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Fate. Choice. Change. How do these concepts intersect? It can be easy to get lost in the push and pull of a force outside our control. For a constantly changing world, it can certainly feel like the paths we all follow only lead to one place, whether we like it or not. Director Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering with You addresses this issue with a certain gentleness and grace.
The two main characters in Weathering with You make many decisions throughout the film that affect their lives. On the other hand, their lives are also on a pre-determined course that neither can escape on their own. This leads to several all-important questions: Is fate inescapable? By determinedly making conscious decisions for change, do we have a hope to make our own fate? Weathering with You illustrates some possible answers.
What Is Weathering With You About?
The 2019 anime film, Weathering with You, is the newest feature film from director Makoto Shinkai and displays the expressive style and heartfelt moments that Shinkai films are best known for. Fifteen-year-old Hodaka runs away from home to live in Tokyo, following a single ray of sunlight to an otherwise overcast city. When he gets there, he has no job and no idea how to get by. What makes his first days in Tokyo worse is not only that city people can be rude (and sometimes even violent), but more so that the constant rainstorms just won’t let up.
“Tokyo is scary.”
– Hodaka Morishima (( Shinkai, Makoto, director. Weathering with You. CoMix Wave Films Story Inc., 2019. ))
Thankfully, Hodaka is able to find a job as an intern writer for a small-time magazine under his cynical boss, Suga, and things start to look up. He meets a sweet, hard-working girl named Hina, who, amazingly, can make the sun shine with only a prayer. In the relentless rain of Tokyo, Hina is a Sunshine Girl who can summon sunny days at will.
Together, Hodaka and Hina, along with Hina’s little brother Nagi, start their own small business around Hina’s amazing ability to change the weather. As more and more sunshine brightens people’s days, Hodaka and Hina begin to fall for each other. However, the past catches up, leaving the two of them barreling toward a seemingly inescapable future.
Does Fate Or Choice Win The Day?
Hodaka and Hina’s journey brings them closer together, but they are also faced with the frightening inevitability of Hina’s gift. If she keeps using her ability to make the sun shine, she will disappear into the sky. This price for using her gift is set in stone, even according to the ancient legends of Sunshine Girls. Hina’s path leads her to a place where neither Hodaka nor Nagi can follow.
Hodaka’s life in Tokyo, while off to a rocky start, brightens with Hina’s companionship. However, it becomes evident that Hodaka cannot stay in Tokyo, as his parents’ missing person report and his brief run-in with a firearm have the police on his trail. Bracketed by fate’s certainty, do the choices that Hodaka and Hina make change anything about their lives in the long run?
Fate’s Inevitability
As revealed through a conversation with an old man recounting the legend of the Sunshine Girls, Hina is meant to become a human sacrifice to set the world right again. The incessant rains over Tokyo never stop — they are getting worse. The only way to stop the whole city from flooding is if Hina is spirited away. Hina begins to realize this truth. Using her gift causes her to become translucent, her hands and arms flowing like water. This spreads slowly to the rest of her body, even after letting the rains fall.
She and Hodaka share a quiet moment on her birthday to discuss what to do about her condition. As a symbol of his love for her, Hodaka gives Hina a ring. Hina treasures this gift, but that very night she disappears from her bed, spirited away into the sky. Once high above, her body becomes like water to the point where the ring slips through her fingers, falling all the way back down to the earth. Hina is completely alone.
No Way Out
Compared to Hina’s dramatic storyline, Hodaka’s struggle against fate is subtle. After running away from home to live in Tokyo — and realizing how terrifying and hard it is just to get by in the big city — Hodaka is adamant about never going back. The events leading up to Hina’s disappearance (his discovery and use of the gun, his not-entirely-legal employment, and social services catching up with Hina and Nagi) all point toward an inevitable end to his journey in Tokyo.
As a minor and the subject of his parents’ missing person report, Hodaka arguably had no chance of living on his own, to begin with. Getting involved with the Sunshine Girl, who becomes somewhat famous due to her ability and the business they built from it, only draws more attention.
No matter how much Hodaka wants to be away from home and to be with Hina, the world — or fate — obstructs him at every turn. It even presents an obstacle that he cannot hope to overcome when Hina is spirited away, and the police get involved. Hodaka is found and arrested under a clear, sunny sky. To drive the point home, he finds the ring he gave Hina in the standing water that covers the streets of Tokyo. She is gone, and soon he will be back home. There is, seemingly, nothing that Hodaka or Hina can do to change the course of fate.
A Ray Of Hope
Even though all of Hodaka and Hina’s choices seem to lead to only one place, there is something to be said for having the opportunity for choice at all. Hina’s disappearance is brought about by a conscious choice to sacrifice herself and stop the rain.
Hina: “Do you want the rain to stop?”
Hodaka: “Yes.”
Weathering with You (( Shinkai, Makoto, director. Weathering with You. CoMix Wave Films Story Inc., 2019. ))
Hodaka’s love for the clear sky and Hina’s sunny attitude clearly shows in this scene, as he answers yes without thinking. During the night, Hina is spirited away. Whether her disappearance itself is a choice or merely the result of her many previous choices to put others before herself, Hina is doubtlessly making constant decisions that place her in this situation.
After Hina’s disappearance, Hodaka escapes the police to go and find her. Following a dangerous chase through sunny, half-submerged Tokyo, he is trapped in a standoff against his boss and the police. Having first gone after Hodaka to help the police find him, Suga decides to help Hodaka instead.
Hodaka’s determination to change Hina’s fate and save her is an inspiration to Suga, who has been a slave to circumstances beyond his control for years. At this moment, Suga breaks free, allowing Hodaka to make it to the shrine that takes him to Hina’s new home in the sky.
Choice’s Opportunity For Change
Once Hodaka finds Hina, he offers her his hand and a way out. Hina is given a second chance to choose to live for herself rather than for just the happiness of others. When presented with an opportunity to change her fate, Hina accepts.
“Who cares if we don’t see the sun shine ever again? I want you more than any blue sky.”
– Hodaka Morishima (( Shinkai, Makoto, director. Weathering with You. CoMix Wave Films Story Inc., 2019. ))
While the inevitability of fate is overwhelming, there is always a choice to be made. Because of Hodaka’s determination to bring her home, Hina is able to choose a life on earth instead of a life alone in the sky.
The rains return with Hina, and Hodaka is sent back home with three years of probation. While both of their choices lead to a less-than-ideal conclusion, the importance of those choices — and the characters’ confidence in making them — presents a compromise between fate and choice.
Where Fate And Choice Coexist
Thankfully, Hodaka and Hina’s return to the earth and their immediate separation is not the end of their story. Three years go by, and Hodaka, now graduated and free of his probation, returns to Tokyo. There, he finds an unexpected link between what is meant to be, what is chosen, and the power of compromise.
Hodaka first visits his ex-employer, Suga, who seems to be working hard and making a name for himself, which is a significant change from Suga’s previous life in a run-down office. Due to playing a part in Hodaka’s escape from the police, Suga was arrested, but he manages to clear up the misunderstanding between him and the law enforcement. In the three years of Hodaka’s absence, he’s grown his small business into a bigger corporation.
With his success, Suga is better able to provide for his daughter and set an example for her. This change in mentality was most likely brought about by the events prior, when he butted heads with Hodaka, claiming that no one can change what fate has set in stone. He now sees the merit in Hodaka’s more positive worldview. With the rain still pouring nonstop over the city, Suga is only able to spend a few precious moments (on sunny days) with his daughter due to her asthma. The situation isn’t exactly what Suga wanted, but it is a welcome compromise, balancing life under a gloomy sky with the bright aspects of his life.
Tokyo’s Submergence
The biggest change, however, is Tokyo’s landscape. Due to Hina’s return from the sky and her choice to live for herself instead of becoming a sacrificial lamb, the relentless rain never stopped, leaving much of the city completely submerged in water. Many people lost their homes, a consequence that Hodaka regrets.
But the new Tokyo, along with much of it being overcast and abandoned, is also a beautiful sight. Moss covers the roads, bridges, and power lines, giving the landscape the feel of something old and close to nature. Hodaka realizes that many, many years ago, Tokyo itself was completely submerged in water. He reasons that perhaps Tokyo is merely returning to its natural state. Perhaps this was Tokyo’s fate all along.
The beauty of this coexistence is clearly seen in the landscape of Tokyo’s half-submerged streets: the green moss indicate that the city is alive, regardless of the water’s constant presence. The city itself seems to drip, its grey, overcast color contrasting beautifully with small bright spots in the scenery.
In Weathering with You, the intermingling of fate and choice looks a bit like the sky with many stars: in the grand scheme of the universe, the workings are vast and all-consuming, with many shining differences within it. Perhaps sinking back into the sea was Tokyo’s inescapable fate, brought about by the choices of Hodaka and Hina. Perhaps fate and choice are one and the same.
“I’ve Chosen Her. I’ve Chosen This World.”
One last-minute revelation sends Hodaka into an excited frenzy. Saddened by Tokyo’s new look and the lives that were forever changed by its fate, Hodaka finally sees Hina again — and she is praying for the sun to shine. The beauty of sunlight sparkling over the water-drenched city drives home a new outlook: whether by fate, chance, or the laws of the universe, Hodaka and Hina made choices that brought them to this point, and they are still making choices that will change their lives, and the city of Tokyo, for the better.
“I’ve chosen her. I’ve chosen this world. I’ve chosen to live here.”
– Hodaka Morishima (( Shinkai, Makoto, director. Weathering with You. CoMix Wave Films Story Inc., 2019. ))
Though Weathering with You tells a story that presents fate as inevitable and choice as a form of independent freedom, it is the combination of the two that creates such a beautiful ending.
Are there some things that are outside our control? Yes. Can we make choices to better ourselves and the ones around us? Absolutely. We can never know where fate will lead us, but we always have the option to choose how we meet it. And the knowledge that we can live in harmony with the flow of our world is a comforting realization.
