Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering With You includes Your Name crossover

Makoto Shinkai surprises fans with a Your Name crossover in his latest anime feature film, Weathering With You.

Famous Japanese animator Makoto Shinkai is well known for his fantastically beautiful anime films. From his earliest feature-length film The Place Promised In Our Early Days (Kumo no Mukō, Yakusoku no Basho), to his 2016 world-renowned success Your Name (Kimi no Na wa), Shinkai’s creations are always filled with glistening colors and emotional turmoil. His new film, Weathering With You (Tenki no Ko), is no different, except that it’s the first of Shinkai’s films to collide with one of the director’s previous works.

Taking place primarily in Shibuya, Tokyo, Weathering With You focuses its story on a young girl named Hina Amano, who has the power to manipulate the weather, and a 16-year-old runaway named Hodaka Morishima. In an effort to escape his isolated island home, Morishima hitches a ride on a ferry to start a new life for himself in the big city. But it doesn’t take long for the young boy to end up broke, sleeping on streets after using up the last of his pocket money.

Eventually, Morishima finds himself ordering what he can at a fast food restaurant when he meets Amano, who offers him a burger on the house. The two character’s stories become intertwined after that, beginning with Morishima saving Amano from two shady thugs after their encounter at the restaurant.

But the story gets more interesting as Morishima takes a job at a small occult newspaper, specializing in articles about urban legends, and gets assigned to a story about a girl (Amano) who can stop the rain.

Like so many other Shinkai films, Weathering With You, which premiered in Japan July 19, brings magic into everyday, slice-of-life scenarios to illustrate the power of love, family and relationships as a whole.

Throughout the film, as Amano and Morishima begin to fall in love during their efforts to share Amano’s power with the rest of Tokyo, more of the main characters’ family and friends become intertwined into the story as well such as Morishima’s work associates Keisuke and Natsumi, as well as Nagisa, Amano’s younger brother.

With Amano and Morishima being of such a young age and trying hard to navigate their way through an adult’s world, their family and friends have important roles to play in helping to guide the two characters, protecting them and teaching them about the true meaning and power of love.

But a couple “strangers” from Shinkai’s previous romance epic Your Name get thrown into the mix, playing small roles in Amano and Morishima’s evolving relationship. This anime film crossover is likely why so many viewers, and loyal Shinkai fans, believe Weathering With You to be a follow-up to Your Name.

Caution: Minor spoilers ahead.

It is, of course, none other than Mitsuha Miyamizu and Taki Tachibana, the two main characters of Your Name, who make surprising appearances in Weathering With You. Morishima meets Tachibana while making a visit to an old lady named Tomi he and Amano have befriended. Morishima also meets Miyamizu at a ring shop while buying a ring for Amano. It’s nothing short of heartwarming that Miyamizu is the one who sells the ring to Morishima.

While both Your Name characters play relatively minor roles in the film as a whole, their advice and impact on Morishima regarding his growing love for Amano is a concrete foundation in Weathering With You.  After all, grown-up Miyamizu and Tachibana have some experience in the realm of magically-intertwined love interests.

Still, it might be going too far likening Weathering With You to a so-called “Your Name sequel.” While the film contains a notable character crossover and takes place some years after Miyamizu and Tachibana’s love story, Morishima and Amano’s tale holds its own with new magic, new mystery, and a new, more raw view of the city of Tokyo.

While there has been some criticism regarding the film from those making note of certain plot holes in the story and Shinkai fans making comparisons to Your Name, the opening day gross for Weathering With You was 118 percent of the opening day gross of Your Name, according to distributor Toho, as noted by Eiga.com (via Crunchyroll). And it’s no surprise fans are looking forward to the Weathering With You 2020 release from GKIDS.

In a recent interview with NKH, Makoto Shinkai attributed the wide range of Weathering With You fandom to the success of Your Name, and shares that he was even hoping to draw from energetic criticism of the film. Though there was more pressure than ever for Shinkai to deliver a successful love story for his next anime project, he says that Your Name also brought a new range of dedicated audiences.

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“I saw people who criticized Your Name and I thought it would be necessary to make an even more criticized film,” said Shinkai in the interview. He said that there was a certain “energy” to the feeling of anger and criticism that allows people to be moved by a film. Shinkai goes on to add that the criticism of audiences allows him to “see things” in his own films that he normally wouldn’t see.

Perhaps this is why Shinkai created a Your Name crossover in Weathering With You, which he knew would undoubtedly be compared to what is argued as his greatest success.

It’s possible he was hoping to draw on audiences connection with Your Name in order to create a new range of emotions in Weathering With You, tipping his cap to those who fell in love with his works because of Miyamizu and Tachibana.

In a way, the appearance of these characters in his newest film is like a “Thank you” from Shinkai to Your Name fans and those who believe in the story of Weathering With You.

Are you looking forward to the 2020 U.S. release of Weathering With You? What are some of your other favorite anime crossovers? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!