The Girl’s Body, Climate, and Neoliberalism in the Anime Film Weathering with You

Set in an eternally-raining Tokyo and in a time when the climate has changed permanently, the anime film Weathering with You (2019) tells the story about a teenage girl possessing the magical ability to clear the sky and bring sunshine back to a part of the city for a short period of time through prayers. This form of power is later employed by the young protagonists to run a ‘sunshine girl’ service in the city characterised by the neoliberal market. The first half of the film gives sentimental values to the service; however, as the plot unfolds, the overuse of the magical power gradually results in the bodily sacrifice of the girl protagonist. This article makes the case that Weathering with You makes visible how girls’ bodily sacrifice is entangled with humans’ mistreatment of the environment. Engaging with ecofeminist philosophy, Stacy Alaimo’s term of trans-corporeality, and economic geography, this article argues that the film cautions against manipulation of nature and girls’ bodily labour within the ideological framework of neoliberalism. The ‘sunshine girl’ service therefore offers a dark model that illuminates what it means to be a girl (or human) living in the Anthropocene against the backdrop of masculinist desires to master the natural world.