Reason and madness are the two ways that humans grasp the world, but it is clear that Makoto Shinkai is not very rational in his new work "Weathering With You". For such a love animation film that uses the orthodox sequel to "Your Name" as a gimmick, Makoto Shinkai has indeed achieved some kind of breakthrough-in my opinion, this is a Cthulhu myth under the cloak of pure love. Spiritual horror stories.
Try to look at the story again in this way: in the rainy Tokyo Bay, there is an ancient legend of the evil god. A rash stranger came to Tokyo and met a girl who was going to sacrifice herself. The girl sacrificed herself to the evil god for the order and tranquility of mankind, but the stranger broke the rumor because of his own selfish desires. Thousands of years of taboos eventually led to the destruction of Tokyo Bay... Although this story does not have the well-known elements such as octopuses and deep seas that are common in the Cthulhu mythology, there are transparent creatures that are not explained until the end, and the sky is wider than the deep sea. Substitute the corresponding symbols. As for the lines that appeared in the trailer, "The sky is a wider world than the sea" and "Tokyo was the sea before", I suspect that Director Shinkai got inspiration after reading the myth of Cthulhu.
This detailed correspondence in the lines is no coincidence. In fact, the sea itself means some kind of unknown and fear, and the unpredictable nature in "Weathering With You" happens to be given a similar meaning by Makoto Shinkai. If I had to describe Weathering With You in one word, it would be "crazy", which happens to be the connotation of the Cthulhu mythology. So I think I can say without exaggeration that Weathering With You is the spiritual sequel of Cthulhu Mythos in 2019.
Of course, what the director wants to convey is actually not difficult to understand. The love that the male protagonist gave up the whole world for the sake of the female protagonist may have been very touching to the director, but the emotional scene where the male and female protagonists fell together at the end of the movie made the children in the cinema laugh out loud. I have to say that without the soundtrack of RADWIMPS, the second half of the story of the male protagonist running thousands of miles to save the female protagonist would be embarrassingly capitalized. The classic Japanese drama run appeared in Makoto Shinkai's film, which made me trance back to 2007 when "The Proposal" was a hit. And the lines spoken by the director inadvertently through the mouths of the supporting characters illustrate Makoto Shinkai's expectations for his "Kun's Name" universe: a crazy world mixed with Japanese ghost legends. The uncle dubbed by Shun Oguri told the male protagonist at the end of the film that the world was already crazy, and the implication was that they did not have to be responsible for the sinking of Tokyo Bay. But the paradox is that the male protagonist suddenly realized after reuniting with the female protagonist that all this was not a false dream. They truly "changed the world". The most terrifying thing is that the male protagonist seems to be proud of it. He did change the world, but is it something to be happy about that he made it worse? Perhaps the whole point of his restless adolescence was to do something earth-shattering, for better or for worse.
I think this plot can only be explained in the lyrics of RADWIMPS: "Is there anything else love can do? Is there anything else I can do?" Characters have no meaning of existence, and they lack the motivation and courage to explore the meaning of their own existence. The only female protagonist who explored her identity as a witch and understood its meaning, failed to stick to her original choice in the end, and was forcibly pulled back to reality by the male protagonist. The seemingly delicate characters are actually empty shells. In a world lacking courage, there is really nothing to do except talk about love. However, this kind of love is really too thin, and a love lacking courage will neither last long nor make the world a better place.
Many people may not think that the male protagonist is a person who lacks courage. After all, he is finally fighting against the so-called world. But courage is not reckless, much less madly desperate. The adolescent male protagonist has an anxiety about finding meaning in life, and this anxiety drives him to leave his "breathless" hometown and go to Tokyo. It is this anxiety that drives him to aim at the editor-in-chief who is kind to him, and at the police who just want to maintain order in reality. The heroine did not become the meaning of his existence, saving the heroine might be. Therefore, "changing the world" at the end of the film will be the theme of the final sublimation, not "giving up everything for love". In fact, there is no big problem in promoting the film with the anxiety of adolescence as the theme. The problem is that the director gave us an unacceptable answer at the end of the film. The male protagonist seems to have found his own value, but he seems to have none. He seems to have paid a lot on the way to find the meaning of youth, but in the end he seems to have paid nothing. Of course, the thoughts of the characters in the movie are actually the writer's own true feelings. I think Makoto Shinkai's idea may be that no one's growth comes without a price, so the citizens of Tokyo Bay have to pay for the male protagonist. If you look at it this way, it may not be the male protagonist who is crazy, but Xin Haicheng.
A growth journey without courage and effort is really difficult to resonate with the audience, so it is inevitable for "Weathering With You" to be accused of a bland plot. In fact, I don't mean to criticize the selfishness of the male protagonist. The dilemma between the grand narrative and the daily life is not impossible, and the choice of daily life is understandable. But such a grand proposition was finally solved under the mischief of an adolescent boy and the tolerance of the whole of Japan, which is inevitably a bit too absurd. What makes people feel even more sad is that the female protagonist Yang Na seems to have no ideas of her own at all. In her life, except for her younger brother, the male protagonist Hodaka is completely Yamato Nadeko of the Reiwa era. Such a flat character is the same as "The King's Name". Mitsuha is far away (of course Mitsuha in this movie has been renamed Miyamoto Shigeru by our translators). Originally thought that Yang Cai finally found the value of life in her identity as a "devotee", but it turned out that she still chose to dedicate her life only because of the male protagonist's words. But Hina is indeed the cutest character in this maddening movie, and she has the potential to live out herself. Originally, this story could and should be a story about a pair of confused adolescent boys and girls relying on each other to find the meaning of life, but in the end it became a nondescript and rotten movie. Aristotle believed that happiness is inseparable from human reason, but "Weathering With You" arranged a perfect ending for the hero and heroine in a way that tramples on the dignity of reason. To be honest, fortunately this is just a movie, otherwise Tokyo, which has been drying its underwear for three years, would be too scary.
View more about Weathering with You reviews
