Japanese animator Makoto Shinkai’s latest film, 'Weathering with You', premiered in UK cinema’s on Friday 17th of January. Having been played in only 55 cinemas across the UK during the first weekend of its release, it placed 12th in the BFI box office.

 

Makoto Shinkai, best known for directing his 2016 film ‘Your Name’ - the highest-grossing anime film of all time at the time of its release – has created another box office hit generating $184.4 million worldwide.

 

‘Weathering with You’ tells the story of high school freshman Hodaka Morishima as he runs away from home and moves to Tokyo. After quickly finding himself in financial trouble and living his days in isolation, he gets a job as a writer for a magazine. One day in an alley, Hodaka meets a young girl named Hina Amano, who possesses the ability to manipulate the weather.

 

Shinkai’s use of animation is phenomenal in this anime, in particular the way in which the sky and space has been illustrated. These images are particularly prominent throughout all of his films however, with the story of ‘Weathering with You’ being linked to the weather, they feature a greater role in this film. As a child, Shinkai loved looking up at the sky; living in Nagano, which is a very rural part of Japan, there wasn’t much else to look at. He would spend two or three hours looking at the sky when he was in primary and secondary school, watching the sky change. This memory is the main reason he features the sky so much in his animation.

 

Teenagers and their stories play such an important role in Shinkai’s films. In his teens, Shinkai watched a lot of Hayao Miyazaki’s work, read a lot of manga, read novels and played games, all of which significantly helped him when something bad happened to him or he was feeling down. Animation really encouraged him and as an adult, he now wants to be able to give that same feeling to young people today, hence why his work features teenagers so much.

 

‘Weathering with You’ is currently being screened in cinemas across the UK. I would strongly recommend watching this film while it’s on the big screen as its story and animation are extremely captivating and worth seeing!

 

Emilie Brown