Anime Recommendation: Weathering with You

Have a Happy Valentine's Day no matter the weather!

So early this year, Weathering with You came out in the US and it was apparently a huge hit in the anime community. I say apparently because I did not immediately watch it when the hype was at it's highest, but knowing the success and popularity of director Makoto Shinkai, I had a feeling that the hype was justified. However, I had never seen any of Shinkai's previous films, not even the hit Your Name.

So a couple weeks ago, I had a day off from work, nothing to do, and my local movie theater had a showing for Weathering with You. I got myself a ticket and was completely amazed by Weathering with You and understood why so many people were talking about this movie. I mean, besides being a gorgeous anime, it's just such a magical story and a sweet love story.

I haven't had much time for blogging so I never got around to fanboying about Weathering with You. However, today is Valentine's Day and people are in a lovey-dovey mood, so why not take advantage of this opportunity and share what I love about Weathering with You.

 Weathering with You, or Tenki no Ko, is about a high school runaway Hodoka Morishima trying to make a living for himself and just survive in Tokyo. Eventually, he finds employment as an assistant for a small publishing company and comes across the legend of a "Sunshine Girl", a girl with the power to ward away bad weather and make the day sunny. Hodoka meets the real "Sunshine Girl", Hina Amano, and the two go into business together making people's days nice and bright.

Now, what I really liked about Weathering with You is how the story shifts throughout the film from being stormy and somber to being fun and colorful. When the story introduces Hodoka struggling to survive on his own, there's a kind of gloomy mood hanging over every scene. But when Hodoka finds a job and meets Hina, everthing becomes cheerful. It's like a dream that Hodoka has to awaken from and fight to get back.

Besides the fantasy and tone of Weathering with You, I especially enjoyed the love story between Hodoka and Hina and the theme of self-sacrifice. I won't spoil anything, but in a lot of stories, especially in shounen anime, self-sacrifice for the greater good is seen as noble and just. In Weathering with You, self-sacrifice is challenged and can be summed up in the line, "I love you more than the blue sky."

Now that I got that all out of my system, please see Weathering with You if you haven't already seen it. I thought it was a movie that I could live without watching but now I'm just in love with it. And if you have seen Weathering with You, let me know what you thought about it. And with that, I hope you're all having a nice Valentine's Day with some loved ones or some romance anime!