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Anime Expo to Host Makoto Shinkai & His Latest Film's World Premiere

The Anime Expo convention will host writer/director Makoto Shinkai and the world premiere of his latest anime film, your name. (Kimi no Na wa.), on July 3. The premiere is planned for a hall that can hold over 3,000 attendees. The auteur director of 5 Centimeters Per Second, Garden of Words, and several other popular anime will also hold a panel at the Los Angeles event.

Shinkai started creating his own anime titles almost single-handedly, being responsible for the writing, directing, and even voice-acting. Shinkai's previous works include She and Her Cat, Voices of a Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, 5 Centimeters Per Second, Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below, and The Garden of Words. Anime Expo and Sentai Filmworks previously hosted Shinkai and the English-language premiere of The Garden of Words in 2013.

The Kimi no Na wa. film's "story of miracles and love" revolves around Mitsuha and Taki. Mitsuha is a female high school student who lives in a rural town nestled deep in the mountains. Her father is the mayor and isn't at home much, and she lives with her elementary school-aged little sister and her grandmother. Mitsuha has an honest personality, but she doesn't like the customs of her family's Shinto shrine, nor does she like her father participating in an election campaign. She laments that she lives in a confined rural town, and yearns for the wonderful lifestyle of living in Tokyo. Taki is a male high school student who lives in central Tokyo. He spends time with his friends, works part-time at an Italian restaurant, and is interested in architecture and fine arts. One day, Mitsuha has a dream where she is a young man. Taki also has a dream where he is a female high school student in a town in the mountains that he has never been to. What is the secret to their dreams of personal experience?

Boy: On that day... That day when stars fell from the sky... It was almost like...
Girl: It was almost like a dream.
Both: It was beautiful.
Text: Japan prepares for the arrival of a meteor in a thousand years.
Text: A high school boy who lives in the heart of the city - Taki
Taki: After school? Sorry, I have my part-time job after this.
Text: A girl who dreams of Tokyo - Mitsuha
Mitsuha: I am so sick of the boonies. I am so sick of this kind of life. Please make me a hot boy from Tokyo in my next life!
Taki: Where am I?
Mitsuha: Come to think of it, it kind of feels like I was having a weird dream this whole time. A dream of someone else's life...?
Text on Arm: Don't get a big head!
Text: The meeting of two people who will never meet
Mitsuha: Ah!
Taki: Wha-!?
Mitsuha: This is... Is this...!?
Taki: Are we switching places
Both: Inside our dreams!?
Text: A miraculous story has begun to move
Mitsuha: There is one certain thing: We'll know as soon as we see each other.
Text in notebook: Who are you?
Text on hand: I found...
Taki: I had been thinking to tell you that wherever you are in the world, I'm going to go and see you no matter what!
Mitsuha: Who... are you?
Taki: Just who... are you?
Both: What's your name?

The cast includes Ryunosuke Kamiki (Summer Wars' Kenji, Howl's Moving Castle's Markl, The Princess and the Pilot's Charles Karino) as Taki Tachibana and actress Mone Kamishiraishi (live-action Chihayafuru: Kami no Ku's Kanade Ōe) as Mitsuha Miyamizu.

As in his previous works, Shinkai is both directing the new film and writing the script. Masashi Ando (Spirited Away, When Marnie Was There, Paprika) is serving as the animation director and Masayoshi Tanaka (anohana, The Anthem of the Heart, Toradora!) is designing the characters. CoMix Wave Inc. is animating the film. RADWIMPS is composing over 20 tracks for the film's soundtrack, but is not composing the film's actual theme song.

(The tagline on the below key visual reads, "I am searching for you, whom I have never met yet.")

The film will open in Japan on August 26.

Source: Cinema Today