Forum - View topicYearning Teens, Frustrated Romance, Pretty Skies — Is There Anything Else to Makoto Shinkai?
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Gnarth
Posts: 175 |
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You really hit the nail on the head here, that's exactly why I really like 5 cm (and love shows like Evangelion), and it's the reason why a lot of people find it the best or at least the most relatable of Shinkai's films. Takaki's inability to move on is the point and the unhappy ending is the only possible outcome. It's always frustrating to hear criticisms about a character's personality as if it was the same as their actual writing. |
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enurtsol
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Maybe not even a couple. Seems to be one-sided crush. Souta seems too serious with much life experience to be interested in a less mature schoolgirl beyond just her friendship |
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3903 Location: New York state. |
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I'll admit my history with Shinkai films has largely been indifference as while I admire the rich background details and animation of his films, haven't been as much of a fan of them always sticking with the premise of focusing on distant relationships to whatever degree, often tossed in with some sort of supernatural gimmick. I didn't mind this at first when I first heard about his breakout short, Voices of a Distant Star, back in the 2000s that caught my attention from him almost single-handedly creating it. But as I noticed that he kept rehashing the same distant relationship theme and not doing much to break away from that direction, I started to lose interest in the man's work and assuming he was a "one trick pony." Based on some recent interviews, it seems he's aware of how he's trapped himself in a box with sticking to this premise, but is under obligation to stick to these types of plots because of both the popularity he gained from it with his earlier films and Japanese film developers feeling they are safe works to develop due to Shinkai's association with them.
I'll admit I have yet to see Suzume and will likely hold off on wanting to dabble into it until it eventually gets a physical disc release. But I'm likely not gonna hold my breath on my reception to the film based on my thoughts of much of his previous works. |
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Top Gun
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It's refreshing to see a take on Shinka's catalog that isn't limited to gushing over him. Reading through the article, I realized that I've only ever seen his works from before Kevin felt he "got good." What I've taken away in general is that Shinkai is capable of crafting ridiculously beautiful visuals (I have no idea what dark magic he and CoMix Wave do to get backgrounds to look like that), but almost all of his stories have left me feeling...well, "cold" would probably be the best word for it. They feel like they're generating artificial pathos, like Shinkai is setting up these very contrived situations to wring his patented emotional response out of the audience, and that tends to rub me the wrong way. It doesn't help that "wistful teenage love foiled by some kind of separation" is something that I really can't connect with at all on a personal level, or even much as a general viewer, and since so much of his work relies on that dynamic it leaves me on the outside looking in. (I've worked in high schools before, and trust me, teenage relationships can be profoundly silly and stupid things in reality.) At least earlier in his career, it felt like Shinkai kept going back to that well too many times, and it left me wondering if he was capable of spreading his wings more and trying something new. It's also why so many people crowning him as "the next Miyazaki" never sat well with me, as while the old man kept some basic elements across all of his films, he used them to tell wildly different stories.
Above all else, I want to shout THANK YOU for calling out 5 Centimeters per Second, because for a long time now I've been genuinely baffled that so many people hold it up as this untouchable masterpiece. Like you, I think the protagonist is one of the most pathetic sacks of crap I've ever had the displeasure of encountering in a fictional work. I know some earlier posters mentioned how humans are all too willing to cling to past regrets far longer than they should, even to the point that they become self-destructive, and that they felt Takaki was relatable because of that. And I can almost see where they're coming from, up to a certain point. But people...this is a grown-ass man breaking up with his girlfriend and quitting his job because he can't get over his elementary school crush. I'm sorry, but that's just ****ed up. This man doesn't need sympathy, he needs an emergency appointment with a therapist so he can get this weird shit figured out. Ugh. Even if you can get past that, the film's structure as three separate vignettes makes it something of a thematic mess that never seems to come together. The first segment is fine, with that last-ditch attempt at fulfilling a relationship that's doomed to end, but then the second segment feels like it was plucked from another film entirely. And it sucks, because the main girl in that segment was easily the best part of the whole thing (you dodged a massive bullet there honey), but she isn't so much as mentioned in the final segment, and we never get to see how things turn out with her. And I think I've already said enough about the ending bit. Once again, an incredibly pretty movie, but man does Takaki suck. (More broadly, given the choice I'd almost always prefer watching a character face adversity head-on and overcome it to watching one mired in their own personal failings. Like, we all have to live that out ourselves every day, why would I want to suffer through it in my fiction too? Give me the character who acts as an aspiration, a role model, someone who makes me feel that I could be a better person than I am.) As for the rest, despite being rough around the edges, Voices of a Distant Star remains a remarkable personal achievement, though with the benefit of hindsight it's clear that the central premise owes a massive amount to Gunbuster. The Place Promised in Our Early Days is kind of a mess at times, but honestly I think it's my favorite of Shinkai's earlier works, because it feels like the most proactive story. And then Children Who Chase Lost Voices was...well, it was okay I guess? It's very obviously Shinkai trying to do Ghibli and not succeeding particularly well, so it feels like a fish out of water, and it didn't leave a massive impression on me either way. The funny thing is that despite my overall opinion of Shinkai being maybe just north of "meh," I still keep buying his films, because I think they're worth owning and watching even on a purely visual level. I have The Garden of Words and your name. in the tank, and I'm genuinely curious to see how the latter measures up against the colossal hype it received. I do genuinely hope that after Suzume, Shinkai can find the freedom to do something completely different than what we've seen before. |
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