I’ve been a huge Makoto Shinkai fan for years. His films always offer beautiful visuals, incredible music, along with deeply emotional plots. When I first watched Your Name, I was completely blown away. It had everything: romance, mystery, time travel, and that incredible mix of fantasy and reality. So, when they released Weathering With You, I was pretty excited. I went in thinking I was going to get another masterpiece, but I walked away, kind of disappointed.
Hey, I’m not saying Weathering With You wasn’t good. It looked gorgeous, and the music (hats off to RADWIMPS) was incredible. But the plot? It had far too many loose ends, a rather weird ending that didn’t feel right, and it just didn’t quite work for me as Your Name did.
Why Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name just works
One of the greatest things about Your Name is that it does everything so evenly. It starts off as a fun body-swap story, then it becomes a beautiful emotional ride with a crazy time-travel twist. And the best part of all? Everything comes together so flawlessly. All the plot threads, all the twists, everything builds up to that incredible climax.
Unlike Weathering With You, where the supernatural elements felt random and underdeveloped, Your Name laid out clear rules for its fantasy aspects. By the time we finally learned what became of Mitsuha, it hit especially hard because the story had worked up to the point so excellently.
Time travel in film can become ridiculously complicated, but Your Name absolutely nailed it. When Taki realizes that Mitsuha passed away years ago, it’s an emotional gut punch that makes perfect sense within the story’s logic. Everything he does afterward feels really significant, and when he finally alters the future, it’s just so satisfying.
Weathering With You wraps up with Tokyo being permanently flooded, and just did not sit well with me. It was overdramatic and honestly, somewhat unrealistic considering the real flood preventatives of Tokyo. However, the ending to Your Name is my all-time favorite.
It’s emotional, bittersweet, and leaves just the right amount of ambiguity. After Taki and Mitsuha are reunited, it’s this lovely, purifying moment that plays so perfectly.
What went wrong with Weathering With You
The film started off strong, then just continued to introduce plot threads that never resolved themselves. That entire mafia subplot? Completely unnecessary. It created tension for a bit then just disappeared without adding anything to the plot whatsoever.
And what about the weather maidens? The film sort of hinted that there are other ones like Hina, and I was expecting Hodaka and Hina to search for them or find them discovering their abilities. But nope, nothing. The movie just dropped the idea entirely.
I get that Weathering With You was about finding your own happiness and not giving up everything for society, but honestly, it kind of felt messy to me. Like, Tokyo flooding entirely didn’t quite ring true. It felt like Shinkai wanted to go for shock value instead of an appropriately deserved emotional payoff.
And Hodaka and Hina’s love story just didn’t affect me the same as Taki and Mitsuha’s did, so when that ended, I wasn’t really emotionally invested in their reunion. I still love Weathering With You for what it is, but if I had to choose which movie I would watch again? Your Name wins every time.
Weathering With You and Your Name is currently available to watch on Crunchyroll.
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