How Makoto Shinkai became my anime standard

As a kid I used to watch a lot of anime. Pokemon, Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball-Z, and even some Studio Ghibli movies were staples for kids my age then. But then I grew up and outgrew my love for anime. It wasn’t until as recently as two years ago that I started watching anime again. The first anime movie I watched after so many years was Kimi No Na Wa (Your Name).

Having grown up watching Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, I always thought anime movies couldn’t get better than this. With Miyazaki’s masterful storytelling and his themes of human-nature relationship, Studio Ghibli was always like a warm blanket of comfort for me as a kid. But after a point, it became monotonous.

Then I stumbled upon this little movie, called Kimi No Na Wa two years ago, and let me just say, my perception towards anime shifted a great deal. While earlier watching anime would bring me a keen sense of nostalgia for my childhood days, watching Makoto Shinkai’s movies make me relate to the emptiness often felt by adults after leaving their hometown. This is one of the reasons why I love reading Murakami as well. That sense of isolation and unknown longing is something Makoto Shinkai captures brilliantly in his stories. Of his work my favourite obviously is Kimi No Na Wa and I doubt that can ever change. But some of Shinkai’s more underrated works like A Garden of Words and 5 Cms Per Second are really beautiful. What sets him apart from other animators is the vivid and realistic visuals that we see in his films and his well-sketched and relatable characters. If you are fond of good visual aesthetics and beautiful stories, please watch his films, they will change your lives!