A Conversation With Makoto Shinkai

Interview with an Anime Film Director | World Premiere of The Garden of Words

Shinkai

The Gold Coast Film Festival have over the years held host to a number of intriguing and entertaining films, ranging from those that are completely live-action to segments of the festival such as “Cool Japan” which every year brings anime films and stars to the coast. This year was pretty special…. not only did the event play host to a screening of Mamoru Hosoda’s Wolf Children (A film I was glad I finally had the chance to watch), but also the world premiere of Makoto Shinkai’s latest anime masterpiece The Garden of Words (Kotonoha no Niwa | 言の葉の庭). Given the crowds for signings, a full cinema AND the assignment of a bigger cinema to fit everybody in… it is clear that this was the highlight of the festival.

Makoto Shinkai has had a long and interesting history within the animation industry, and some today have titled him as the “Next Miyazaki”. Many of his films have currently been localized into English with most still being available for purchase internationally if not in Australia. Some of his familiar works may be titles such as Children Who Chase Lost Voices and 5 Centimeters Per Second have been screened during previous Gold Coast Film Festival events to strong reception. In addition, he has also been behind animation sequences for a handful of visual novels as well as being behind another pile of works over his long career.

For the first time ever, Makoto Shinkai himself was in attendance and kept himself busy – with not only the screening and Q&A session to attend but also somewhere along the lines of two and a half hours worth of meeting, greeting and poster signing with the hundreds of fans whom came along (My poster is currently framed!). Before this however, I was able to sit down with the man himself to ask him a couple of questions ranging from why he decided to hold the month-early world premiere in Australia to questions more directly related to his work. Unfortunately at this point I had not seen the movie yet, so consider this completely spoiler free for his latest title.

gallery m 020 The Garden of Words / Kotonoha no Niwa   World Premiere ReviewThe Garden of Words (2013)

First of all, Welcome to Australia!

Thank You.

How have you enjoyed your time here so far?

I arrived here just this morning, and I have to go back to Japan tomorrow. So its just a one night stay, but I think you have beautiful scenery… really beautiful.

If you don’t mind me asking, why have you decided to host your premiere of The Garden of Words over here rather than in Japan?

The Gold Coast Film Festival is one of the events that played my 5 Centimeters Per Second movie a couple of years ago, which also received an award. I have wanted to come to the Gold Coast but was always in midst of production, so I was never able to come. But this time it was after I had finished my productions for the new film and I was invited to come here, so I took the chance to come.

This film is really set in a setting that is completely different from Australia. It is set in Japan, in the rainy season with Japanese gardens as the scenery and even the words it is about rallying songs, really old words that are really historical even in Japanese culture. So it is really different and I wanted to see what happens in Australia as well as to how it is taken in here.

As many of my readers obviously wouldn’t have had the chance to watch this film yet, would you be able to share a bit of incite into it and what your inspiration was for it?

So this movie, The Garden of Words, is set in modern Japan, modern Tokyo and is about a 15 year old high school boy and a 27 year old woman meeting consistently on a rainy day in a park… that is practically the story. The reason why I thought of making this movie had to do with the earthquake that happened on 3/11 and that made me question the scenery you see every day and the reality that you know it could someday turn into nothing or you can lose it one day from disaster like that. I really wanted to keep all the scenery that I personally love and what people might relate to into the anime.

The reason why I chose the age-gap of 15 and 27 for the main characters was because even if something like love developed between them there’s always a questioning, its not always straight forward… some may think its not normal like I can’t say that I love them because of the age gap, social status and stuff like that… so I thought it was a good setting to choose for that questioning.

To me aside from storylines, one of the most impressive elements of any film released by you is the environment designs. What elements of your films do you take the most pride in?

The most important element I see in good anime is the storyline, but to achieve this I think beautiful scenery, beautiful music is needed to contribute to that. For the background scenery I started off in game production, and in that company I did do background art in particular. So, I was always an animator and a director, but I realized that I started off as a background artist and that’s always in me… so when I look at the backgrounds and scenery I know the “how to” the “how I can make things look beautiful” the “how to look at things in a different light“, “think of lighting” , “how they can look better or different” and I think it is a strong point that I have done that before. That comes back to what you mentioned about background and scenery being my strong point.

Was that with the company Minori?

No, before that. I was making RPG Games in the company Nihon Falcom. (Followed by a bit of a surprise that I knew of Minori)

still_85145 Centimeters Per Second (2007)

How do you feel about being called “The New Miyazaki”

I know that particularly overseas fans say that I am the new Miyazaki or post-Miyazaki, but I am really humbled to hear it although think that is an overestimation and overrating me. But, production style wise I start from originals and do the storyboards / storylines in a way that is similar to Miyazaki’s productions are. But I feel sorry for the other directors who are more skilled than me, so I still think that is an overreaction.

One last question, as someone who has done almost everything in animation from short to feature length films, do you have any advise for those of you who want to follow in your footsteps?

I often get questions from students on how they can become anime directors or make films, “Should I go to an anime school?” “Should I get employed into an animation company?” But I think if you really want to go into the anime industry I think you should not question it, just do it… without asking anyone how to do it, what to do. Whats really important is the motivation and the first steps. even if you don’t know what to do, if you do your best, do what you want and make a short film, do whatever that will get you to the next stage. If you can’t do that, I don’t think your really suited for being an anime director in the first place.

Thank you very much!

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I would like to pass on my thanks to Makoto Shinkai once again for being such a pleasure to interview, as well as our interpreter, the team at CoMix Wave Films whom were in attendance and of course the entire Gold Coast Film Festival team for helping me organize this interview and put on a fantastic evening.

But thats not just it for The Garden of Words yet, while you are at it check out my spoiler-free review of the film HERE.

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

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