I have seen complaints that the reason for Hodaka running away is unexplored in the narrative, but I think that denies Shinkai the credit he deserves as a writer. His backstory is barely sketched in and is dealt with deftly by Shinkai. In particular he has often made use of the weather to help tell his stories.Ī quick rundown of the story here, which is much simpler than Your Name: Hodaka Morishima is a runaway teenage boy from the countryside, who has fled to Tokyo. Shinkai has favourite themes he likes to explore and a trademark visual style, and that’s a perfectly valid approach. Studio Ghibli sidestepped the problem of following Spirited Away by doing something completely different, but then again Studio Ghibli nearly always does something completely different. Following Your Name with something even remotely comparable was a near-impossible task, but why compare? If Shinkai can be faulted it would be for not doing something different enough, although it’s far from being just more of the same. I mean, they’re both quite nice, aren’t they. But that’s a bit like saying gold is not as good as platinum. This is Makoto Shinkai’s first film after the huge hit Your Name, and it’s not as good. Let’s get the elephant out of the room straight away.
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