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Makoto Shinkai's New Kotonoha no Niwa Film Gets Manga
posted on by Egan Loo
The March issue of Kodansha's Monthly Afternoon magazine announced on Friday that Midori Motohashi will adapt Kotonoha no Niwa (Garden of Words), the latest anime film from auteur director Makoto Shinkai, into a manga. The new manga will debut in the June issue in April.
Shinkai himself announced the Kotonoha no Niwa film on Christmas Eve. He said that this is the first time he is making a "love" story — in the traditional Japanese meaning of the word. At one time, "love" was written as "lonely sadness" (koi). Moreover, according to Shinkai, the modern concept of "love" (ai) was imported from the West. While Kotonoha no Niwa is set in the modern era, it will be about koi in the original meaning — of longing for someone in solitude.
Shinkai aims to release the Kotonoha no Niwa film in the first half of this year, while his new anime short "Dareka no Manazashi" (Someone's Gaze) will debut at the "Proud Box Kanshasai" home living exposition in Tokyo next month. Most of his previous feature films, including Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, 5 Centimeters Per Second, and Children Who Chase Lost Voices, also inspired manga from different artists. Tokyopop published Mizu Sahara's Voices of a Distant Star in North America, while Vertical published Yukiko Seike's 5 Centimeters Per Second.
[Via Manga News]
