Makoto Shinkai is, in no uncertain terms, a genuine underdog
story in the annals of anime history. Starting out by essentially going for
broke in more ways than one, just to bring his first short film Voices Of A
Distant Star into fruition, he has since gone on to become one of the most
celebrated anime filmmakers of the modern era. That may not mean much to those
outside of the fandom, but just to be clear, this guy’s work is so incredibly
lauded that he has often drawn comparisons to Hayao friggin’ Miyazaki. Even if
Makoto himself doesn’t take much credence to those comparisons, that’s pretty
high praise and, even with the little of his work that I’ve seen thus far, I
can’t help but feel that it is entirely warranted. Voices Of A Distant Star is
easily one of the most emotionally potent works of fiction, let alone anime,
ever conceived, and the fact that it’s only 25 minutes in length makes
that feat even more astounding. And now, he has a new feature-length production
out that is also gaining high praise. Time to dig in.
