Global Shinkai Day 2009...

Nick — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:16:48 -0500

...is coming to a close.

This had become a bigger event that I had even anticipated. I've been a member of the Cherry Blossoms Falling Makoto Shinkai fansite forums for the better part of a year now and I remember when Global Shinkai Day was just an idea put up to just get the forum members for a couple of fan sites together to simply watch Shinkai's movies together at the same time. I had the idea of setting up some kind of voice-chat collaboration so that we can talk and have conversations through the films, so I had setup a Ventrilo server1.

There weren't as many people with mics on as I wanted, but it seems that my ongoing commentary of the films (especially early on) became a bit of a hit anyways. I now have probably around 10 hours or more of audio to go through to pull out snippets of observations and information that we went through about the films. It would be pretty cool to put together commentary tracks for the films together. It would probably months of work to do, but I feel like I might be up to it. Still, much of it was me just blathering on about whatever came to mind at the time, even down to playing guitar at one point during the times between the films. Yes, you just might be able to hear me attempt to play "One More Time, One More Chance" on my Yamaha acoustic. If I dare. And the time I started imbibing myself on sake...

In any case, I really have to thank Laz from the Cherry Blossoms Falling forums for contacting the people at CoMix Wave and Crunchyroll to get all of this together. Here's a few statements from him to start and end the event that I recorded from the Ventrilo chat:

Introduction to Global Shinkai Day 2009 (MP3)

Closing Statements to Global Shinkai Day 2009 (MP3)

Again, a very big thank you Laz Long for getting this whole event rolling. Hopefully, we can make Global Shinkai Day 2010 an even bigger event.

1. Settled on, really, as I was looking at options like Skype, Teamspeak, and Dimdim, but in the end, Ventrilo was just the best option overall. Though I'm going to have a good look at Teamspeak 3 in the future if it gets released soon.

A Collection of Makoto Shinkai Shorts And an English Fan Site

Nick — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:06:31 -0400

Well, I'm quite flattered that Fledge thinks my obsessions are working looking into. So, I will return with even more Makoto Shinkai visuals!

But first, I need to announce the Makoto Shinkai English Fan Forum And Site. It's not super active yet, and there hasn't been any major discussion of Shinkai's work yet, but hopefully, I can get some time to resolve that issue. It's been open for several months now, and I only found it from Daike's Shinkai Fan Site a couple of months ago.

Now let's go back in time for what I would call his pre-breakout days. These were the shorts Shinkai made before he quit his then day job to work on Voices of a Distant Star:

Other Worlds

This is the first of Shinkai's work that I know of. Featuring "Gymnopédie No. 1" by French composer and pianist Erik Satie, this is Shinkai before he had sound effects, voice acting, or color. Clocking in at less than 90 seconds, Other Worlds (Also Tooi Sekai or 遠い世界) contains several themes and motifs that would be the spine of almost all of his future major work:

Best described as visual poetry, this is also the animation that I would call as the most "pure", as other than Satie's song, Shinkai did everything including storyboarding, shot placement, backgrounds, character designs, hand-drawn animations, computer graphics, compositing, editing, and timing. Made in 1997 to 19991, Other Worlds is a short animation that I watch many times, and it always manages to leave a lump in my throat. The idea is very abstract, the drawings are crude, yet it still manages to connect to me.

She and Her Cat

Another independent short animation that I would call visual poetry, She and Her Cat (also Kanojo to Kanojo no neko) runs for a bit under 5 minutes and is perhaps my most favorite Shinkai film. This time we have voice acting featuring Shinkai himself and his then girlfriend and the background piano piece was composed and performed by a co-worker going under the name Tenmon 2, but otherwise Shinkai did all of the visuals and timing. We also start to see Shinkai perfecting his background imagery, lighting effects, camera placement, and other directing skills that, to me, form much of the appeal of his later work:

To me, this is his most brilliant work. Shinkai worked on this for around 5 months while working a day job at a game company in 20003 and stars Chobi4 the cat as the main character voiced by Shinkai himself. The film is really about his owner, who's name is unknown but is referred to as "She" by Chobi. I find it to be a powerfully emotional piece.

After this, I'll be listing the other short and non-independent animations that Shinkai has done after his breakout and may have slipped under the radar of many of his fans, but they also feature motifs and visuals that are very common in his work. A very big thanks to Daike for his very informative "Other Works" page, and I highly recommend going there to get more information about where these animations came from. Mainly, I'll be skipping over Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and Five Centimeters Per Second as I highly recommend renting/purchased these movies and watching them on the best home theater system you can (or better yet, try to watch them in a theater). I'll also exclude Neko no Shuukai because I've mentioned it before.

Bittersweet Fools opening

This was the opening for the Minori game Bittersweet Fools created by Makoto Shinkai in 2001:

Technically, it seems this one was made before he worked on Voices of a Distant Star. This and Voices of a Distant Star are also the last two animations that Shinkai directed in which he also did the character animations.

Wind -A Breath of Heart- opening

This is the opening for the Minori game Wind -A Breath of Heart-. The characters were drawn by the Minori staff, but Shinkai apparent did all of the other visuals:

How the CG cherry petal scene at the start might look familar to Shinkai fans, as he was actually working on this opening at the same time he was working on Voices of a Distant Star and used the same CG effect in both.

As a side note, Makoto Shinkai was credited for working on the CG in the Wind: A Breath of Heart TV series. Unfortunately, not everything that Shinkai touches turns to gold. It was, to say it bluntly, crap, but it didn't seem like Shinkai had anything to do with the directing or story writing.

Tou no Mukou

This 3-minute animation was a "draft" of The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and could be thought of as a pilot for the film. It works pretty well as a trailer for the film too, but readers that have watched the film should notice the differences:

I apologize for not being able to find a subtitled version of this clip.

Egao

Now for something a bit different: an actual music video!

If you really want more info on this music video, Daike has quite a bit of it (Do a find on the title "Egao").

Haru no Ashioto opening

Another game opening directed by Shinkai in 2004. The music was composed by Tenmon:

ef -a fairy tale of the two- opening

Again, directed by Shinkai in 2006, music composed by Tenmon:

The paper airplane scene near the beginning might be familiar to those who watched Five Centimeters Per Second.

As you can see, I am a fan of Makoto Shinkai, probably bordering on obsession5. Hopefully, you can see it's for good reasons. Now go out and watch Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and Five Centimeters Per Second, dammit!

UPDATE: Apparently, I forgot one more short Shinkai had directed...

Commercial for The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun newspaper

Shinkai created this commercial sometime last year for his hometown's paper. Unfortunately, the only example of it has the audio out of sync, but it really isn't a big deal:

1. Shinkai apparently mostly finished Other Worlds in 1997, but continued to tweak it until 1999. Source: http://daike.hp.infoseek.co.jp/03_filmography/other_works.html
2. Tenmon would also be Shinkai's "go to" composer for music in his films since She and Her Cat. A good choice, as I find that their styles match perfectly for each other. Shinkai's movies would not be so good without Tenmon's piano and orchestration supporting them.
3. Source: http://daike.hp.infoseek.co.jp/03_filmography/neko.html
4. Chobi also makes cameo appearances in Shinkai's future work, but not as a talking cat.
5. Ok, who am I kidding? I am obsessed!

Makoto Shinkai English Fan Forum And Site

Nick — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 01:21:57 -0400

Not much of a "site", yet, but this is the only unofficial English-speaking Makoto Shinkai fan site that I know of.