Makoto Shinkai Plans To Announce New Movie This Year

Makoto Shinkai is one of the most renowned Japanese anime directors nowadays. He is often compared to Hayao Miyazaki (and his movies are also often compared to Ghibli’s titles), despite having a totally different style, not only in art (though it can remind Ghibli a bit), but also in how he handles his plots.

In a way, his movies are very “Shinkai-ish”. There are recurring themes in his works, so if you’ve watched a few of his movies, you will likely recognize others as his, even without being told in advance that they are by Shinkai. This is not a bad thing, quite the opposite. It means he has his own distinctive style. But it also means that if you don’t like a few of his movies, you likely won’t like the rest.

His most recent work is Suzume, a 2022 movie that was nominated at the Golden Globes and Annie Awards (which has been dubbed “the Oscars for animation”). But that might change soon. He posted on New Year that this year he plans to share information on a new movie he’s been working on:

Here’s a translation of his post:

Happy New Year! I spent 2024 working on a new movie. I’m happy to work hard with my colleagues to build from scratch a new world no one has seen yet. I’ll do my best to be able to share information on it this year. I hope 2025 will be a peaceful year for all of you.

Box Office Performance and Nominations

Suzume, Your Name and More

Shinkai has been working as a movie writer and director since 1998, including 5 Centimeters per Second, The Garden of Words, Your Name, Weathering with You and Suzume. Apart from his original features, he has also directed openings and trailers for a few games, like The Legend of Heroes III: Song of the Ocean (1999), Ys II Eternal (2000) and Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two (2006).

His most famous work perhaps is still Your Name (2016), which became a huge commercial hit in Japan, grossing over ¥25.17 billion. Back then, it became the second highest-grossing movie in Japanese cinema history, right behind Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (today Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Mugen Train is in first place). It also gained a lot of international attention, including from cinema critics, an achievement usually hard for anime movies that are not made by Ghibli. It wasn’t nominated for the Oscars, though.

In 2019, Weathering with You was released in Japan, earning over ¥12 billion at the box office. Suzume was released in 2022, earning ¥14.94 billion, but also gaining huge international traction. Despite being the 11th highest-grossing movie of all time in the Japanese box office, Suzume is the fourth highest-grossing Japanese movie worldwide (behind Mugen Train, Your Name, and Spirited Away respectively).

Source: AnimeCorner