It’s been one crazy set of years. Between 2018 to now, it has been a challenging set of years off-site, but I won’t get too much into detail about all of that. Let’s get to the good stuff.

Not many movies have caught my eye as of late, but I recently watched Weathering With You (2020), which I was very excited about because of the Hayao Miyazaki vibes I got from watching the trailer. The director and writer for Weathering With You is Makoto Shinkai.

I ended up only having time to attend the dubbed version of this movie. I’m sure it would have been even more amazing watching the subbed version. I usually prefer to watch Japanese animation with the Japanese voice actors, when I can. Gives the film a different feel for me, usually.

The story is about a high school boy, who is a runaway to Tokyo, who crosses paths with a girl who stumbled across a mysterious shrine on the rooftop of some building, and by crossing through the arch, she receives the mysterious power of being able to bring sunshine to a Tokyo experiencing unusual amounts of rain. The story is about hope, friendship, sacrifice, and forging meaningful relationships. I enjoyed finding each character to be fleshed out pretty evenly, and the supporting characters were just as interesting as the main characters.

My experience in watching this movie took me back to when I used to daydream as a child, about things like what would it be like if you had some sort of superpowers, entertaining thoughts about seeing an alternate dimension, and whether there’s some sort of world hidden in the clouds.

There are some unanswered questions that I did have after the movie was over. For example, the backstory of the runaway, Hodaka Morishima, left me with the question of what made things so bad that he wanted to run away to Tokyo in the first place. The film lightly touches over this, but I would have liked to see a bit more depth to that part of the story, if only to satisfy my curiosity. I also couldn’t help but wonder how Hina Amano, the “Weather Girl,” managed to keep her family’s apartment for so long without Japan’s version of child protective services getting to her and her sibling sooner. (Something eventually happens, and the movie does explain it a little bit, but I still would have liked to see a bit more about that.) Learning more about the lore behind those that have had similar abilities to Hina would have also been a great thing to see. There are a few more aspects of the character’s backstories I would have liked to see more of, but none of that took away my overall enjoyment of the experience.

Haven’t looked into it, so I am not entirely sure if this was a Studio Ghibli film, but it definitely had that kind of feel. If you’re a fan of those types of movies, you will likely enjoy this one. You might also enjoy it if you liked watching Mirai (2018) and Your Name (2016). Also fantastic animations that I would highly recommend watching, if you have not seen it already.

Eventually I’ll get around to talking about my thoughts on Regal’s unlimited movies program (which I just joined, just to test things out and see if it’s actually worth the cost), more movies (of course), and posting a view interviews with artists and other individuals I have met over the years that in my opinion are currently underrated. As always, I want to support the visibility of such individuals that are working so hard to pursue their passions. The creative community has always been a special one to my heart. Though my strength may only lie in my words. As much as I’d like to, I can’t draw to save my life, and I highly respect those that can, haha.

Until next time, I hope you all have been having a fantastic 2020 so far! Thanks to all those who have been bearing with me and staying loyal. It’s been a rough start to my year so far, but I am not allowing all of that to prevent me from sticking to my own passions.