From She and her Cat ~Everything Flows~(*), the short series based on the even shorter Makoto Shinkai short. I’m not actually sure why I’m even aware of this one, given I didn’t even watch the show (I hear it’s pretty good), but here we are. I gather it contains the titular cat. I presume it isn’t getting thrown into a river – this isn’t exactly Utena, or at least I don’t imagine it is. As I say, I’ve not actually seen it.

What I have seen, though, is Shinkai’s new flick, Weathering with You. I’ve seen it twice, even. As someone who isn’t historically a huge Shinkai fan (I like Your Name and Place Promised in our Early Days, everything else I’m somewhere between “Meh” and “I’ve fallen asleep watching this in a cinema” on), I’m somewhat shocked to say that it’s probably my favourite movie (anime or otherwise) of the year. Admittedly, work has kept me away from the cinema as much as I’d usually like to go, and a bunch of the other stuff I’d probably like has been pushed back to early next year here in the UK, but it’s still something of a fact that feels shocking to me.

Not, admittedly, more shocking that the fact that I really liked the second Eureka Hi-Evo movie, Anemone, given what a train-wreck that first one was, but starting from one of the worst anime movies in recent memory gave it much higher headroom, if you get what I mean.

((*)Not She and her Cart, which I almost typed twice)