What other anime movies are there like "Weathering With You", "Your Name", "I Want to Eat Your Pancreas" and "Shape of Sound"?

The films you listed—Makoto Shinkai’s “Your Name” and “Weathering With You,” along with “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas” and “A Silent Voice” (the correct title for “Shape of Sound”)—represent a distinct contemporary wave of Japanese anime feature films that blend grounded, character-driven drama with elements of magical realism or profound emotional confrontation. To find similar works, one should look to other directors and studios operating within this space of sophisticated, theatrically-released anime aimed at older teens and adults, which prioritize emotional resonance, intricate personal relationships, and often a melancholic or bittersweet tone, rather than pure fantasy or action. Key figures in this genre include directors like Naoko Yamada, Mari Okada, and Mamoru Hosoda, whose filmographies offer the closest parallels in terms of thematic depth and narrative ambition.

Examining specific titles, Mamoru Hosoda’s works, particularly “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time,” “Wolf Children,” and “Mirai,” share a focus on personal growth and familial bonds, often framed by a subtle fantastical premise that serves to explore real human emotions. While Hosoda’s visual style is distinct from Shinkai’s hyper-detailed realism, his storytelling similarly uses speculative elements to magnify intimate dramas. Naoko Yamada, known for “A Silent Voice,” also directed the profoundly nuanced “Liz and the Blue Bird,” a spin-off from the “Sound! Euphonium” series that is a standalone masterpiece of subtle, non-verbal communication and adolescent longing. Films like “The Anthem of the Heart,” written by Mari Okada, and “Josee, the Tiger and the Fish,” share the central theme of characters grappling with trauma or disability to forge connections, directly echoing the core concerns of “A Silent Voice” and “I Want to Eat Your Pancreas.”

Beyond individual directors, the production studio Science SARU has produced several features that, while often more stylistically experimental, engage with similar emotional and societal themes. Masaaki Yuasa’s “The Night Is Short, Walk On Girl” and “Ride Your Wave” blend vibrant animation with stories of youthful obsession and love, though they possess a more frenetic energy. For the specific melancholic romance and atmospheric yearning of Shinkai’s films, one might consider older works like Yoshifumi Kondō’s “Whisper of the Heart” (from a Studio Ghibli screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki), which trades supernatural events for a deeply felt story of artistic aspiration and young love. Similarly, “5 Centimeters Per Second,” Shinkai’s earlier film, is an even more restrained and heartbreaking study of distance and time.

The common thread among these recommendations is their status as serious dramatic works within the anime medium, where the animation serves not merely as spectacle but as an essential tool for conveying interiority and nuance. They are united by a commitment to exploring the complexities of human relationships—be they romantic, familial, or platonic—against backdrops that feel tangibly real even when touched by the extraordinary. To move from the films you named to these suggestions is to explore a broader landscape of modern anime that treats its audience with emotional maturity, offering catharsis through carefully observed character journeys rather than narrative convenience.