My honest thoughts on Weathering With You/Tenki no Ko.

I watched this movie yesterday after wanting to check it out for a while, and so I thought I'd share my opinion about it.

Overall, I thought it was pretty solid! I'm gonna be honest, I only checked out this movie because Makoto Shinkai impressed me a lot with Your Name (Your Name was the first to catch my interest because of the concept), and I was pretty satisfied with the result.

On first viewing, I don't think the story had any glaring flaws with it. It didn't lean into Japanese lore like Your Name did, but that's okay because the story was simple to follow regardless. It had its great and sweet moments, and overall was enjoyable to watch. The cast is pretty good, likeable, and well written (seriously though, why does Nagi have a harem going on IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL), the lighthearted tone and the occasional humor (at least in the beginning) of the movie was nice, and I appreciate the action sequences as it added a bit more drama to the situation. However, I do think that the music selection and the visuals were not up to Your Name's standard. Your Name is literally a feast for the eyes, and I think it's quite hard to top that to be honest. but the CGI in this movie was NOT it, it just looked out of place. Although the TnK album is not bad by any means (in fact, I quite liked it), I prefer the Your Name album more. Though I will say that "We'll Be Alright" and "Grand Escape" are great songs.

I like that this movie avoided the same cliche ending as Your Name by making Hodaka expect to see Hina again, whereas Taki and Mitsuha completely bumped into each other by chance after living their own separate lives for some number of years (I think it was 8 but I'm not sure). Even though the decision of choosing Hina over the safety of Tokyo and leading it to be submerged in water did seem selfish, I guess it's forgivable because the movie was mainly about these two in the first place, and the lengths they'd go for each other. The twists were neat, and the one that hinted at Hina disappearing actually shocked me, though from the point of her disappearance onwards the movie pretty much became predictable as I knew Hina was going to make it back at some point.

Overall, I think it's a pretty neat self-contained story that's just a good comfort movie in general. However, if you're looking for a deeper story that'll hit you in the feels and make you cry, I think Your Name is the movie to watch. Obviously, by virtue of it being a Shinkai movie, comparisons with its predecessor are inevitable. That said, I think it's a great standalone movie, but when Your Name is brought into the equation, it falls short in more ways than one.

I'm absolutely open to rewatching it at some point. Hopefully, I'll have a better opinion.

9.2/10