Voices: Kotaro Daigo, Nana Mori, Sakura Kiryu, Sei Hiraizumi, Shun Oguri, Tsubasa Honda, Chieko Baish Director: Makoto Shinkai FOLLOWING the international success of 2016’s “Your Name,” director Makoto Shinkai conjures another tale of impossible young love stretched across multiple dimensions — even with the protagonists from that mega hit making brief, inconsequential cameos. The dazzling animation in “Weathering With You” again combines almost photorealistic scenery and backgrounds with dazzling splashes of light and color, this time refracted through the ceaseless torrential rain that threatens to submerge Tokyo. “Weathering With You” follows Hodaka Morishima, a first-year high school student running away from his life on a rural Japanese island to live in Tokyo, and Hina Amano, a Tokyo girl who comes upon a mysterious power to manipulate the weather and clear the rain. On the streets of Shinjuku, Morishima, who is broke and looking for a steady job, stumbles upon Amano. He starts working as an intern at an occult magazine run by Keisuke Suga, a man who he meets on the boat ride to Tokyo, and his first task is to track down a “weather-clearing girl,” who can conjure sunshine by praying for it. Morishima discovers the girl is Hina, who took pity on him when he was homeless and hungry. Together they set up a website for monetizing her unusual gift by responding to good weather requests and soon start falling for one another. But Hina’s powers are tethered to ancient Shinto forces, and the more she uses them, the weaker she becomes. She fears her time in this world, and with Hodaka, may be limited. Since 2002’s “Voices of a Distant Star,” Shinkai’s films have revolved around young lovers separated by space and time, while the weather was previously a central motif in 2007’s “5 Centimeters Per Second.” “Weathering With You” not only wedges a sacrificial prophecy between its adolescent lovers, but keeps Hina and Hodaka removed from the rest of society by their economic standing and status as, essentially, underage orphans, unable to function effectively within their urban environment. “Weathering With You” lacks the clarity of vision seen in “Your Name.” While the central plot is more straightforward here, the film leaves a number of dangling plot threads unanswered — a discarded handgun, strange aquatic organisms falling from the sky, questions surrounding Hina’s age — as it builds towards a romantic climax. The plight of disadvantaged youngsters loose on the city streets draws favorable parallels to Hirokazu Koreeda’s “Nobody Knows,” but the moments of elemental fantasy carry less heft than they did in Shinkai’s past offerings. The director’s bold visual signature remains, as do pop outfit Radwimps on the soundtrack, but “Weathering With You” lacks the kinetic bombast that made Shinkai’s earlier works so special. The movie is now being screened in Hong Kong. (SD-Agencies) | 