After a masterpiece such as Your Name and other beautiful works of Shinkai, I had high expectations of Weathering with you. At least in my country, the movie was hyped a lot and was aired in the biggest IMAX cinemas pushing out Hollywood movies in favour of Weathering With You. I was happy to see that mainstream cinemas was starting to open up for anime, however what a disappointment Weathering with You was. Such a shame with such a huge opportunity to make anime more mainstream, possibly making way for other anime artists to get into the big screens, and make anime an adult experience and not just reserved for kids and family.
Animation and graphics, backgrounds and the whole graphical aspect of the movie is without a doubt some of the most beautiful in the industry. Nothing to critique here. However the story, oh Lord what a mess.
What I love about Shinkai's other works is how humane the characters are, how they react like real people like you and me. I like how you can identify with them and I love Shinkais common themes of distance, longing, loneliness and love which we all can identify with more or less. In Weathering with you however, there is absolutely nothing you can identify yourself with. The characters are 2D, no real depth. No thinking that it's pretty weird that a girl is connected to the weather. It's all normal? In Your Name the characters freaked out, we understood what happened was very weird and unreal... In Weathering with you, everyone sortof just accepts, which would never happen in real life.
And I guess that is the problem with Shinkais Weathering With You - he moved into the fantasy genre which is very saturated already in the Anime industry, especially with Miasaki. Shinkai's other works, while still touching fantasy, it was still somehow kept "real" to not lose touch with reality, like Miasaki can do in his movies. Weathering with you lost completely touch with reality. In some way it reminded me a lot of Children who Chase Lost Voices.
Shinkai has always been my absolute favorite anime creator. I hope he won't go deeper into the fantasy genre with his next works and come back to reality and creating stories and characters which touches us and we can relate to, something he's an absolute master at. But, sadly, not in Weathering With You. Not a tear was shed, which is unusual for a Shinkai film. We want to be moved and touched, it just didn't happen.
It can be watched for the beautiful animation, but I wouldn't waste money to see it in the cinemas. Wait for it to get on Netflix or other streaming platform and watch it a rainy afternoon.
Animation and graphics, backgrounds and the whole graphical aspect of the movie is without a doubt some of the most beautiful in the industry. Nothing to critique here. However the story, oh Lord what a mess.
What I love about Shinkai's other works is how humane the characters are, how they react like real people like you and me. I like how you can identify with them and I love Shinkais common themes of distance, longing, loneliness and love which we all can identify with more or less. In Weathering with you however, there is absolutely nothing you can identify yourself with. The characters are 2D, no real depth. No thinking that it's pretty weird that a girl is connected to the weather. It's all normal? In Your Name the characters freaked out, we understood what happened was very weird and unreal... In Weathering with you, everyone sortof just accepts, which would never happen in real life.
And I guess that is the problem with Shinkais Weathering With You - he moved into the fantasy genre which is very saturated already in the Anime industry, especially with Miasaki. Shinkai's other works, while still touching fantasy, it was still somehow kept "real" to not lose touch with reality, like Miasaki can do in his movies. Weathering with you lost completely touch with reality. In some way it reminded me a lot of Children who Chase Lost Voices.
Shinkai has always been my absolute favorite anime creator. I hope he won't go deeper into the fantasy genre with his next works and come back to reality and creating stories and characters which touches us and we can relate to, something he's an absolute master at. But, sadly, not in Weathering With You. Not a tear was shed, which is unusual for a Shinkai film. We want to be moved and touched, it just didn't happen.
It can be watched for the beautiful animation, but I wouldn't waste money to see it in the cinemas. Wait for it to get on Netflix or other streaming platform and watch it a rainy afternoon.