...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. 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.

UPDATE 2-25-2009: Crunchyroll hosting Shinkai's movies for Global Shinkai Day

I haven't posted anything on here for a while, but there's news of an event hosted by Cherry Blossoms Falling:

ANIME FANS WORLDWIDE TO CELEBRATE GLOBAL SHINKAI DAY 2009

Fans of Japanese anime creator Makoto Shinkai are gathering worldwide in cyberspace February 27-28 for Global Shinkai Day 2009. The unofficial English-language fansite Cherry Blossoms Falling (http://cherryblossomsfalling.myfastforum.org) is hosting the event with discussion and contests, calling upon fans from every part of the globe to show their appreciation and support for the works of this highly-acclaimed director. A chat widget will be available on the main page for fan discussions. Contests will held for inspired fan-made works in art, film and essay. No subscription is necessary to participate. Participants who own copies of the four anime by Mr. Shinkai (She and Her Cat, Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and 5 Centimeters Per Second) are encouraged to watch these in chronological order during some portion of the 24-hour period beginning at 8 pm EST. A proposed schedule is posted on the site.

The unofficial Chinese-language fansite (http://www.shinkai.cn) will also be participating, showcasing fan-made short films inspired by Mr. Shinkai's works. The unofficial Japanese-language fansite Makoto Shinkai Fan Web (http://daike.hp.infoseek.co.jp) is also lending its support through news and information.

Please contact laz_long87 [at] yahoo [dot] com for more information.

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: