What is the most important story ever told? Respected author and English journalist Christopher Booker pioneered the idea within his novel “The Seven Basic Plots,” in which he determined, I’m sure you guessed, that there are only seven types of stories. It’s a topic that’s been agreed upon, and debated by scholars and your 5th-grade English teacher ever since. These include: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, The Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Within these stories can be unique themes and characters that differentiate themselves from one another. If we cut past this red tape and got to the core of what a story really is, what would we find?
Since 2016’s Your Name, Japanese filmmaker Makoto Shinkai, has presented that perhaps there’s only one story. Your Name, 2019’s Weathering With You, and 2022’s Suzume, all share a central theme and many similar story ideas. What singular story lives within Shinkai? For discussion, we’ll mainly be focusing on the narrative in Weathering With You.
Runways seem to be on Shinkai’s mind, as they play a central part in telling his story. Weathering, sees 16-year-old Hodaka, running from home to find a new life in Tokyo, where it has been raining for months, with no signs of stopping. His fate is forever changed when the owner of K & A Planning, Keisuke, takes Hodaka in to be his assistant. Working there, he follows a story surrounding urban legends where he discovers that his newly found love interest Hina, is actually an urban legend herself, a sunshine girl. Hina can pray to the gods and if even for a few minutes bring back the sun in the always-raining Tokyo. From there, the lovebird’s adventure begins.
Shinkai seems to believe that only through leaving home can you begin to find your own story, as again, this idea is also in the other two films. The main characters of Name, run away to try and find each other at separate points in the story. In Suzume, the title character leaves her small town to help a man who is turned into a chair, chasing a cat who is supposedly opening doors which releases an enemy from another dimension. Another typical day in Japan. Elements of “Voyage and Return” are found with this idea as each character comes back with a new understanding of themselves.
Respecting or disobeying tradition shown in the form of ancient legends of Japanese gods and monsters is the center behind this structure. Throughout the events of Weathering, we discover the tale of the sunshine girl always ends with her being sacrificed to the gods, and this sacrifice is the only way to restore the weather to its natural state. Hina sacrifices herself for the greater good, leaving Hodaka to save her, by traveling into a supernatural world hidden within the sky. Eventually finding her and bringing her back, with the consequence of knowing the rain will continue, and as we find out three years later, this is exactly what happens as Tokyo is now flooded where parts of it are uninhabitable.
With this, part of Shinkai’s story is being willing to sacrifice for the ones you love. Each film also has a supernatural world our characters choose to enter. Name’s slightly differs, where the leads can meet and decide to save the inhabitants of a city before being hit by a comet. They change the fate of the city to be with each other. Suzume travels to another realm to save the man she loves, who is the same guy who was turned into a chair. This can be related to “Rag to Riches,” but in a more metaphorical sense.
Along with this, through the visuals, it’s shown how these themes tie into the picture, most notably, the effects on nature. Name and Suzume both use beautiful animation to show rips across the sky, the events of each story show our heroes attempting to restore order. Weathering and Suzume’s visual connection comes from a large circular cloud or monster covering Tokyo, though in each film they slightly mean different things, with the circle in Weathering being only visible when traveling to the ‘sky world,’ and Suzume’s being a literal creature to defeat. These themes would more than definitely be connected to the story type “Overcoming the Monster.”
What is Shinkai’s one story? Looking at the discussion above, he believes the most important story is that the journey to find love means you must be willing to leave behind the familiarity of who you were, sacrificing everything else, regardless of the consequences. Box office numbers and positive reviews show that clearly, this is a story that appeals to many. Shinkai cleverly blends some of his favorite seven-story types to tie various ideas together to fit into one cohesive plot structure.
Storytelling is entirely in the hands of the creator. If you could tell a story, what would be its most crucial theme? Stories stay with us because they affect us emotionally, and because of that, when watching a certain director’s filmography we can see what left an impact on them. The most important story ever told is the one that holds the most meaning to you. In a singular word, Matoko Shinkai’s living tale is love.
MooCow Entertainment 