Image via All The Anime
In 2014, the legendary animation house Studio Ghibli announced it was taking a hiatus, following the retirement of it’s co-founder, the genius director Hayao Miyazaki. Now anime fans are searching for someone to fill that void, and to deliver beautiful, transcendent animated movies that appeal to audiences of all ages and show that Japanese cartoons are more than just giant robots and scantily clad schoolgirls.
And one name that people are suggesting is Makoto Shinkai. Starting out in videogames, for the last decade or so Shinkai has been producing wonderful, heart-touching films like 5 Centimeters Per Second and Children Who Chase Lost Voices, which tell the tales of relatable relationships and emotions stretched across time and space, and have won him fans across the world. His latest film however, has become a phenomenon in Japan. Your Name is the story of two Japanese teenagers, Taki, who lives in central Tokyo, and Mitsuha, a young girl from the country, whose lives become intertwined when a magical comet causes them to switch bodies at random. It’s an incredible sweet, sad piece of drama, which mixes fantasy themes with realistic teenage heartbreak.
Since its release in its home country in August,Your Name has made over 10bn yen (£76m), and has been at the top of the Japanese box office for seven weeks and counting. It also already has a devoted teenage fanbase, with fans even making pilgrimages to locations featured in the film. And thanks to this success, Your Name is the rare Japanese animation to get a full UK cinema release next month, as well as being the first anime to have been in the official competition at the London Film Festival. Makoto Shinkai was in London for the festival, and we caught up with him to talk about the film’s success, the importance of backgrounds, and playing down those Miyazaki comparisons.
Your Name is the first anime film to ever been in the official competition at the London Film Festival. How does that feel?
I’m extremely happy. I’s unbelievable. I lived here for little bit nine years ago, and I used to walk down the South Bank past the BFI cinema. It’s great to have my film shown there.
I've been reading about the film's incredible reaction in Japan. As well as being really successful at the box office, it seems to have really resonates with audiences, especially teenagers, with them even visiting the real places from the film. What's it like to make something that connects with people in a way like that?
I had a vague target audience when I was making the film. But I didn't expect this much scale, 10 million people have seen it, who'd have thought!? I think it’s word of mouth, rather than down to my skills or talents or whatever. And I'm feeling really uncomfortable with the success!
Where did the genesis of the story come from — is it based on your youth? Obviously I’m sure you didn't switch bodies with anyone, but are there moments or feelings you had as a teenager in there?
Yes. I wanted to make a story about a boy and a girl who haven't met yet, but are to going to. I think that's just a normal situation for any youngster - there are more people that they haven't met than they have in life. So I wanted to write a story about possibility in life, about how someone could change your life completely. Obviously I haven't swapped bodies with anyone — at least not yet! But that's a tool to express that story. It could have even been a social network service, rather than body swapping.
The film is about a girl and a boy swapping bodies. The younger generation seems a lot less bothered about defining gender, and transgender issues and the like. That's not the main focus of the film, but was it something you considered it to be about at all?
That's a very interesting opinion. But I haven't read anything about Your Name from the LGBT point of view. When I was making the film, I didn't really want to make this a gender issue at all. The body swap is a quite common theme in Japanese cinema and books. There's a movie called New Students from the 1980s, and its pretty much {the same as} this — boy becomes the girl, girl becomes the boy — and it was comedy about the social roles. But I don't think it would work now. What I wanted to say was yeah the boy might be a little bit girly, but there’s nothing wrong with that. And vice versa. So no, it's not about a gender issue.
This is getting a full UK cinema release which is rare for Japanese animation. We have quite a blinkered view of Japanese animation in the West, which your film doesn't fit into. How have you found international audiences react to it?
I'm actually looking forward to seeing what a British audience thinks of it.I was in Spain at a film festival a couple of weeks ago, and the reaction was really good. People laughed where Japanese people laughed, and cried where they cried. I was relieved more than anything! But I do think some people just wouldn't go to see this film because they think they don't like animation. So I'm quite curious and a little bit worried about how many people will want to see this film.
Your Name is not full of big special effects or anything, and it could conceivably be made in live action — it doesn't need to be a cartoon. What do you get by making a film like this animated that you couldn't do in live action?
I think animation can tell more than live action. For example, we created the characters for this film — they are not actors acting. They are genuinely just characters. Whereas in live action movies actors play characters. So there are other elements, both good and bad, as opposed to the genuine character elements. You look at them as a particular actor playing the character. That make the film deeper maybe, and might appeal to older generations more, but I think animation appeals to younger people because they've got no barrier like that. Also in live action, we cannot control time, we cannot control acting. In live action, we might have 15 seconds of walking, but you can get away with 5 seconds in animation. We can control time, and we can tell more stories in shorter time.
I'd seen people say you might be the new Hayao Miyazaki — how do you respond to something like that?
It's too much! This movie broke box office records. Your Name is the sixth most successful Japanese movie ever, but all the five movies above it are by Miyazaki! He'd done it so many times, and this is just one opportunity for me. I'm nothing compared to him.
Your Name reminds me of the work of the late, great animator Satoshi Kon, who made Paprika and Perfect Blue. In his films there's a lot of jumping between time frames and realities, and that's something that Your Name does a lot. Was he an influence at all?
I love his movies. Whenever I watch his stuff I'm just like, wow. So yes, I'm pretty sure I have been influenced by him, but not directly. He did everything so well, time, space, he was amazing.
The backgrounds in your movies are very detailed and realistic. It was really impressed with things like the Starbucks and McDonalds signs in the distance, and even the accurate video game consoles below TVs. It that something you really concentrate on?
The identity of Studio Ghibli movies are how the characters move. They move like live, real people. But how I work is in the backgrounds. The background is really important. So we actually go location hunting, and we want to recreate as much as possible. And when we have backgrounds without people in them, we still want to get proper details. That's us.
Who are you biggest influence both in animation and live action movies?
In animation, Miyazaki is inevitable. The first I paid to see with my own money was Laputa Castle In The Sky. And I was like, wow! I really shocked by it. So I want to make movies that have a similar impact on the audience to that. But I like reading, and when I write I think I take more influence from Japanese contemporary authors, like Haruki Murakami.
Your Name, like a lot of your work, has a big theme of the city versus the country. Are you a city person or a country person?
I can't quite decide which one I am! I am from the countryside, very rural countryside, and I moved to Tokyo when I was 18 and have been living first-ever since.So yes, I am a city guy, but sometimes I sort of feel there's another me in a parallel world, still in the countryside. Obviously he's not a moviemaker, but he's doing something else. I really feel like I'm still in the countryside at the same time. So I can't decide!
Your Name is in select cinemas 18th November and nationwide 24th November. Find out where it playing near you here.
