Most of you are probably not aware that February 27 was Shinkai Day, celebrating Makoto Shinkai and his works. The day was celebrated by otaku everywhere gathering around their monitors or TVs to watch Shinkai’s movies, which were put up on CrunchyRoll for free streaming that day.

Fans worldwide were encouraged to participate in Shinkai Day by watching his four works – She and Her Cat, Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and 5 Centimeters Per Second – in chronological order at some point during the day. While I didn’t quite have the hours necessary for this, I did watch some of 5 Centimeters Per Second (his most recent work). I may review it and his other works at some point in the future, but for now I’ll just explain what they’re about and why Makoto Shinkai is so significant.

She and Her Cat

She and Her Cat: Their Standing Points is (shockingly) about a woman and her cat. It’s only a 5 minute OVA, but manages to depict a cat reminiscing about his life and his feelings for his owner, a single woman. As Shinkai’s first work it’s fairly rough – one of the interesting things about Shinkai is that he has very visibly improved with each production – but still enjoyable as a short, sweet story.

Voices of a Distant Star

Voices of a Distant Star was released in 2002, and I saw it shortly thereafter. As the first Shinkai production I saw, I found it pretty interesting, with its story about a girl and a boy who grow ever farther apart as the girl goes off to fight in space. Their only way to communicate is through text messages, and as they get farther apart, messages take longer and longer to reach each other, with the final message taking nine years to cross the distance.While this was a good, sad story, what really made this interesting to me was that Shinkai had written, directed, and produced this all himself, creating it solely on his Mac computer. Shinkai and his fiancee did the voicework (though a later dub was made with professional voice actors). I seem to remember that when it was re-dubbed the animations were also updated a bit, but that may be my imagination.

Beyond the Clouds: The Place Promised in our Early Days

Beyond The Clouds: The Place Promised in our Early Days was Shinkai’s first full scale production, being longer and having greatly improved animation compared to his previous works. The film is available in HD, and is well worth it for its absolutely astounding visuals. The story takes place in a divided Japan, with the north and the south occupied by different parties. This is of course the source of conflict throughout the movie. Wikipedia has a more in-depth synopsis if you’re interested.

5 Centimeters Per Second

5 Centimeters Per Second consists of three short films: Oukashou, Cosmonaut, and 5 Centimeters per Second. It was released in 2007, and is currently Shinkai’s most recent work. It truly is amazing. The stories are interesting and moving, and the visuals are absolutely incredible. The animation is above any and all other anime. It’s just beautiful. The music is also incredible. So go buy the Blu-ray and the soundtrack – you won’t regret it.

Shinkai’s productions have thus far had the same sorts of themes. The stories all feel like they’ve been created by the same person. To some this may become boring and repetitive, but I know that I and many of my friends think that these are wonderful perspectives on relationships – childhood friendships, adult friendships, intimate relationships as teenagers and as adults, etc – that are portrayed beautifully. The movies are all somehow calming, yet at the same time incredibly interesting. It is very clear that Shinkai knows what kinds of movies he wants to make, and as a result they all feel connected. The music, composed by Shinkai’s friend Tenmon for each of Shinkai’s works, aids greatly in this.

I mentioned that his skills have improved over time, and tried to show this in the images. All of his works show his mastery of scenery, backgrounds, cities… everything except people. This is incredibly evident in Voices of a Distant Star, which has wonderful backdrops, but fairly bad character animation. Beyond the Clouds shows great improvement, which is probably largely attributable to having a full animation team, as well as better animation tools. It still has some weird-looking moments, though. In 5 Centimeters Per Second, these character animation problems seem to have disappeared. The characters still look different than what you’d be used to in “normal” anime, but never bad – they look like Makoto Shinkai has made them. They retain his original style while greatly improving upon it. It’s difficult to explain, but is immediately evident if you watch, say, Voices and then Centimeters.

While I’m not sure how much of a success Shinkai Day was (or if there’s even a way to measure its success), I do know that Makoto Shinkai is an incredible artist and his works are worthy of praise, and people should definitely take the time to appreciate them more than just once per year.