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Vertical Licenses Weathering With You Anime Film's Manga

Vertical announced on Friday that it has licensed Wataru Kubota's manga adaptation of Makoto Shinkai's anime film Weathering With You (Tenki no Ko). The company will release the manga in summer 2020.

Kodansha Comics describes the story:

The summer of freshman year of high school. A boy named Hodaka runs away from his island home and goes to Tokyo, where he spends every day in loneness. Then, in a corner of the bustling city he meets a girl named Hina. But he soon finds out that she possesses a mysterious power.

The manga launched in the September issue of Kodansha's Afternoon magazine on July 25. Kodansha released the first compiled book volume on Friday.

Weathering With You opened in 359 theaters and 448 screens in Japan on July 19. The film sold 1,159,020 tickets for 1,643,809,400 yen (about US$15.22 million) in its first three days in 358 theaters. The film ranked #1 in its opening weekend. The film has sold a total of 10.27 million tickets to earn 13,738,922,000 yen (about US$126 million) as of October 20. The film is now the #7 highest-earning domestic film of all time in Japan and the highest-grossing film in Japan this year.

GKIDS has licensed the film for North America, and will give the film an "awards qualifying" theatrical run this year before a wider screening with subtitles and an English dub beginning on January 17.

Fathom Events will screen the film in theaters in the United States on January 15 and 16. The screenings will be a "Special Fan Preview" with exclusive bonus content before GKIDS opens the film in North America on January 17.

Anime NYC and the Hawai'i International Film Festival (HIFF) both screened the film on Sunday. The anime won the Audience Award at the Animation Is Film Festival in Los Angeles in October. The film's October 18 screening at the festival was the film's United States premiere, with director Shinkai and producer Genki Kawamura appearing in person. Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) hosted the North American premiere of Weathering With You as part of its Special Presentations category, with screenings on September 8, 10, and 14.

The anime is won the Best Animated Feature Film award of the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in Brisbane, Australia on Thursday. Japan submitted the film for consideration in the Best International Feature Film category at the 92nd Academy Awards.

Shinkai also penned a novel adaptation of the anime that debuted in Japan on July 18, a day before the film's July 19 opening. Yen Press will release the novel in hardcover and digitally on December 17.

Sources: Vertical's Twitter account, Kodansha Comics