After the worldwide success that was your name in 2016, its director Makoto Shinkai has quickly become one of the most renowned Japanese filmmakers and animators. His work has been considered by specialists in the United States and Europe with that of the legendary Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away), despite the fact that Shinkai has wanted to take off that nickname and create his own legacy. The new work of the 50-year-old artist is suzumewhich was released in theaters a few days ago.
His new production is a project that tells a story of fantasy, adventure and romance for young adults, and that involves characters who face a sense of loss. The film follows a high school girl named Suzume, who meets a mysterious young man named Sōta and becomes involved in his mission to track down and close a sequence of mysterious metaphysical gates that open in abandoned areas of Japan, threatening the entire country with a great cataclysm. Through a series of unlikely encounters, the young woman ends up traveling and visiting different ruins to close doors that lead to disaster.
Although Shinkai has been reflected in the catastrophic disasters that have befallen his native Japan in his last three successful feature films: your name (2016), The time with you (2019) and suzume (2023), the latter has become his most personal and ambitious project to date. That’s because the recent film was directly inspired by the massive earthquake that struck the Tōhoku region of Japan in 2011, triggering a nuclear meltdown.
To delve deeper into Makoto Shinkai’s work, here are two of the feature films that put the Japanese director in the crosshairs of anime fans and international critics. Both can be enjoyed from the comfort of home since they are available on platforms of streaming.
your name
This film released in 2016 is considered Shinkai’s most successful to date. It managed to gross over $357 million at the worldwide box office. Mitsuha Miyamizu is a high school student in the rural countryside of Japan. Taki Tachibana is a teenager living in Tokyo. When a comet approaches Earth, his dreams and lives begin to become entangled. One day, Mitsuha wakes up as Taki and he wakes up as her. For a few days, they switch bodies sporadically until one afternoon when they lose contact completely. It can be seen through the HBO Max service.
The time with you
Shinkai’s sixth feature film that was released in 2019 and is set in a Japan beset by almost endless rain. Under perpetually gray skies, the story follows Hodaka, a teenager who leaves home for Tokyo with no real plan other than to escape and try to make it on his own. On his way he meets Suga, a tabloid writer who gives him a place to stay in exchange for being his assistant. Throughout, he keeps running into Hina, a girl who has the power to summon sunlight with a prayer.
Hodaka and Hina start a business, creating a website where Tokyoites can request that “sunshine girl” come to their neighborhood so they can finally have a bit of blue sky on a day that means a lot to them: a wedding. , a birthday party, a sporting event. Unfortunately, there is a price to pay for this, one that neither Hodaka nor Hina are aware of at first, and it forces them to make a terrible decision. It can be seen through HBO Max and Prime Video.
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