Quartile rating: 8/10 · 1 rating
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 taking its cue from his life. After many days of solitude, he finally finds work as a freelance 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.
Weathering with You is a visually stunning anime from Makoto Shinkai, whose signature hyperrealistic, luminous animation elevates every rainy Tokyo street and sunlit sky into something breathtaking — cinematography is genuinely exceptional and a clear standout. The plot is emotionally engaging and weaves romance with supernatural fantasy and climate anxiety effectively, though it leans on familiar Shinkai tropes (star-crossed young lovers, sacrifice, reunion) and feels somewhat less cohesive than his prior Your Name. The voice acting is heartfelt and well-suited to the characters without being transcendent. Novelty is solid — Shinkai's aesthetic is distinctive and the climate-change metaphor adds texture — but the romantic beats and overall structure follow well-worn paths from his own filmography. The ending is bold and divisive (choosing love over saving the world), which is commendable thematically, though its execution leaves some emotional threads unresolved.