Weathering With You

by Makoto Shinkai

Overview

Longing to escape his island home, a boy named Hodaka runs away during his first summer of high school to find a new life in Tokyo. As rain falls for days on end and Hodaka struggles to adjust, he meets a girl named Hina who holds a mysterious power: With a single prayer, she can part the clouds and bring back the sun. But her power comes at a price, and as the weather spirals further and further out of control, they must choose what future they truly want for themselves.


Written concurrently with production of the 2019 film Weathering With You, this novel comes straight from director Makoto Shinkai, the mind behind 2016's hit your name.!

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781975399368
Publisher:	Yen Press
Publication date:	12/17/2019
Pages:	192
Sales rank:	116,909
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.60(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Makoto Shinkai first caught the attention of the animation world in 2002 with his short film Voices of a Distant Star, which he produced almost single-handedly. His later films, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, 5 Centimeters Per Second, Children Who Chase Lost Voices, The Garden of Words, and your name., have earned him numerous awards both in Japan and abroad as well as critical acclaim as one of Japan's most successful and innovative directors for his stories about longing and loneliness. His latest work, Weathering With You, has been a runaway success and earned rave reviews from audiences and critics.

Editorial Reviews

2020-01-02
This YA novel stars a teen runaway in Tokyo who befriends a girl able to control the weather.

Sixteen-year-old Hodaka Morishima is on a ferry to Tokyo after fleeing his island home. As he wonders about supporting himself over the summer in the city, the ferry tilts. A man named Keisuke Suga saves him from falling overboard. Suga’s business card says he’s the CEO of K&A Planning. In the beautiful yet downpour-cursed Tokyo, Hodaka briefly lives out of a manga cafe while he can afford it. Eating soup in a McDonald’s, he earns the pity of an enchanting teen employee who gives him a free burger. When Hodaka tracks down Suga, the man is based in a run-down shop, creating content for a magazine called Mu. Suga and his college student niece, Natsumi, hire Hodaka as an intern. His assignment is researching “sun women” who can manipulate the weather. Hodaka’s life changes when the trail leads to 18-year-old Hina Amano, the McDonald’s employee who helped him. As her power to part the clouds proves reliable, she and Hodaka begin helping citizens who want sunny days—for a fee. But the girl’s miraculous ability comes at a cost to herself. Shinkai’s (Your Name., 2017) novel is an adaptation of his anime film of the same name. Tokyo, made more alluring by an eerie, constant rainfall, is “like a box garden crammed with all kinds of different places.” The first-person perspective jumps between Hodaka, Suga, and Natsumi, the last being quite sunny herself in that she “doesn't reject anybody...doesn’t act different depending on who she’s talking to.” Loss and the urgency of life become main themes as readers learn that Suga is a widower and the orphaned Hina cares for herself and her younger brother, Moka. Occasionally saccharine lines appear: Hina describes Hodaka as a “lost kitten.” But the target audience likely won’t mind. Casual fantasy readers should enjoy the mystery of Hina’s slow, otherworldly transformation.

An emotionally vibrant fantasy and an excellent portrait of Tokyo.

Kirkus Reviews