'Weathering with You' comes for our hearts with a biblical flood

Warning: Spoilers ahead!

The universe always seems to conspire against Makoto Shinkai’s protagonists. In his body-swap phenomenon "Your Name," it was the very laws of time and an apocalyptic comet strike that prevented Mitsuha and Taki from getting together. Meanwhile, in his follow-up film "Weathering With You," it’s climate change and Japanese law enforcement that served to hinder the blossoming romance of Hodaka and Hina.

While "Your Name" had this writer ugly crying in the theater and wiping a torrential stream of hot and salty tears with a cheddar-stained tissue, "Weathering With You," did not so much cause a drizzle. The premise, music, and animation all seemed like a perfectly concocted formula to induce an emotional catharsis. But after all was said and done, the film somehow felt "bitin."

"Weathering With You" has a promising plot. Two poor and disenfranchised teenagers, Hodaka and Hina, fall into each other’s company. Hodaka, a runaway, tries to survive the unforgiving city by writing for an occult magazine where he must investigate supernatural occurrences. This leads him to a serendipitous encounter with Hina, an orphan who’s working odd jobs to prevent social services from taking her and her brother.

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Through Hina, Shinkai injects a dose of magic realism. Hina is the "sun girl" who can momentarily stop the rain in areas within her vicinity, something she is sure to capitalize on.

Shinkai’s version of Tokyo in "Weathering With You,"  while lovely, is a darker one compared to "Your Name." In "Your Name," the city Mitsuha fell in love with has a brightness to it. But in "Weathering With You," the perennial rainfall diluted Tokyo’s vibrant colors and imbued with it a sense of alienation.

And alienation is exactly what Hodaka and Hina feel in a city that has seemed to abandon them and treated them coldly, literally with the rainstorm and metaphorically with the dismissiveness of adults. The only times our two protagonists look hopeful is whenever Hina stops the rain. Shinkai here effectively exudes the feeling of warmth through the soft glow of sunlight that slowly illuminates everything.

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It’s all cute and impressive until the stakes get higher. Tokyo, after all, isn’t experiencing an ordinary rainfall. Rather, it’s a biblical one. While perfectly scored by the ever reliable Radwimps, the climax, sadly, fell flat. If you put aside the mesmerizing visuals and Radwimp’s magical orchestrations, Hodaka’s decision and all his other decisions leading up to that moment are all rather poorly thought out. It’s what jammed the tears of this writer, for sure.

All that said, is "Weathering With You" still worth pressing play for?

Sure, if you want another high-concept visual feast accompanied with perfectly-timed scoring. But if you’re hoping to replicate the powerful emotions triggered by "Your Name," it’s a pass.

—JCB, GMA News