©2019 "Weathering With You" Film Partners

Weathering With You, the latest anime film by renowned Japanese director Makoto Shinkai, has been awarded the Best Animated Feature Film in the 13th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA).

The awarding ceremony was held last Thursday, November 21, in Brisbane, Australia, with free film screenings also happened days before the ceremony.

 

Aside from Weathering With You, Hiroyasu Ishida’s coming-of-age animated film Penguin Highway has also been nominated in the same category.

The two Japanese anime films competed against animated feature films from other countries, such as “Mosley” (Kirby Atkins, New Zealand), “Underdog” (Oh Sung-yoon, South Korea), and “The Unseen” (Behzad Nalbandi, Iran).

 

This will be the second time that Shinkai has won in the regional award-giving body, the romantic drama anime film 5 Centimeters per Second has won the same category in the very first APSA in 2007.

His other works, Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below and your name., had also received nomination from the award-giving body 2011 and 2017, respectively.

 

The last Japanese anime film to win the Best Animated Feature Film category was Miss Hokusai, directed by Crayon Shin-chan director Keiichi Hara, in 2005.

Other anime films that won in the category are Hiroyuki Okiura’s A Letter to Momo in 2012, and Isao Takahata’s The Tale of the Princess Kaguya in 2014.

 

 

©2019 “Weathering With You” Film Partners

High school student Hodaka leaves his home on an isolated island and moves to Tokyo, but he immediately becomes broke. He lives his days in isolation, but finally finds a job as a writer for a shady occult magazine. After he starts his job, the weather has been rainy day after day. In a corner of the crowded and busy city, Hodaka meets a young woman named Hina. Due to certain circumstances, Hina and her younger brother live together, but have a cheerful and sturdy life. Hina also has a certain power: the power to stop the rain and clear the sky. (Synopsis from Anime News Network)

Makoto Shinkai, who created and directed the 2016 romantic fantasy drama anime film your name., has also been credited as the creator, director and screenwriter of the latest film.

Masayoshi Tanaka, who also worked on the highly-popular anime film, was again in charge of character designs.

The popular Japanese band RADWIMPS, who performed the soundtracks of Shinkai’s previous film, also performed the soundtracks for this anime film, which has been available on digital platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music, since last July.

 

Atsushi Tamura, who worked in Studio Ghibli’s award-winning anime film Spirited Away, is the animation director, and The Garden of Words art director Hiroshi Takiguchi is in charge of the film’s art direction, which was produced by CoMix Wave Films and distributed by TOHO.

The anime film starred Nana Mori, who played “Runa Horibe” in the highly-popular live-action series Mr. Hiiragi’s Homeroom, will portray the character “Hina Amano” and Kotaro Daigo as “Hokoda Morishima”.

They are also joined by a star-studded voice casts, including Shun Oguri, Tsubasa Honda, Chieko Baisho, Sakura Kiryu, Sei Hiraizumi, and Yuuki Kaiji.

 

Philippine film distributor Pioneer Films had released the anime film in Philippine cinemas last August 28, which lasted for about three weeks.