His films are populated by lonely souls who gaze mournfully into the heavens as they cling to messages sent back and forth through the ether, promising a passionate reunion that is often never realised.
As a result, the sky plays a major role in Shinkai’s aesthetic, whether cluttered with pendulous clouds, dappled with fractured beams of sunlight, sparkling with the stars of a distant galaxy, or pulsating with encroaching elemental destruction.
With the release this week in Hong Kong cinemas of Suzume, the third and final chapter of his loose disaster trilogy (after Your Name and Weathering With You) which screened in competition in Berlin International Film Festival last month, we look back over Shinkai’s body of work and attempt to rank his films from worst to best.8. Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011)
While there’s nothing necessarily wrong with Shinkai’s 2011 offering, which delivers a perfectly engrossing and entertaining fantasy adventure, it nevertheless feels like a misstep alongside the rest of his work.
After the grounded realism and emotional heft of 5 Centimetres Per Second, this tale of mythical creatures, crystals and forgotten kingdoms seems like a concession to the demands of the marketplace rather than furthering the filmmaker’s artistic endeavours or thematic pursuits.
The result is a film that aligns more closely with the mainstream magical epics of Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli and yet, somehow, accomplishes less.
7. The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)
In his first feature, Shinkai lays out the narrative and thematic template to which he would return repeatedly over the following two decades.
In an alternate post-World War II Japan where the northernmost island of Hokkaido has fallen to the Soviet Union, Takuya and Hiroki search for their missing classmate, Sayuri.
Suspicion grows that her disappearance may be connected to the erection of a strange tower which appears to replace surrounding matter with that from other universes.
As the years go by, Takuya and Hiroki become involved in scientific studies of parallel worlds and an underground resistance movement, as they come to understand Sayuri’s powerful significance.
6. Weathering With You (2019)
Shinkai tackles Tokyo’s homelessness crisis in his eagerly anticipated follow-up to the smash hit Your Name, albeit in his own distinctive style.
The story zeroes in on Hina, a young girl who has the power to control the weather and who is called upon to save the city when apocalyptic floods threaten to engulf it – an effort that comes at a terrible cost.
While thrilling in its visuals and ambitious efforts to meld the ancient with the modern, one can’t help but feel Shinkai sees something of himself in Hina, as if he had been called upon to perform a dazzling feat of superhuman filmmaking, only to nearly drown under the weight of audience expectation.
5. 5 Centimetres per Second (2007)
Clocking in at barely an hour, this triptych of romantic encounters in a young man’s life tackles themes of distance, separation and undeclared love. For the first time, it does so within an entirely grounded and realistic setting, free of any fantastical or science-fiction elements.
In the film’s first and longest segment, Takaki spends a wintry evening contending with numerous delays on Tokyo’s complex rail system, in an effort to see his sweetheart Akari one last time before her family moves away.
The void she leaves in his heart will go on to haunt him for years to come, until a chance encounter years later offers a glimmer of cathartic respite.
4. Suzume (2022)
The aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake forms the backdrop of Shinkai’s latest film, which follows our eponymous heroine as she encounters a mysterious young man who leads her to a door, standing in the ruins of an old resort.
When she opens it, Suzume inadvertently unleashes a destructive elemental force that threatens to destroy the entire country, and so begins a cross-country adventure to find the keystone that will close the door and contain the threat.
Again blending elements of the magical with the mundane, and the traumatic with the truly inspiring, Suzume channels Shinkai’s recurring concerns into more pressing real-world issues to winning effect.
3. Voices of a Distant Star (2002)
While technically a short film, this early hand-drawn offering displays such keen ambition and wide-eyed fascination for many of the themes that would come to define Shinkai’s oeuvre, it would be remiss not to include it here.
In 2047, schoolgirl Mikako is recruited to fight in a distant intergalactic war. From the confines of her mech robot’s cockpit, she sends emails to her classmate Noboru back on Earth.
As her mission takes her further into deep space, the messages take longer and longer to reach him. Mikako’s loneliness is amplified by the fact she remains a teenager while her would-be lover blossoms into adulthood and attempts to live his life.
The result is one of the finest, and most painfully tragic, portrayals of time dilation on screen.
2. The Garden of Words (2013)
The film marks a shift in style for Shinkai, as his adoption of computer-generated animation allows him to create an almost photorealistic look to the backgrounds and locations.
The film also mimics handheld camera movements to add a degree of realism to the production that had eluded his earlier work.
The story follows the unlikely relationship between two strangers who meet repeatedly in the same park on rainy days. What keeps the pair apart this time is not distance, but their age difference – Takao is 15, while Yukari is 27.
A more daring and mature outing for Shinkai, this 45-minute mini-masterpiece offers a tantalising glimpse of a filmmaker experimenting with form and challenging himself to create something more personal and profound.
1. Your Name (2016)
All of Shinkai’s predilections and powers converge in this monumental work, which remains the director’s crowning achievement to this day.
When country girl Mitsuha discovers that she is body swapping with city boy Taki, who lives three years into her future, it sets in motion a mind-boggling, high-concept romantic comedy infused with parallel timelines, traditional folklore and the looming shadow of impending apocalyptic disaster.
From its dazzling visuals to its chart-topping soundtrack from Radwimps and its relentlessly innovative storytelling, Your Name is the perfect confluence of everything Shinkai has been striving to articulate on screen, realised with greater clarity and catharsis than ever before.
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