Tim Lieder

2. Weathering With You vol 1 - Makoto Shinkai (story) & Wataru Kubota (Art) - So I liked the movie Your Name and then decided to check out the Manga. Your Name vol 3 review will be coming shortly but I did start the other manga written by this guy and it does have a lot of the characteristics of Your Name - small town vs. Tokyo culture shock, two star-crossed leads and magic. In this case the magic is the fact that the girl can change the weather. However, there are hints that this is not going to be just her making the sun shine during the worst deluge in years (according to the characters). Ok, there's a Buddhist monk giving the exposition about weather goddesses and how they end up tragic.

THe romance is at the heart of the book as the guy finds the girl and convinces her to use her powers for money. Mostly he's a guy who ran away from his island because nothing was happening there and he felt trapped. There's also a talk about how an island is a prison but Tokyo is also a prison. So there's some teen angst for you.

The strain in the book comes early when the boy is on the streets and pulls a gun on a bully, an adult bully who likes to just push people around and gets creepy with the girl protagonist. So that comes toward the end with people in suits coming for him and asking the bullying adult about him.

I'll have more later.