I watched Weathering with You over the weekend and it was simply breathtaking. Maybe I am overrating the movie since it only got good rating, but I absolutely loved all of it. Now with that said, I don't think it is better than Your Name as that is one of the best movies I've watched, but I think I might prefer the characters in Weathering a tad better. I thought they were more fleshed out, had better chemistry with each other, and all were unique yet shared common goals/drives. I really like how Japanese culture tells story and is able to mix it up with sci-fi elements so damn naturally. If you like those two aspects, then you'll love this movie quite easily and now here comes the spoilers.
I wanted to see more backstory, but it seems that Shinkai left that open to interpretation. One complaint I have is that far too many of these modern day movies have the absolute worse case scenarios happening in them like parents or wives dying all over the place (this has the same problems from some of those aspects). Additionally, I do think the movie suffers from some really rushed parts and that brings the movie down a couple of notches. Like the ending scene where Hodaka finds Hina and randomly brings her back. I wanted to see more resistance or escaping scene against the weather creatures, which are mentioned in the beginning, but play an infinitely small role. There are other weird moments like when Suga randomly shows up in the building to stop Hodaka. The random guns that were brought into the movie, when a knife or something else could've been better. There are more, but I don't really want to focus on the bad because there is so much good in here including the animation, the setting, and just overall aspects that the movie takes place in. I love that Hodaka works for an alien-hunter level magazine, I love that they first meet at a McDonald's, I love that the weather is controlled by Hina's emotions (so well done from the rain all the way to the snow starting to fall, you can feel the build up), and I love that there are some shady elements like finding Hina about to work for a nightclub even if she's ridiculously underaged because of desperation. They gave Tokyo justice as a city and some many rememberable locations that felt like you were actually there. One hell of an experience from start to end, even if it is not perfect by any means.
E: I plan on watching it again some time in the future because I watched it on HBO Max and they only had the English dub. For some reason, certain aspects don't translate as well from Japanese to English, so you're stuck with some weird sounds. Sounds that are perfectly acceptable in Japanese language, but makes it weird in English. One of the worst are prolonged "wows," but there are others like yes as a grunt sound or awkwardness in romance. I don't think the English dub was bad by any means though. A lot of the voice actors matched excellently with their characters, the one I didn't care for was the main protagonist, Hodaka.
