Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume

Daijin considers himself a god, but he looks like a cat and he has a decidedly selfish, feline-like personality. Unfortunately, he doesn’t just walk on people’s laps with his penetrating paws. He is determined to open portals that would allow Namazu, the mythical worm kaiju, to enter our world, like when he caused the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. It is Sota Munakata’s calling to keep those doors closed, but he will need Suzume Iwato’s help in Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume, which opens Friday in New York.

Iwato is still haunted by the loss of her mother during the 2011 Tohoku earthquake-tsunami. Since then, she has lived with her Aunt Tamaki on picturesque Kyushu. One day, while biking to school, she encountered Munakata, who asks if there are any ruins on the island. In fact, there is an abandoned resort village. Intrigued, Iwato starts exploring the ruins, trying to find the mysterious door Munataka mentioned. The surreal looking stand-alone door certainly looks like what he had in mind, but as she pokes around, she inadvertently releases the “keystone” sealing the portal.

That keystone turns into an extremely mischievous cat that calls itself Daijin (sort of like Daimajin). With Munakata’s help, Iwato barely manages to close the door, but to keep it closed, they will need to put the keystone back in his proper place. Daijin leads them on a merry chase across Japan, opening door after door, with no regard for the death and destruction that could result. Adding a further degree of difficulty, Daijin also curses Munakata, transforming him into the old three-legged stool Iwato’s mother hand-crafted for her.

Only an anime master like Makoto could successfully pull-off a sentient, self-ambulatory stool, sort of like the Beauty & the Beast candlestick, but in a contemporary dramatic setting, presented in a serious manner. Indeed, he pulls it off, while building some truly poignant chemistry between the two lead characters (even though one of them spends most of the film as a small piece of furniture). In this case, the relationship between Iwato and Munataka takes on romantic dimensions, but it is more complex and ambiguous than that of Your Name, Shinkai’s most comparable previous film.

Makoto Shinkai at Metrograph: The Garden of Words

Most of the time, when Hollywood makes anything with a high school setting, they slap a laugh track on it. In contrast, many of Japan’s top animators consider young people’s formative years to be, you know, formative. You can see that respect in diverse films, like From Up on Poppy Hill, A Silent Voice, and Doukyusei—and it is all over the filmography of Makoto Shinkai. A characteristically sensitive but lonely high school student and a fragile adult make fleeting but significant connections in his long short film The Garden of Words, which screens as part of the Metrograph’s weekend Shinkai retrospective.

Japan’s rainy season starts early, but that is just fine with Takao Akizuki. Whenever it rains, he skips first period to sketch in Shinjuku Gyoen, a Prospect Park-style garden retreat right in the midst of Tokyo’s legendarily intense business district. He enjoys sketching in the cool shelter of his favorite gazebo and he also starts to appreciate the company of Yukari Yukino, a pretty twenty-seven-year-old woman.

Akizuki does not realize it, but he and Yukino are more connected than he initially understands. It is not that he is self-absorbed. Akizuki is a good kid, but he largely takes care of himself, because his older brother and mother are fly-by roommates at best. He also works multiple part-time jobs and spends what little spare time he might have studying fashion shoe-wear design. Frankly, his stolen moments with Yukino are the only time-outs he takes from being responsible beyond his years. As for Yukino, his earnest guilelessness provides a small measure of consolation as she recovers from a stress-induced breakdown.

In terms of its beat-sheet outline, Shinkai’s narrative is quiet and simple, but the characters’ inner drama is exceedingly complex. You will not find anything remotely resembling cheap sentiment or cliched teaching moments in Words. Both Akizuki and Yukino will probably be working on their issues for the rest of their lives. By the way, that basically means their human, which is probably the only point Shinkai was trying to make. These are just compelling people that he invites viewers to come to know and understand better.

Words is a poignant film, even by Shinkai’s standards, but he really outdoes himself with the stunningly lush visuals. At times, his renderings of Shinjuku Gyoen are almost photo-realistic. The backdrops are so rich and verdant, you feel like you could just fall into them. It will definitely put you in the mood to cut work to stroll through Central Park, hopefully on a rainy day.

You will be forgiven if you do not recognize Yukino from Your Name, but she does indeed have a small role to play in Shinkai’s blockbuster, so that definitely makes Words part of the Shinkaverse. Regardless, this is an unusually mature and emotionally bittersweet coming-of-age story. With a forty-six-minute running time, it is technically a short film, but it has had legitimate theatrical distribution, because it really is a work of cinematic art. Highly recommended, it screens as part of the short film program during the Metrograph’s Shikai retrospective.

Makoto Shinkai at Metrograph: The Place Promised in Our Early Years

It is an alternative universe obsessed with alternate universes. In this reality, Japan has been divided by the Soviet occupation of Hokkaido since 1974. As far south as Tokyo, people can see the Ezo Tower stretching into the stratosphere. Most of the Japanese and their American allies assume (rightly) that it is a weapon, but its awesomeness as a sight to behold takes on a very different meaning for three teenagers in Makoto Shinkai’s first feature, The Place Promised in Our Early Years, which screens as part of the Metrograph’s weekend Shinkai retrospective.

Hiroki Fujisawa and Takuya Shirakawa are so fascinated by the Tower, they are converting an old drone into a two-seater aircraft, so they can take an up-close-and-personal look-see. Their classmate Sayuri Sawatari is fascinated by their fascination. For a while, they are like Jeanne Moreau and the two title characters in Jules and Jim, until Sayuri mysteriously disappears.

Soon thereafter, the boys go their separate ways for high school. Fujisawa lands an internship at a top-secret research facility funded by the NSA that is studying the Ezo Tower. According to current intelligence, it is indeed a form of weapon that pulls in matter from the dozen or so alternate universes that Japanese scientists have identified. Eventually, Fujisawa’s boss Prof. Tomizawa learns the missing Sawatari has fallen into a catatonic state, because she has some sort of connection to the Tower. It turns out her grandfather in her divided family was responsible for its construction. He didn’t do her any favors, because her consciousness is now trapped in a lifeless alternate universe.

Despite the mild dystopian elements, it is easy to see thematic kinship between this film and Shinkai’s blockbuster hit, Your Name. Frankly, there is a good deal of mind-bending science fiction in the earlier Early Years that we would not have minded seeing Shinkai develop in greater depth. However, his primary concern is the relationships of his three central characters, which truly pay off handsomely.

Fujisawa, Shirakawa, and Sawatari are all believable teens, but some Shinkai’s supporting characters are even more intriguing. This is especially true of the secretly rebellious Tomizawa and the gruff but protective Okabe, the lads’ former boss at the munitions factory, who also happens to be the leader of the hawkish unification resistance.

This is a compelling hybrid of sf and romance, but what really defines the film are the striking visuals rendered by Shinkai (and “co-director” Yoshio Suzuki). Shinkai makes the Earth look unearthly, while still retaining a feeling of the familiar. This is a prime example of why Japanese animation is so well-respected among serious connoisseurs and casual fans alike. It is a gorgeous film, but it also has brains and a romantic soul. Highly recommended, The Place Promised in Our Early Years screens tomorrow (8/11) as part of the Metrograph’s Shinkai series, along with the very nice Children Who Chase Lost Voices and the instant classic Your Name returns for a week-long run.

NYICFF ’17: Your Name.

It is the second highest grossing domestic film in Japan, second only to a Miyazaki film. In some ways, the teen body-switch Macguffin is comfortably nostalgic, evoking memories of Nobuhiko Obayashi’s I Are You, You Am Me, but it also displays a post-Fukushima sensibility. Perhaps it came along at the perfect zeitgeisty time for Japanese audiences, but it is still more than sufficiently universal to sweep up viewers of any nation in its tragic romance. Anime does not get much more emotionally sophisticated than Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name. (trailer here), which screens as the opening spotlight selection of the 2017 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Taki Tachibana is a bit of a mess, but the Tokyo high school student works hard at his part-time job waiting tables. Mitsuha Miyamizu is a very together student, but she would much prefer to live in Tokyo than the provincial Itomori, because she is embarrassed by her overbearing father, the most likely crooked mayor, and the Kuchikamizake rituals (sake brewed from chewed-up and spit-out rice) she is forced to participate in. Even though they are strangers separated by miles, Tachibana and Miyamizu start waking up in each other’s bodies. It happens regularly enough they develop a system leaving notes for each other on their smart phones of what transpired while they were swapped.

Initially, they bicker via voice memos and generally angst out over the ways they disrupt their respective lives, but naturally a strange attraction percolates between them, even though they never met face-to-face. As a result, Tachibana grows alarmed when the switching suddenly stops. In fact, he is so concerned, he sets off to find Miyamizu offline, or whatever the right term might be, only to learn her hometown was destroyed several years prior in a freak comet collision.

At this point, Name takes a turn into Il Mare territory, introducing unexpectedly fantastical, temporal, and spiritual themes. Frankly, Shinkai’s adaptation of his own novel is almost assuredly the most mature and potent movie romance you will see all year—and its anime. Seriously, if you are not carried along by its sweep and earnest pluckiness than you really must be old and mean.

Both Miyamizu and Tachibana are appealing but imperfect teenage characters, who are each surrounded by believably distinctive social circles. Anyone living in the first world, broadly defined, should be able to relate to the body-switchers and their friends. A perfect case in point is Tachibana’s rather endearing crush relationship with Miki Okudera, a college student also working at the restaurant, whom Miyamizu finally asks out, on his behalf.

Arguably, the first act body-switching business is like cinematic comfort food. We have seen it before, but it always seems to work. However, even reasonably committed anime fans are likely to be surprised how original Your Name gets and how deep it goes. The characters, especially the co-leads, are gracefully rendered and many of the visuals are quite striking. Very highly recommended, Your Name. screens this Saturday (2/25) at the SVA Theatre, as the opening spotlight of this year’s NYICFF.

NYICFF ’12: Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Down Below

Maybe Edward Bulwer-Lytton and the hollow Earthers were not so wrong after all. There certainly seem to be mystical forces intruding up into the surface world around the Japanese countryside. One shy school girl discovers the fabled subterranean world of Agartha in Makoto Shinkai’s anime epic Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Down Below (trailer here), which screens during the 2012 New York International Children’s Film Festival.

Asuna Watase is a bright student, who works equally hard around the house as well. After her father’s untimely death, her mother must put in long hours at the hospital to support them. In her mountainside refuge, Watase tunes the crystal radio her father left behind. One day she picks up an otherworldly melody, achingly sad and beautiful in equal measure. Soon thereafter, she is saved from a bizarre Gamera-esque monster by Shun, a mysterious boy roughly her age. He makes quite an impression, but it seems a tragic fate soon lies in store for him.

Though she only briefly knew him, Watase grieves him deeply. As a result, she finds particular resonance in her substitute teacher’s story of Izanago and Izanami, the Japanese variant on the Orpheus and Eurydice myth. Likewise, Mr. Morisaki is very interested in her when he realizes she has made contact with the world beneath. It turns out he has been working with the Arch Angels, a group of “empty-headed Gnostics” outfitted like S.H.I.E.L.D., who have sought the legendary power of Agartha. Unconcerned with such matters, Morisaki seeks to resurrect his late wife. Stranded on the other side with her fanatical sub, Watase accompanies him on his quest, for reasons that are not yet clear to her.

There is a heck of a lot that transpires in Agartha, involving big time mythological archetypes. Highly literate by anime and wider animation standards, Chase is packed with allusions, including periodic nods to the grand old man himself, Hayao Miyazaki. Of course, the diverse mystical fantasyscapes play to Shinkai’s strength. His breathtaking vistas and richly detailed nature studies arguably surpass the recent Studio Ghibli productions.

NYICFF cautions parents there are several potentially nightmare-inducing scenes in Chase, which is rather good news for grown-up anime fans. True to their billing, Shinkai has created some pretty creepy wraith-like shadow-dwelling creatures, as well as an ancient entity that looks as if it shambled out of a Salvador Dali painting. He also keeps the tension ratcheted up, preying on viewer emotions rather ruthlessly. Indeed, more than just another plucky kid who saves the world, there is something quite touching about the spiritually resilient Watase.

Chase is definitely high-end animation, in both visual and narrative terms. It largely skews towards older kids and general fantasy audiences, but should pay-off handsomely for both groups. Highly recommended, it screens again next Saturday (3/10) and the following Sunday (3/18) at the IFC Center, as well as Saturday (3/24) at the Asia Society, as this year’s NYCIFF continues at venues around the City.