I want You more than any blue sky wallpaper

Spoilers for Makoto Shinkai’s “Weathering With You” below this line.

Director Makoto Shinkai must surely be feeling his oats right now. This is two films in a row where you leave the theater feeling something other than the weighty melancholy and loss that defined his repertoire up til “Your Name (Kimi no Na Wa),” and the critical thematic shift raises all sorts of speculations about his own worldview in the intervening time. Whether it be his marriage or simply that he’s found more and more success in the footsteps of every gorgeously animated film under his name — the byproduct of a consistent team of collaborators that’s grown only ever more artful with every release — there is a certain temptation to try and find a pattern or root cause and say “ah, this must be why.” With “Weathering With You (Tenki no Ko)” on the heels of a film so popularly and recently remembered, its notable parallels to its predecessor further invites such analysis.

That would be arrogant. It may also be wrong.

There are, of course, a lot of fundamental similarities between his two most recent films — such that it’s harder to avoid mentioning than it is to make the connections. It is, reduced to fundamentals, a boy-meets-girl love story. There is, broadly, a heavy basis of magic realism, rooted in Japan’s native Shintoism. The climatic moment of the film has much to do with that break from reality, and there is a similar rhythm to the denouement as well.

And all throughout, of course, there is Shinkai’s signature richness of color, of atmosphere, of the fantastical unceasing reach of sky that’s all but become synonymous with his name.

There is the music too — governed by RADWIMPS lead Yojiro Noda, who has extended his involvement in Shinkai’s production since Kimi no Na Wa. In the interview for Tenki no Ko, Shinkai’d laid much of the film’s emotive foundation at his feet — rather than fitting the theme to the film, as is usually done, the actual process of writing and producing the film was done collaboratively with the musician as well.

Their collaboration was already intensely popular with Kimi no Na Wa, whose OST produced multiple still-popular hits. Notably, however, the more mature interweaving of music and movie this time around buries Yojiro’s contributions a little — becoming more naturally part of the narrative flow, rather than blatant signifiers of major Moments.

But past the semblances with each other, the thematic elements of the film are in subtle contrast. Your Name was, ultimately, the biggest departure from Shinkai’s most commonly utilized themes: the bright greens of countryside grass, the exuberance (and hormones) of youthfulness, the childlike awe of a meteorite-speckled sky creates a world where the tragedy of its central conflict is all the more wrenching for how optimistic and innocent everything was prior — and, spoilers, after. It was, after all, famously the first “happy ending” that Shinkai’d famously allowed for his films — the first time where the romantic yearnings of his protagonists were sated, not bittersweetly denied or left unraveled by circumstances.

What darkness there was in Your Name was in the foggy glooms of mysticism, or in the twilights of forgetfulness — but the driving impetus of the film was to steer the cast away from it.

Not exactly so with Weathering. In fact, quite the opposite.

Though the charming cast and the sheer vibrancy of Shinkai’s palette does something to obfuscate it, Weathering With You is a darker film, and even cynical in its construction and worldbuilding. There’s the constant cloud cover, of course — the near-perpetual rain over Tokyo, rattling the windows of hospitals and old rusty girders of derelict apartment buildings, the liquid crashing of cloudbursts and crystalline tinkle of droplets, and the slosh of car tires running over puddles. But it isn’t just pretty to look at — the Tokyo presented in the film is cold, clammy, and deeply uncomfortable, even out of the rain.

For instance, the character conflicts of the preceding film were things like having a crush on your pretty co-worker, or wanting more excitement than you can find out in the sticks, or having a dad you don’t see eye to eye with. Here in Weathering’s Tokyo, under baleful clouds, our characters struggle under the burdens of an insidious cynicism. We have hints of child abuse — underage runaways finding doors slammed either physically or institutionally in their faces; predation of minors and sex trafficking; hints of illicit sexual affairs and alcoholic dependency.

And then there’s the matter of the gun, key to both of the most critical parts of the film.

Yet this sort of darkness is also a separate motif from Shinkai’s normal fare, as if to say that for him to deal with themes of love in Tokyo, it would be impossible for even him to avoid the corroding influences of that which seeps through its alleyways and eats at its moldering asphalt. The cityscape and the film alike are weighed down by the altogether too real, too concrete, too constant concerns of cities and its people. It isn’t until Hina’s second introduction that light finally makes its way through both the metaphorical and literal clouds — that the pressing issues of money and institutional hostility that drags its cast around from moment to moment finds relief in the presence of the joyful sunshine girl.

But, key to the film is the fact that she can’t keep the clouds away forever. In fact, it taxes her to do so on behalf of others, even as she finds such joy — and not a little fame and fortune — in doing so. Though her sacrifice of time and energy and commitment — and more — is done willingly, even happily, the clouds circle back in every time, and all the more harshly, as if the make up for their absence by her hands. And the personal cost to her is considerable as well — a pound and another of her own flesh, as it were, for the happiness she momentarily brings to others.

Therein, too, lies the biggest departure from the themes in Your Name. Whereas the older film’s themes are tied around the salvation — literal and metaphorical — found in the bond we have with others, that conceit is flipped around in Weathering With You. Here in the city, that net of social obligations and connections bears down on the protagonists. Their mumbling acquiescence to others bears down on them — exemplified harshly by law enforcement, whose uncompromising devotion to enforcing the city’s order does nothing to protect the cast from malicious elements and everything to destroy the organic bonds they’ve built. Hence caring more about securing a runaway against his will than arresting a child predator that’d hastily admitted to his crime; hence threatening to tear a family apart because the eldest is underage, rather than securing the welfare of two orphans.

Thus the gun, reluctantly wielded. The weapon is in itself an aberration, especially in cultural context — for a country where gun licenses are rare and access is heavily restricted, its very presence is a distortion, killing the music, shattering the atmosphere, and leaving both audience and characters uncertain of the rhythm of that moment. Both times it’s drawn, protagonist Hodaka does so for similar reasons — to draw a line between what he believes is the right thing to do, and what is expected or demanded of him, whether to mind his own business, or to act in obedience.

Both times, he squeezes the trigger with eyes shut and hands fastened over the grip in desperate prayer, fearful of the pain his decision may bring, but committed to it all the same.

The last time he prays, it is with surety of his decision, purity of resolution, and acceptance of the cost.

Shinkai said, in his interview for the movie, that he knew that the conclusion he reached for Weathering With You may likely be subject to public criticism — which is probably only right for the thesis presented by the film. What’s “right” for the individual will often have unforeseen or unwanted consequences for others, or trample over their suppositions — and to do it in the face of their opposition will be “wrong” in context of the society or culture around you.

But to acquiesce to their convenience is to kill something inside you. To give up on love, on passion, for the sake of others’ conveniences will ruin you.

It may be that Shinkai’s films are happier because of his personal circumstances. It may simply be a fluke. It may also be that Tenki no Ko is a subversive anti-thesis to the popularity garnered by Kimi no Na Wa, whose denouement, as cathartic as it was, was also clearly the more conventional conclusion for an anime romance to take.

It isn’t Makoto Shinkai’s job to give you happy endings. If his repertoire is any indication, it isn’t a particular keystone to his passions either. Though the acclaim, the fame, and certainly the money may be welcomed to some extent, that does not beholden him to the needs and wants of his audience — nor any creator.

We are, instead, merely sharing in his yearnings, so beautifully expressed.

“I want you more than any blue sky.”