As irresistibly romantic as it is awe-inspiringly gorgeous, Weathering With You on the whole satisfies the craving for more of what “Your Name” ignited in viewers, yet with slightly less impact.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Contemporary outrage could’ve potentially counterpointed the film’s increasingly mawkish tendencies.
An absolute must-see for anyone who loved 2016’s Your Name. Even if it isn’t as surprising and narratively powerful as that film, Weathering With You once again exemplifies Makoto Shinkai’s visionary prowess as an animator.
For a movie about the sky, “Weathering with You” is ironically one of Shinkai’s most grounded films — immediately more warm and engaging than “Your Name,” if not at all capable of delivering the same emotional payoff.
The Hollywood Reporter by Deborah Young
Adding it up, the film has the same charming characters and delightfully detailed pastel artwork of its predecessor, but in exchanging Your Name’s sci-fi component for a mythical-magical story, it loses a bit of quota.
The Film Stage by Jared Mobarak
The imagery of water fish swimming in the sky while Hina floats towards an uncharted “marine” habitat of clouds is stunning to behold and the humor earns some big laughs even if much of it centers around teenage horniness and sex-based assumptions. Beneath all that, though, is a resonant tale of empathy and romance.
Like Shinkai’s metaphysical body-switching fantasia Your Name, Weathering with You works on multiple levels: as eco-fable, social commentary, and teen romance.
Shinkai hasn’t gone far enough into fantasy to excuse the enormous holes in his script, though he does a nice job of distracting us with detail.
The Telegraph by Robbie Collin
Though Weathering With You tells a story of a makeshift family enduring uncertain times, its dominant emotion is amazement – at the power and persistence of first love, and the everyday wonders of the world in which it flourishes against the odds.
And while the story of the film lacks some of the sinuous inventiveness of its predecessor [Your Name], it shares the striking animation style, romantic sensibility and a similar poppy score.