In 2016, Makoto Shinkai’s your name. film promoted SUNTORY water with several viral TV ads. It looks like his latest film Weathering With You is also up to the same tricks. SUNTORY began streaming a tie-up commercial with Weathering With You on Sunday. The ads were first unveiled during a rerun of your name. that aired on Sunday.
…But that’s not all! Weathering With You is also promoting SoftBank, a streaming service among other things, with a bizarre 30-second ad, which shows the male protagonist Hodaka watching your name. footage on his phone. The heroine Hina teases him about whether your name.‘s Mitsuha is his type of girl, and as Hodaka gets flustered, SoftBank’s dog mascot appears and says in an old man’s voice: “It must be nice to be so young.”
Another ad indicates that the SoftBank mascot will have a cameo in the film itself. In this ad, the dog is shown bragging about his appearance in the film, and then when his owners take him to see the movie, everyone is underwhelmed by the fact that he only appears in a single frame.
Incidentally, this is the said frame where the mascot appears in the film.
To wrap up this round of Weathering With You commercials, footage from the film is also used to promote the Baitoru job search website. I mean, considering how Hodoka had moved to find a job in the film, this ad is kinda apt in a way.
Weathering With You will open in Japan on July 19. Shinkai confirmed that the film will get a worldwide release, and releases have already been decided for North America, Europe, Asia, and South America.