Weathering with You was filmmaker Makoto Shinkai’s big, highly anticipated follow-up to Your Name. The film is a romantic modern-day fairy tale, in which a young orphan girl with the power to control the weather, who has just been trying to make ends meet for herself and her little brother, meets a runaway who’s looking to build himself a new life in Tokyo.
But there are consequences to her using her powers, and the two have to find a way to keep the little family they’ve made together as society tries to tear them apart. The film premiered in 2019 in Japan and early in 2020 in the U.S. Here are 10 facts most people probably don’t know about Weathering with You.
10 There’s An Original Novelization
Makoto Shinkai, who wrote the story for Weathering with You, also wrote an original novelization of the film as well. It dropped the day before the film premiered in theaters, so technically, it’s the first iteration of the story, created by the same person who made the film. A manga adaptation also exists and has been serialized in Afternoon magazine.
9 Japan’s Entry For An Oscar Nomination
While it wasn’t selected for a nomination, Japan chose Weathering with You as its entry for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards. This is a pretty unusual choice, since the category usually consists of live-action films. The fact that an animated film was put forward says a lot about its quality.
8 Music By Radwimps
Radwimps are a Japanese rock band from Kanagawa, Japan. They have released 11 studio albums since their start in 2003. Two of those albums are soundtracks for Shinkai’s films.
They did the soundtrack for Your Name in 2016 and returned for Shinkai’s follow-up Weathering with You in 2019.
7 Box Office Surpassed Your Name
It’s impossible to talk about Weathering with You without acknowledging Your Name, since Your Name has changed the landscape of anime so much and is so incredibly popular. It’s also one of the most financially successful anime films of all time, becoming the highest-grossing anime and Japanese film of all time and the fourth-highest-grossing film of all time in Japan. Those are hard records to beat. While Weathering with You was somewhat more modest in its box office, it was also very successful, and it actually surpassed Your Name’s box office for the first three days of release.
6 Tied For Four Nominations
The Annie Awards are awarded every year in Los Angeles. They recognize great strides made in animation and are awarded by the International Animated Film Association’s Hollywood branch. It’s essentially the biggest awards ceremony for animated films. Spirited Away, Studio Ghibli’s only film to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, was nominated for four Annie Awards, the same amount that Weathering with You was nominated for.
5 First Film Of Its Kind In India
Most anime films that reach international audiences are meant for a younger demographic, at the very least for teenagers.
While Weathering with You isn’t super-mature in its content, it does deal with some heavy themes like gun violence, runaway children, and child custody. Weathering with You is the first anime film that deals with mature themes to be released theatrically in India.
4 Your Name Universe
There is some evidence that Weathering with You takes place in the same universe as Your Name. The two main characters of Your Name both end up in Tokyo for college at the end of the movie, and they eventually run into each other; while they don’t know each other exactly, they do recognize each other and end up reconnecting. In Weathering with You, these characters show up as well. Mitsuha appears only in cameo, as an employee at a jewelry store where Hodaka goes to buy Hina a present. But Taki has a bigger role in the film as the grandson of an old woman that Hina and Hodaka regularly visit in order to bring her good weather.
3 Your Name Crew Members
It’s not unusual for people to come back to working with a certain filmmaker after working with them once, both because they might have had a good experience and because the filmmaker trusts them to get the job done. This is no different in the case of Weathering with You. Many of the major crew positions on the film were filled by people who had worked on Your Name as well.
2 Shikao Suga
Shikao Suga is a Japanese musician. He’s known for writing theme songs for anime and movies. Makoto Shinkai has said that he’s a fan of his music. The character Keisuke Suga is named after Shikao Suga. Suga is a writer in Weathering with You who takes in Hodaka Morishima and gives him a job as a writer.
1 Auditions For The Main Roles
Your Name was a huge hit both in Japan and worldwide, so it’s no surprise that people were flocking to the opportunity to be a part of the follow-up. When auditions were opened for Weathering with You, over 2,000 voice actors came out for the roles of the two main characters. The jobs eventually went to Kotaro Daigo, who plays Hodaka, and Nana Mori, who plays Hina Amano.