Get ready for a new visual slap from Makoto Shinkai, director of Your Name! The filmmaker reveals the first images of his new work, and they are magnificent.
Two years after the very poetic Les Enfants du temps, Japanese animation prodigy Makoto Shinkai is back in the cinema with Suzume no Tojimari. The film, which does not yet have a French title, has unveiled a visually sublime short trailer. The feature film promises to be as beautiful and sensitive as Your Name or Les Enfants du temps.
Suzume no Tojimari, which means Suzume closes the door (or doors), therefore tells the story of a 17-year-old heroine. The latter, who lives on the island of Kyushu, meets a traveler looking for an ancestral door.
She will find the trace lost in a mountain. The door is actually magical and opens to several locations in Japan. But beware of the one who closes the door.
In 4 films, Makoto Shinkai has revealed himself as the new grand master of Japanese animation, a worthy successor to Hayao Miyazaki. The filmmaker cultivates a universe mixing fantasy and realism with fabulous poetry.
Makoto Shinkai for Your Name: “I really like the initiatory period that represents adolescence.”
Your Name, released in 2016, is the 6th biggest hit at the Japanese box office ahead of Titanic, Harry Potter or Avatar. In France, it had brought together nearly 300,000 people. As for Les Enfants du temps, it gathered around 230,000 fans.
His other feature films, The Tower beyond the clouds and Journey to Agartha, have not been released in cinemas in France but are available on DVD and VOD.
However, in certain aspects, these first images are especially reminiscent of the splendid Garden of Words, a short film directed by Shinkai in 2012.
Suzume no Tojimari will land on November 11, 2022 in Japan. The French release date has not yet been announced.
In any case, Japanese animation is experiencing unprecedented vitality in our region, as evidenced by the recent successes of Demon Slayer Le Train de l’Infini (more than 700,000 admissions), My Hero Academia World Heroes Mission (250,000) and Jujutsu Kaisen 0 (500,000).