News

Shinkai's 'your name.' Film Wins Best Animated Film at Spain's Sitges

The 49th annual Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival in Spain announced on Saturday that Makoto Shinkai's your name. (Kimi no Na wa.) film won the festival's Best Animated Feature Film award.

Shinkai's latest film has ranked #1 for seven straight weekends since opening, and it is already 2016's highest-grossing film in Japan. As of October 14, 50 days after the film opened, it has sold about 11.49 million tickets and earned about 14.9 billion yen (about US$143 million). The film's website revealed a new key visual (pictured at right) on Friday.

The film held its world premiere on July 3 in Los Angeles during Anime Expo, and it is slated to open in 85 countries and regions.

The 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?

Shinkai also wrote the script for the film. Masashi Ando (Spirited Away, When Marnie Was There, Paprika) served as the animation director and Masayoshi Tanaka (anohana, The Anthem of the Heart, Toradora!) designed the characters. CoMix Wave Inc. animated the film.

Previous anime films that have won the same award at Sitges include: Miss Hokusai in 2015, Wolf Children in 2012, Summer Wars in 2009, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in in 2006. Additionally, Tatsumi, Eric Khoo's animated film adaptation of Yoshihiro Tatsumi's A Drifting Life autobiographical manga, won the award in 2011.

The live-action film of Kengo Hanazawa's best-selling zombie manga I am a Hero also won the Grand Audience Award and Award for Best Special Effects at last year's festival.

Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web