The sun shines through the clear blue sky and spills onto Tokyo after the rain. The BGM enters the chorus climax at the scene...
Accompanied by the action of "Japanese drama running", the male protagonist shouted "I want to be with her Goodbye" Jing (set) classic (road) lines.
is good, the trailer is very Xin Haicheng.
's "The Child of the Weather" scheduled for November 1st is Xin Haicheng's "Your Name." "The latest work brought three years later. The
story takes place in the summer of 2021. High school student Morishima Hoodaka ran away from home and went to Tokyo to work alone.
The work and life in big cities are not going well, and the weather has been torrential rain. In this environment where the future seems to be invisible, Fan Gao meets a mysterious girl named Yang Na.
"It will clear up soon." Under Yang Cai's whisper like a spell, the rain disappeared miraculously, and the sun split the dark clouds and shone on the earth.
The love story of "the girl who can control the weather" and "the lonely boy" unfolds under the blue sky of Tokyo...
Shinkai Makoto, a domestic comic sometimes nicknamed "Cheng Ge". For most domestic audiences, this name ranges from unfamiliar to familiar, "Your Name." "The past two years after it became popular.
△ The more and more popular "Brother Cheng"
Since his debut in 1998 to today, Makoto Shinkai has gone through an anime production career for 20 years; although there are only a few works, each one has left him clear Unique style branding.
was born in 1973 in a small village in Nagano Prefecture. In his childhood, he was a little withdrawn and loved literature and painting, but he didn't interact much with people. He often went to the suburbs alone to see the scenery for a long time. In future interviews, Brother Cheng mentioned the influence of this childhood experience on him many times:
Nagano is a mountainous area in Japan, and the average altitude is relatively high... The surrounding valleys make the light and darkness very clear, and the air is also Very fresh. I believe this is an impression of the light of the world that life deliberately left in my consciousness. —— Xin Haicheng
On the other hand, Xin Haicheng also had a different experience of feelings and bonds between people when he was a child.
When she was 13 years old, the girl she had a crush on had to move away with her parents. The introverted Xiaocheng never dared to confess to her, and this "unrequited love" finally ended. These experiences of
have influenced his future work style to varying degrees.
In 1996, Xin Haicheng graduated with a major in literature and joined the game company Falcom, where he was responsible for graphic design, animation and other work.
was founded in 1981, Falcom, is the oldest RPG game company in Japan. This work experience gave Xin Haicheng, who was not born in a major class, the experience of making animation, and it also gave him the ability to write down the world of "blue sky like washing, endless wilderness" in his mind.
From 1998 to 1999, Xin Haicheng used his spare time to produce two animated short films: "The Surrounded World" and "The Far World". The two works of
do not have a complete plot and characters (the former did not even leave the video), but only through a large number of imagery elements and pictures to create a warm atmosphere and feelings.
However, at this stage, many personal features of Xin Haicheng that will be noticeable in the future have begun to appear.
In 2000, Xin Haicheng released the first animated short film "She and Her Cat", which tells a warm and slightly sad story between a cat and its mistress.
Although the picture is still black and white, it has made great breakthroughs in narrative.
Xin Haicheng's performance in the details of life, the grasp of light and shadow and the atmosphere of the scenery in this film have conquered the hearts of many audiences, including the judges of the competition.
In the 12th CG animation competition that year, "She and Her Cat" successfully won the grand prize.
Xin Haicheng, who had a first taste of success, simply resigned from Falcom and became a full-time independent animation producer. Two years later, he brought his first color animation short film-"Voice of Stars".
This time, Xin Haicheng talked aboutA love tragedy in a sci-fi background.
also started from this work, Xin Haicheng laid the story theme of his work "Separation and Growth":
is a story that describes the heroes and heroines who separate the two sides for various reasons on the one hand, and on the other hand, it also includes them. The pursuit and hope for happiness.
Nagamine Mikako and Terao Noritsu are a pair of young lovers. They separated because Mikako went to outer space to fight.
As the fleet gets farther and farther from the earth, the time required for communication between the two is getting longer and longer. Finally, Mikazi arrives at Sirius, which is eight light-years away from the earth, and sends the last mail to Asen before his sacrifice. …… During the production of
, Makoto Shinkai took care of almost all the work except for the dubbing of the soundtrack, making this film present his personal style to the maximum.
's beautiful and profound picture composition, soothing and elegant narrative rhythm, prose-style parallel sentence narration, and the design of using current fresh elements such as mobile phones and e-mails as emotional clues all made this film aroused great topical discussions as soon as it was launched. .
With this film, Makoto Xin Haicheng's identity as a "professional animation director" has finally taken hold.
is an independent creation, emerging from the award-winning short film to theatrical feature film
In 2004, "The Other Side of the Cloud: The Promised Place" (hereinafter referred to as "The Other Side of the Cloud") came out, this is Xin Haicheng’s first cinematic animation Feature film.
This work depicts a larger world view than "Voice of the Stars". Many fantasy elements such as "Japan's North-South Division", "Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union", "White Tower", "Parallel World Research", etc., are combined into one story by Makoto Shinkai. .
In this context, the core of the story is still "separation and growth": in order to save the consciousness of lovers trapped in a different world,
two friends who had parted ways reunited, cooperated with each other, completed the previous agreement, and Successfully "woke up" the heroine at the end. The design of
gives the story a grand and tragic atmosphere, but on the other hand, the setting that exists as the background has not been fully developed, and it also makes the work a little "flat" and "slim" under the details.
But anyway, as Xin Haicheng's first voyage to the theater, "The Other Side of the Cloud" is already a qualified answer. More importantly, this is the first time that Xin Haicheng's "background madman" attributes have been shown on the big screen. The bright and gorgeous picture, the image of blue sky and white clouds, made many viewers shine.
premiered in Shibuya on November 2, 2004, and won the Animation Film Award at the 59th Daily Film Competition in Japan at the same time as Hayao Miyazaki's "Howl's Moving Castle".
Three years later, in 2007, Xin Haicheng brought his second feature film "Five Centimeters Per Second" back to the audience.
This time, Makoto Shinkai abandoned the sci-fi setting and set the background in the real Japan of the 1990s. Through three relatively independent chapters,
tells the youth love story of three young people who met and fell in love while growing up in life, but had to separate due to life changes. The narration of the independent chapter of
avoids the shortcomings of too long and slightly dull narrative in "Beyond the Cloud", and at the same time controls the rhythm well.
The film was well received in Japan and even in Southeast Asia that year. Two days after its premiere at Shibuya Cinema, it set a record of nearly 3,000 viewers and 3.2 million yen in box office revenue;
was selected at the Asia Pacific Film Awards in the same year. Won the Best Animated Feature Award. After
succeeded in succession, Xin Haicheng began to try to "jump out of the comfort zone", trying different directions-but he did not expect that a small hole was already waiting for him in front.
learns the lesson, how to build on the strengths and avoid shortcomings
The generation of animation masters made
In 2007, Makoto Shinkai’s third feature film "Children Chasing Lost Stars" was produced.
"Stars" abandoned Xin Haicheng's style that has always been close to reality, and instead tells a mythical story:
a girl and her teacher sneak into the underground world "Yagetai" for their loved ones, looking for the dead Method of resurrection.
"There is everything, but there is no Xin Haicheng." This is the title of a bad review of this film by Douban.
Indeed, in terms of character actions and scene design, this film has a lot of Ghibli animation shadows. On the contrary, Xin Haicheng's best scene description has no sense of existence. In terms of the plot of
, this work depicts a completely empty world, but it is not fully explained and unfolded; although the theme is still "separation", the plot is broken and logically missing, which makes many viewers confused. .
From the late production stage to before the release of the work, Xin Haicheng had a severe fever, and often dreamed of "violent death" after the release of "Far Stars"-unfortunately, his (night) dream came true-"Far Stars" In the end, only 20 million yen was reported at the box office, which became the most controversial work by Xin Haicheng.
"This film has taught me a lot and pointed out the boundaries between what can be done and what cannot be done." Although the failure of "Far Stars" caused a double blow to Xin Haicheng, both economically and spiritually; but at the same time, it also prompted He re-examined what he was good at.
Cheng Ge, who "knows the shame and then courage", returned to the road, two years later, in 2013, he brought "The Garden of Words" which "returned to myself".
In this film, Xin Haicheng retrieves the narrative and pictorial style he is familiar with in the first two works. It tells that on a rainy morning, a student who dreams of becoming a cobbler meets a single person in the park. The "teacher-student love" story of female teachers.
In this film, Makoto Shinkai gives full play to the spirit of "strengthening strengths and avoiding weaknesses":
First of all, Makoto has pushed the scene description to a new level: Tokyo Shinjuku Gyoen, which is beautiful to suffocating during heavy rain; raindrops, water surface, tree shadows, The depiction of the sky can really be regarded as "every frame is a wallpaper"; secondly, the full film duration is 46 minutes, only one-third of "Stars", and the plot is also very straightforward. The fetters are gradually unfolded in less than an hour without losing tension. At the end of
, Xin Haicheng also reversed the tradition of mostly forbearing and introverted characters in previous works, and designed for the first time a protagonist who bravely pursues his own happiness ending. .
Facts have proved that Brother Cheng chose the right path this time.
"The Garden of Words" brought him back the double success of word-of-mouth business: the local box office reported 150 million yen, the show was full three days before the premiere in Japan, and the Taiwan region also gained over 90% attendance.
Starting from this work, Xin Haicheng has found his own direction and has completely completed the transformation from an "independent animation director" to a "mature commercial director".
This is how "Your Name" will be "famous in East Asia" in the future. "(Hereinafter referred to as "Junior Name").
In this film, Xin Haicheng introduced the commercial film production process for the first time. For example,
cooperated with Toho Film Company and adopted the "production committee" model;
invited well-known producer Genki Kawamura to join, and processed the script with "formula" to make it more in line with the general audience's viewing habits.
proposed a lot of story structure suggestions for Xin Haicheng. For example, the male and female protagonists played no more than 15 minutes, combined the two scenes of the finale "Twilight" into one, etc.
Xin Haicheng finally overcame "The Other Side of the Cloud" "" and "Far Stars" are "not good at telling long stories" shortcomings, presenting a highly completed plot to the audience.
has a team, endorsed by a large company, coupled with the gorgeous pictures and the "small and fresh" theme of Brother Cheng, "Your Name." 》Success was a hit in Japan. After the introduction of
into China, "Your Name. "The speed of light has become a hot topic, and it has become a "dark horse" with 575 million in the box office. Brother Cheng
"pursues with victory" and copied "Your Name" after the release of "Weather Children" this year. "Myth:
publicity and linkage are overwhelming, and the box office broke 10 billion yen. Not long ago, it was officially confirmed to represent Japan’s impact on next year’s Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film...
From this, Shinkai Makoto finally broke "Quaner", from the niche director of ACG fans, to the first-line director known to passersby.
From independent black-and-white short films to theatrical "Oscar-level" animated feature films; from an independent producer of "one person, one computer" to a great director who is solely funded by a major film factory... Xin Haicheng came out Own animationthe road.
He has been learning, growing, and changing; but he has always been obsessed with the theme of "separation and growth" and the pursuit of beautiful and gorgeous pictures. This is exactly what
is, and it has touched countless fans who are as enamored of Cheng Ge's work as me, as well as thousands of ordinary movie audiences.
waits for the arrival of November 1st, let "Weather Children" once again take us into the beautiful new world of animation of Xin Haicheng.
Even if it rains heavily in the city, I have to do my best to meet you
"Weather Children" trailer
