Makoto Shinkai

• 1. Introduction

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  Makoto Shinkai spent June of 2000 sketching a single image: a girl gripping a mobile phone inside a cockpit. That drawing became the seed of Voices of a Distant Star, a science fiction story. It carried him out of the video game industry and into feature filmmaking. Today he is known for anime films about teenagers and high school students falling in love, rendered in strikingly detailed animation. How does someone go from animating clips for a video game company to directing some of the most talked-about films in Japan?

• 2. Nagano Roots

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  Shinkai was born in 1973 in Koumi, a town in Nagano Prefecture, into a family that runs a construction company. He later traced his drive to create back to the manga, anime, and novels he encountered as a middle schooler. At Chuo University he studied Japanese literature and joined the juvenile literature club, where he spent time drawing picture books rather than just reading them. He graduated from the university's Faculty of Literature in March 1996. He had trained in literature, not filmmaking, yet within months of graduating he would be animating for a living.

• 3. A Cat's Eye View

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  In 1996, Shinkai took a job at Nihon Falcom, a video game company, right after finishing his degree. He spent five years there, producing video clips for games and handling graphic design work, including material for the web. It was at Falcom that Shinkai met the musician Tenmon, who would go on to score many of his later films.

  In 1999, Shinkai released She and Her Cat, a five-minute short piece shot entirely in monochrome. The film follows a cat's day-to-day life with its owner, a young woman, told completely from the animal's point of view. It won several honors, including the grand prize at the 12th DoGA CG Animation Contest in 2000. That short film's success planted an idea he could not shake, one that would eventually pull him away from Falcom for good.

• 4. Breaking Into Features

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  In May 2001, Shinkai quit his job at Falcom to work on Voices of a Distant Star full time. A company called Manga Zoo, now a smartphone app, had offered him a grant to turn his idea into an anime they could sell. Shinkai later said the project took about seven months of what he called real work. The finished OVA became his first release under the CoMix Wave banner, the studio he had founded, and set him on the path to features.

  The Place Promised in Our Early Days followed, a 90-minute film released in Japan on the 20th of November 2004. The film marked his debut as a feature director and won wide critical acclaim, along with many honors.

  Shinkai's next project, 5 Centimeters per Second, premiered on the 3rd of March 2007. It was made up of three linked short films: Cherry Blossom, Cosmonaut, and the title segment, 5 Centimeters per Second. That September, Nagano's leading newspaper, Shinano Mainichi Shinbun, aired a television commercial that Shinkai animated himself. The commercial finished, Shinkai then stepped back from filmmaking for a year before starting his next project.

• 5. A Pause And A Return

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  Shinkai spent 2008 in London, resting after finishing 5 Centimeters per Second. He returned to Japan in 2009 to begin his next project.

  In December 2009, he released two concept drawings for the film. He described it as a lively story of adventure, action, and romance. At its center was a cheerful, spirited girl on a journey to say farewell. In November 2010, Shinkai revealed the title, Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below. He released a teaser trailer on the 9th of that month. The film reached Japanese theaters on the 7th of May 2011.

  His next feature, The Garden of Words, followed on the 31st of May 2013. Three years later, on the 26th of August 2016, he would release the film that would change the scale of his career: Your Name.

• 6. The Disaster Trilogy

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  Critics praised Your Name for its narrative, imagery, animation, and music. Reviewers also pointed to its emotional weight and its skillful use of post-postmodernist themes. The film also did well commercially, becoming the sixth-highest-grossing film of all time in Japan.

  Weathering with You reached Japanese theaters on the 19th of July 2019. It was also a commercial success, becoming the tenth-highest-grossing Japanese film of all time.

  Suzume, Shinkai's seventh feature-length film, reached Japanese theaters on the 11th of November 2022, and it was both a critical and commercial success. Together with Your Name and Weathering with You, it forms what is collectively known as the "Disaster trilogy." None of that success, though, has stopped reviewers from filing Shinkai under another director's shadow.

• 7. Beyond The Screen

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  Reviews at outlets including Anime Advocates and ActiveAnime have called Shinkai "The New Miyazaki." Shinkai has brushed the comparison off as an "overestimation."

  Among his own favorites are Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky, Nausicaä, and The Castle of Cagliostro. He also names Hideaki Anno's The End of Evangelion and Mamoru Oshii's Patlabor 2: The Movie among his favorite anime.

  Shinkai is married to a retired actress and producer best known for starring in the film Versus. The couple's daughter, also a child actress, was born in 2010.

  An asteroid, 55222 Makotoshinkai, is named in his honor, carrying his name through space.