So, Makoto Shinkai. I used to not be a fan.
My first encounter with Shinkai was Voice of a Distant Star, which was based on a thought-provoking and utterly haunting premise (the length of time it takes to send and receive messages across the vast distances of space) but executed in the most anime-cliche-riddled, ridiculous way possible (cute teen girl in a cute school uniform fighting space aliens in a giant mecha and hallucinating the shit out of all of her emotional revelations really Shinkai?!?!). Then there was The Place Promised in Our Early Days, which was unbelievably stupid on almost every possible level - the characterizations sucked, the characters acted like plot-puppets instead of real people, the science-fiction elements were so stupid and poorly thought-out so as to be almost insulting the intelligence of the audience, and the dénouement of the film was anti-climatic yet at the same time utterly ridiculous. Yet for some reason this was the film that seemed to give everybody and their dog a massive throbbing boner for Shinkai and he was being praised left and right as "the next Miyazaki."
Well, I will say that Early Days was a very, very pretty film to look at. Gorgeously animated and just dripping with beauty from every frame. But the story and the characters and the sci-fi elements were just. so. bad.
I was so disappointed by The Place Promised in Our Early Days that I admit I decided not to waste my time on 5 Centimeters per Second.
But a lot of people whose taste I admire were gushing about Shinkai's latest film, Children Who Chase Lost Voices Deep Below, and the film was specifically recced to me as a film that was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LIKE any of Shinkai's previous films. Well heck, I didn't like Shinkai's previous films, so as far as I'm concerned, "this movie is absolutely nothing like anything Shinkai has made before" is a good enough reason for me to try it.
And wow, you guys. This film. I have a lot of feelings about this film. ( More behind cut. )
My first encounter with Shinkai was Voice of a Distant Star, which was based on a thought-provoking and utterly haunting premise (the length of time it takes to send and receive messages across the vast distances of space) but executed in the most anime-cliche-riddled, ridiculous way possible (cute teen girl in a cute school uniform fighting space aliens in a giant mecha and hallucinating the shit out of all of her emotional revelations really Shinkai?!?!). Then there was The Place Promised in Our Early Days, which was unbelievably stupid on almost every possible level - the characterizations sucked, the characters acted like plot-puppets instead of real people, the science-fiction elements were so stupid and poorly thought-out so as to be almost insulting the intelligence of the audience, and the dénouement of the film was anti-climatic yet at the same time utterly ridiculous. Yet for some reason this was the film that seemed to give everybody and their dog a massive throbbing boner for Shinkai and he was being praised left and right as "the next Miyazaki."
Well, I will say that Early Days was a very, very pretty film to look at. Gorgeously animated and just dripping with beauty from every frame. But the story and the characters and the sci-fi elements were just. so. bad.
I was so disappointed by The Place Promised in Our Early Days that I admit I decided not to waste my time on 5 Centimeters per Second.
But a lot of people whose taste I admire were gushing about Shinkai's latest film, Children Who Chase Lost Voices Deep Below, and the film was specifically recced to me as a film that was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING LIKE any of Shinkai's previous films. Well heck, I didn't like Shinkai's previous films, so as far as I'm concerned, "this movie is absolutely nothing like anything Shinkai has made before" is a good enough reason for me to try it.
And wow, you guys. This film. I have a lot of feelings about this film. ( More behind cut. )
