In 2001, an artist began work on an animated short film. He worked alone, using his Macintosh G4 PC to produce the animation. The film premiered in 2002 and went on to win no less than six awards as well as the adulation of the Japanese animation community.
The artist was
Makoto Shinkai. The short film: '
Voices of a Distant Star." Unerringly beautiful, poetic and heartfelt, the film was unlike anything that had ever come out of the Japanese animation scene. 'Voices' used what could have been a standard science-fiction scenario- a soldier leaves Earth to fight a war in distant space while leaving his (in this case,
her) lover behind- to tell a deeply personal, emotionally-charged story about love and seperation. It really is a brilliant work- one of the few anime that could possibly be considered a work of art.
Having established himself as one of the finest animators of his generation, Shinkai then proceeded to make his first feature-length animation- '
The Place Promised in Our Early Days.' This time, he worked with a full production staff and the results show in the increased technical quality of the work. Once again, the film melded science-fiction with a personal story of friendship, love and loss. Once again, the film earned much praise, winning four awards. However, a criticism often made of the work is that the pacing suffered with the longer length- perhaps unsurprising given Shinkai's inexperience at making feature-length films.
It is interesting, then, that his next animated film, '5 Centimeters per Second,' will consist of 3 short stories, centered around a boy, that take place in Japan from the 1990s til today. Dividing the film in this way should allow Shinkai to play to his strength in creating short stories, while also allowing him to create a rich, deep work. He's also decided to eschew the science-fiction trappings of his previous works, instead focusing on making the story and setting as realistic as possible.
However the story turns out, one thing's for sure- the film will be utterly gorgeous, if the trailer on the film's
site is anything to go by. Both streaming or HD-downloadable versions of the trailer are offered and I highly recommend the latter if your PC can support it. Fansubbing group The Triad has also kindly released a translation of the trailer on their BitTorrent
tracker.
'5 Centimeters per Second' is set to debut in Spring 2007- it'll surely be one of the animation highlights of the year! I await it's arrival eagerly.
