Makoto Shinkai, the director best known for Your Name.,
has been hailed as the “next Miyazaki.” He’s certainly not the first to be given
that title, but he may be the most successful. His aforementioned 2016 hit
is the highest grossing film in Japanese animation history. His subsequent film,
2019’s Weathering With You, was another worldwide hit. Those films are
best known for their brilliant vistas, fantastic scores, and touching love
stories. But what about his other films? Do they share any of those traits? And
what, exactly, makes a Makoto Shinkai film?
To answer these questions, I am inviting you, dear reader,
to the Summer of Shinkai, where we will delve into the filmography of one of the
biggest directors in animation at this time. We will be examining every film
(And maybe some short animations of Shinkai’s if I can get my hands on them) he
has worked on to figure out what themes and motifs interest the man the most.
Now, I think I know some of the answers already as I have viewed about half of what
I’ll be looking at. Having said that, viewing the whole canon may reveal
something different and I may reinterpret events in those I have seen.
The other important thing to note is that this project will
most likely extend beyond the summertime as I have to both have time to obtain,
watch, and then write about the films between everything else going on in my
life and the world. Summer of Shinkai is too good a name to pass up though. It
certainly beats the ‘new name every month’ plan I originally had. Welcome to
Maykoto, Shinjuly, etc. It was ugly.
I have no set schedule, but I will be announcing, probably
about a week in advance, when I am going to be writing about a film. You will
be able to find that on both the blog’s twitter (@DefenderofTheM1) and my
personal account (@alexraysnyder), so keep an eye out. I hope you all join on
this journey into the backlog. It’s going to be fun.
If you like what you read here, consider throwing a couple bucks my way to help with costs:
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