Weathering with You

Weathering with You is Makoto Shinkai's follow-up to Your Name — a film that sacrificed some of its predecessor's structural elegance for a bolder, more controversial emotional statement about choosing personal love over social responsibility. Runaway teenager Hodaka meets Hina, a girl who can summon sunshine by praying to the sky, in a Tokyo that has been drowning under continuous rain for months. CoMix Wave Films' animation is, if anything, even more visually stunning than Your Name: the rain, the light, the texture of wet Tokyo streets at night — every frame is a painting. The film's climax, in which Hodaka makes a choice that a more conventional story would punish him for, sparked significant audience debate about whether the film endorses or simply portrays the selfishness of adolescent love. That the film holds both readings simultaneously is what makes it genuinely interesting.