Grand Escape (Weathering With You)

The anthem to end all RADWIMPS anthems, and perhaps the purest distillation of what Makoto Shinkai and Yojiro Noda do together. Grand Escape begins with tension — a held, almost unbearable restraint in the opening bars — before detonating into one of the most emotionally overwhelming musical moments in contemporary anime cinema. The rhythm section drives with the intensity of something running for its life, and the synthesizers create a texture that is simultaneously nostalgic and futuristic, like looking at old photographs while falling forward through time. Vocalist Toko Miura enters in the film version and her voice carries a different emotional register than Noda's — warmer, more open, less guarded — which transforms the duet into a genuine conversation between two people reaching the same conclusion from different directions. Lyrically the song argues, with absolute conviction, that the world does not have to be accepted as it is, that two people together might override the terms of their own tragedy. It is a dangerous kind of romanticism and the music fully commits to that danger. The final sequence in the film set to this song is essentially impossible to think about without feeling something significant move through the body. Play it when you need to believe that running toward something impossible is still the right choice.