What is it? - 2019 animated romance/drama following a teenage runaway who meets a girl who has the power to affect the weather. I don't think director Makoto Shinkai is a great storyteller but I think this is absolutely his best work and it's as visually breathtaking as the rest of his oeuvre. I will be talking spoilers in my review. If you care about that, I would recommend watching the film as I think it's pretty good.
SPOILERS
*In the film, teenage runaway Hodaka meets Hina, who has the power to change the weather. The two of them run a "sunshine girl" business where Hina goes around and provides temporary sun for a historically rainy Tokyo. Eventually, the weather gets really bad, with the rain starting to flood the city, and Hina finds out she can sacrifice herself in order to make the weather return to normal. Hodaka decides to not let Hina do that and the water keeps rising, unhousing millions, destroying billions in infrastructure. This is portrayed as a good thing?
Reflection
Still the strongest Shinkai, though that's mostly due to him not being a particularly good storyteller. Me a few years ago is probably smarter and would not make the same decisions as the main guy but current me is a dumbass and would probably make the same decisions as the main guy because once you find someone that you feel safe and free around, you never ever want to let that go. This goes especially so for Hodaka, since he clearly did not feel that way at home considering he ran away with only a little money, clothes, and a copy of The Catcher in the Rye* at age 16. This is the most interesting the classic Shinkai "generic anime protagonist meets cute dream girl and falls in love" will ever get because of this central tension — that euphoric high of the sky scene is soon followed up by scenes of Tokyo decimated through the constant rain. Was it worth it? Obviously not from an outsider POV, but would you not do the same thing? Look, you know logically it would be the wrong decision, but when push came to shove, could you do give up your affections? How far do we go for love? How far should we go?
*-1951 American novel that follows Holden Caulfield, a lonely teenager wandering NYC after being kicked out of school for bad grades, trying to find meaning in his isolation
LENGTH -112 minutes
SCORE - 7.5/10