashion that it beggars belief. Daigo’s voice performance follows suit. The effect is cartoony, in a cartoon that is otherwise not.
But that’s not nearly enough to rain on this feature’s parade. Japan thought the long-range forecast for the film was so strong, it submitted Weathering With You for consideration for Best International Feature at the 2020 Oscars, the first Japanese anime to be put forward in this category since Princess Mononoke in 1997. And while it didn’t make the Academy’s final cut, it’s still a powerful, beautiful and original story.
Copyright Postmedia Network Inc., 2020
