Weathering with You Budget

What Is the Budget of Weathering with You?

Weathering with You was produced on an estimated budget of approximately $15 million (roughly 1.5 billion yen). For a feature-length anime film with ambitious visual scope, this figure sits at the upper end of Japanese animation budgets, though it remains modest compared to Hollywood animated features. Director Makoto Shinkai and producer Genki Kawamura at CoMix Wave Films channeled funds into detailed environmental rendering, fluid character animation, and the film's signature rain and weather effects that drive the story's emotional core.

The budget reflects a deliberate production philosophy at CoMix Wave Films: smaller teams working with meticulous attention to background art and compositing rather than the large-scale studio infrastructure typical of Western animation houses. Every frame of Tokyo's rain-soaked skyline, the luminous cloud sequences, and the photorealistic cityscapes required significant resources, but the studio's lean operational model kept costs controlled relative to the film's visual ambition.

Key Budget Allocation Categories

• Animation Production: The largest share of the budget covered key animation, in-between animation, and compositing. CoMix Wave Films collaborated with multiple Japanese studios to handle the volume of cuts required, with particular investment in the weather transformation sequences and Tokyo's detailed urban environments
• Background Art and Environmental Design: Shinkai's signature photorealistic backgrounds demanded extensive location scouting, photographic reference gathering, and painstaking digital painting. The film's depiction of real Tokyo neighborhoods, shrines, and rooftops required accuracy that translated directly into production hours
• Visual Effects and Compositing: Rain, sunlight, clouds, and atmospheric phenomena are central to the narrative. The effects team developed custom approaches to render weather patterns that feel both fantastical and grounded, requiring specialized compositing passes beyond standard anime production workflows
• Music and Sound Design: RADWIMPS returned to compose the soundtrack after their acclaimed work on Your Name. The band wrote original songs and instrumental pieces specifically for the film, with recording sessions and integration into the sound mix representing a meaningful budget line
• Voice Cast and Recording: The Japanese voice cast featured Kotaro Daigo and Nana Mori in lead roles alongside established actors including Shun Oguri and Tsubasa Honda. Recording sessions, direction, and post-production dialogue work contributed to the overall audio budget
• Marketing and Distribution: Toho handled domestic distribution with an extensive marketing campaign across Japan, including cross-promotions and advance ticket sales. International distribution through GKIDS in North America and various partners worldwide added promotional costs across multiple territories

How Does Weathering with You's Budget Compare to Similar Films?

• Your Name (2016): Budget ~$8M | Worldwide $380M. Shinkai's previous film cost roughly half as much and earned nearly double the worldwide gross, making it one of the most profitable animated films ever. Weathering with You's larger budget reflects higher expectations and expanded production scale following that success
• Demon Slayer: Mugen Train (2020): Budget ~$15M | Worldwide $507M. A comparable Japanese anime production budget that achieved even higher box office returns, demonstrating the commercial ceiling for anime features in the global market
• Suzume (2022): Budget ~$20M | Worldwide $326M. Shinkai's follow-up carried a larger budget and wider international release strategy, continuing the upward trajectory in production investment for CoMix Wave Films
• Spirited Away (2001): Budget ~$19M | Worldwide $395M. Studio Ghibli's masterpiece set the benchmark for prestige Japanese animation budgets. Weathering with You achieved strong returns on a slightly lower investment, though its worldwide total reflects a different distribution era
• Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018): Budget $90M | Worldwide $375M. A Western animated feature with a budget six times larger than Weathering with You, illustrating the cost disparity between Hollywood and Japanese animation even when targeting similar audience sophistication

Weathering with You Box Office Performance

Weathering with You opened on July 19, 2019 in Japan and earned approximately 1.64 billion yen ($16.4 million) in its opening weekend, claiming the top spot at the Japanese box office. The film held strong through the summer, ultimately grossing approximately 14.2 billion yen (roughly $140 million) domestically to become the highest-grossing Japanese film of 2019 and one of the top ten highest-grossing anime films in Japan at the time.

Internationally, GKIDS distributed the film in North America where it earned approximately $8 million, a solid result for a subtitled anime release in a market historically difficult for non-English animation. Combined worldwide grossing reached approximately $193 million across all territories.

With a production budget of roughly $15 million, the film needed approximately $30 million to break even when accounting for prints, advertising, and distribution costs (the standard 2x multiplier). At $193 million worldwide, Weathering with You delivered a return on investment of approximately 1,187%, calculated as ($193M - $15M) / $15M x 100. Even accounting for theater revenue splits and distribution fees, the film was enormously profitable and validated CoMix Wave Films as a commercially reliable animation studio beyond the one-time success of Your Name.

• Production Budget: $11,100,000
• Estimated P&A: approximately $5,600,000
• Total Investment: approximately $16,700,000
• Worldwide Gross: $192,729,404
• Net Return: approximately +$176,100,000
• ROI (on production budget): approximately +1636%

Weathering with You Production History

Makoto Shinkai began developing Weathering with You shortly after completing promotional duties for Your Name in 2017. The pressure of following the highest-grossing anime film of its era was significant, and Shinkai has spoken publicly about the anxiety of creating a worthy successor. Rather than attempting to replicate Your Name's formula, he chose to explore a story centered on climate and weather, themes he had been drawn to since his early short films like The Place Promised in Our Early Days and She and Her Cat.

Shinkai wrote the screenplay himself, developing the story of Hodaka Morishima, a teenage runaway who arrives in a rain-drenched Tokyo and meets Hina Amano, a girl with the supernatural ability to clear the sky. The narrative deliberately subverts expectations about sacrifice and responsibility, with Shinkai stating that he wanted to challenge the idea that young people should always put society's needs above their own desires.

Production at CoMix Wave Films ran through 2018 and into early 2019. The studio brought in additional animation support from partner studios to meet the demanding production schedule. Shinkai personally oversaw background art direction, maintaining the photorealistic quality that had become his signature. The team conducted extensive location research across Tokyo, photographing real streets, buildings, and weather conditions that would be recreated in the film.

RADWIMPS began composing the soundtrack in parallel with animation production, creating songs including "Grand Escape" and "Is There Still Anything That Love Can Do?" that were woven into key sequences. Shinkai integrated music early in the storyboarding process, timing emotional beats to specific compositions. Characters from Your Name, including Taki and Mitsuha, make brief cameo appearances, placing both films in a shared narrative universe.

Awards and Recognition

Weathering with You was selected as Japan's official submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 92nd Academy Awards, a significant honor that underscored the film's cultural importance, though it was not ultimately nominated. The selection itself represented growing institutional recognition of anime as a legitimate contender in international cinema.

At the 43rd Japan Academy Film Prize ceremony, Weathering with You won the Outstanding Animation of the Year award, confirming its status as the premier Japanese animated feature of 2019. The film also received the Audience Award at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain and earned nominations at the Annie Awards, including Outstanding Achievement for an Independent Animated Feature. RADWIMPS' soundtrack received recognition at multiple music industry ceremonies in Japan, and the film's technical achievements in background art and compositing were widely praised within the animation industry.

Critical Reception

Weathering with You holds a 91% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, reflecting broad critical appreciation for its visual artistry and emotional storytelling. Critics consistently praised the film's stunning depiction of Tokyo, its weather effects, and the RADWIMPS soundtrack, while noting that the narrative structure differs meaningfully from Your Name's tightly wound time-loop premise.

Japanese critics and audiences embraced the film warmly, though some noted that its box office trajectory, while exceptional by any standard, inevitably drew comparisons to Your Name's record-shattering performance. International reviewers highlighted the film's willingness to let its teenage protagonists make selfish choices, reading it as a thoughtful commentary on generational attitudes toward climate change and institutional responsibility.

The film cemented Makoto Shinkai's position as the most commercially successful anime director of his generation and one of the most important voices in contemporary Japanese cinema. Its worldwide gross of $193 million placed it among the highest-grossing anime films ever released, and its influence on subsequent anime productions, particularly in environmental design and weather rendering, continues to be felt across the industry.