Headscratchers / Weathering With You

• Why did Hodaka run away in the first place?
  • According to the light novel, he was being abused by his father and he had an almost negative opinion of everyone who lived there.
• Nobody seems to bat an eye that a girl manages to temporarily cause clear skies with a 100% success rate, even when she appears on television doing just that. It should have gotten the attention of at least some people with more than a fleeting knowledge of statistics.
  • Well, it does - Hodaka mentions that after Hina gets on television, requests on their website rocketed to the point where they decide to close.
• So Takai goes after the criminal who got almost shot by Hodaka to ask him what he knows about the boy. For this he uses a still from a surveillance camera showing the thug holding down Hodaka. Not only does this adequately explain why the boy would feel the need to defend himself, but the footage before that would likely also show how the thug tackled Hodaka to the ground and punched him in the face. Still, Takai says nothing of this and simply lets the thug go, showing that he is perfectly fine with some criminal he knows assaulting minors in the street. What an idiot.
• The rain gets worse, the town is flooding and there's pandemonium everywhere. Still, Takai and his crew find ample time to go after two run-away kids, even going as far as stationing an officer at Nagi's school in order to catch Hina. Alas, in their ineptitude they also manage to startle Hodaka and Hina, making them run away during a situation that could hardly be any worse. Hey, Takai, how about just confirming where they are and letting them stay there until the emergency situation is over? That way you wouldn't have to chase them through a flooded metropolis, endangering them, your crew and other people in the process. Takai, you're an idiot.
• So Takai catches Hodaka and Hina's little brother Nagi, but finds that Hina is not with them anymore. Hodaka is very adamant though that he knows where Hina is and wants to go to that location. So Takai sets out to take Hodaka to that location, because even if Hina is not there, it could lead to some clues, and time is of the essence in situations like this. Well, at least this is what Takai would have done if he was an inspector worth his salt. Unfortunately he is the type that seems to believe that listening to someone who has last seen a missing person is a waste of time, so he does everything to make sure that the case will not move forward. What an idiot.
• Are Hina and Nagi the only members of their family left? Or are there other relatives that they have no means of contacting?
  • The fact that the police never talk about leaving them with a hypothetical deadbeat (as opposed to outright dead) father or any other relatives seems to imply this. When Hodaka first visits Hina's house, he passes by two women talking about them, and this was weeks before the climax. Therefore, it is likely that the authorities have tried for some time to locate relatives and failed to do so.
• How did Nagi and Keisuke managed to find out that Hodaka is heading toward the abandoned building in the climax? Keisuke even managed to get there ahead of him. At least Nagi is implied to have known about the place beforehand since Hina most likely told him about it, and he could just follow the police sirens to figure out where Hodaka is, but how did Keisuke know ahead of time that Hodaka would be there? It's never mentioned that he has any knowledge about the shrine at the top of the abandoned building and even if he did, he wasn't a believer anyway, so logically there shouldn't be any reason for Keisuke to believe that Hodaka would show up there after he fled the police.
• Taking into consideration that Hodoka and Hina completed middle school and the film takes place in the same universe as Kimi No Nawa, how was it that Hodoka wasn’t able to find a job? The film kept mentioning child labor laws, but Taki in Kimi no Nawa worked at a cafe, and he was a current high school student, at least sixteen years or older. Don’t forget he also took more shifts due to Mitsuha spending his money when in his body, despite being a minor at the time. Wouldn’t labor laws apply in that situation? And in Japan, education is compulsory up until middle school, meaning that you needed to at least complete middle school to get a part-time job, which is implied to be the case with Hodoka.
• So the 100% sunshine girl starts business and apparently become reasonably popular while the rainy season continues, then the climax of the film happens and Hodaka is sent home. The rain increases to the point that Tokyo is partially submerged and when Hodaka logs back into the sunshine girl website 3 years later there's only one unread request, 2 years old, from Taki's grandmother? Are we supposed to believe that just as the rain started getting worse, everyone in Tokyo forgot about the sunshine girl and didn't try to ask her to stop the flooding? The general public wouldn't know the details of Hina's sacrifice.