Who is Makoto Shinkai? Well, Makoto Shinkai is a Japanese film director, famous for his 2016 Masterpiece "Your Name" also known as "Kimi no na wa", which became the highest grossing anime movie of all time. When Makoto Shinkai was younger, he studied Japanese literature at Chuo University, where he was a member of a literature club where he drew picture books. Interestingly, after Shinkai graduated he became a video game artist, working at a company called Falcom.

 

During his time working at Falcom he decided to experiment with computer animated software, such as Adobe Illustrator and aftereffects, which resulted in Shinkai making short films in his spare time, which resulted Shinkai releasing a short film titled She and Her Cat in 1999, which Shinkai animated, drew, directed, and voiced himself.

 

After he released She and Her Cat, it caught the attention of a company called Comix Wave films, which hired Shinkai, leaving his job at Falcom behind in 2001, which resulted in Shinkai creating his second film, Voices From A Distant Star, also known as Hoshi No Koe, a 25 minute story about a school girl mecha pilot sending voice messages to her best friend on earth.

The film was actually inspired by Makoto Shinkai and his fiancee, Chieko Misaka, sending texts back and forth to one another while he was at work.

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Shinkai has certain key themes and elements in his film making, for example the most famous aspect of his film making is how he has extremely detailed and vivid backgrounds, being able to use lighting and colours to the absolute best of his ability, but its not just backgrounds, Shinkai enjoys using the theme of long distance relationships, having something preventing characters from being with one another, and does this expertly, with Voices From A Distant Star separating the 2 main characters by being on different planets. Shinkai has also made a series of great films, such as Your Name, The Garden Of Words, and Weathering With You, Your Name being a story of 2 17 year olds swapping bodies, The Garden Of Words being about an amateur shoe maker who falls in love with a school teacher after spending time with her in a garden, and Weathering With You being about a runaway boy who meets a girl who is able to control the weather, but all of these films use the extremely detailed Makoto Shinkai background art he's been known for, which has even earned Makoto Shinkai the title of "The Next Hayao Miyazaki".