A runaway teenager falls for a mysterious ‘sun girl’ who has the power to stop the rain in Japan’s highest-grossing film of 2019
![Weathering With You review – thrillingly beautiful anime romance](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/604ea9dca8162b546f7b6fb80e97d40b92032b56/505_207_1614_968/master/1614.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctcmV2aWV3LTQucG5n&enable=upscale&s=1c24a182adc3b36add3a9884c964a9f4)
Makoto Shinkai, the Japanese anime director dubbed “the new Miyazaki” after the huge success of Your Name, his swooning YA body-swap romance set against the backdrop of a trippy natural disaster, returns with another apocalypse-tinged, boy-meets-girl adventure. Weathering With You, full of overcharged teenage emotion, was Japan’s highest-grossing film of 2019. Like Your Name, it’s thrillingly beautiful: Tokyo is animated in hyperreal intricacy, every dazzling detail dialled up to 11, but it’s less of a heartbreaker.
During the wettest rainy season on record in Tokyo, 16-year-old runaway Hodaka, homeless and hungry, arrives from the sticks. In a fast-food restaurant, teenage waitress Hina gives him a free burger, and two patches of red flush across his cheeks adorably. (The animation of first love, its highs and humiliations, is gorgeous.)