SPECIAL – Makoto Shinka Animated Shorts

Egao (Smiling Face)

If you have ever taken care of a hamster, then you’ll find this music video quite cute. It’s quite cheerful and subtly touching. Fun to watch again and again.

Tooi Sekai (Other Worlds)

In the same line as She and Her Cat, Other Worlds is done in monochrome with no dialogue. It’s melancholy and I find myself drawn to it. The scenes are simple and the, as usual, I find the way Makoto Shinkai illustrates people weird. However, it’s quite poignant. Which is amazing because it’s about a minute short.

Neko no Shuurai (Gathering of Cats)

If you live with a cat, you will love this one! I never really pictured Makoto Shinkai doing something funny like Gathering of Cats but he has done it and quite well too. Short, simple and entertaining.

All three have high replay value. Makoto Shinkai is quite awesome.
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Makoto Shinkai’s Official Website (in Japanese)

MOVIE – 時をかける少女 (2006)

時をかける少女 (Toki wo Kakeru Shoujo)
English Title: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
released: 2006
directed by: Mamoru Hosoda
main cast:
(voice only)
Riisa Naka as Konno Makoto
Takuya Ishida as Mamiya Chiaki
Mitsutaka Itakura as Kōsuke Tsuda
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“… ike!”

Do you cry easily? Well, do bring some tissues while watching this then.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is about… a girl who leaps through time. One might yawn and dismiss the premise. We’ve all watched girls, boys, cats or pigs leaping through time. But TokiKake (shortened form of the Japanese title) is not just another time-traveling movie. It’s a proof that strong characterization make a movie great, lame or bad.

In this movie, we have a girl named Makoto. She looks a bit boyish, acts a bit boyish and is what I would call an average person. We enter her world on a day when she’s not having the greatest luck. In fact, she’s so unlucky, she lands on a thing which looks like a nut.

Magical nut? Something like that.

After a near death (or actual death) experience involving trains and the brakes of her bicycle not working, Makoto soon finds herself rolling into past events. Quite literally too. She just acquired the ability to leap and go back in time! She worries at first and confides to her Aunt Witch (who is suspiciously calm about it… *cough, cough*) but once she realizes the benefits, she goes crazy and does wild things. Like going back to eat pudding!

And that’s what is endearing about Makoto and this movie. It’s just Makoto and the trivial things she does everyday. Things she wants to fix, runaway from or do again. No grand schemes, no elaborate discussion on the consequences it has on the space-time continuum. There is a counter on her arm though, indicating the amount of leaps she can make.

Despite seeing the counter, Makoto continues to use leaping for what many people would judge as silly things i.e. setting up his friend Kousuke with a shy girl. Makoto feels proud of herself after successfully setting up the two but then finds herself in a predicament. Kousaka borrowed her bicycle. The very same one that she used earlier on during her near death (or actual death) experience. And she only has one leap left.

Quite engaging. Throw in a frustrating love story and you’ve got yourself a GREAT movie.

The fantastic thing about this movie is that it doesn’t preach about what would happens if you mess up time. It reveals to Makoto what she missed by changing it. It is a small yet touching story. And quite pretty to look at, I might add.

It doesn’t pick an audience and I think anyone who will watch this will find something good about it.

Watch it! Time waits for no one!
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Official Website: Kadokawa Picture’s TokiKake Website (Japanese)

MOVIE – 紅秒速5センチメートル (2007)

Byousoku Go Senchimeetoru
(English Title: Five Centimeters Per Second)
released: 2007
directed by: Makoto Shinkai
main cast:
(voice only)
Mizuhashi Kenji as Touno Takaki
Yoshimi Kondou / Onoue Ayaka as Shinohara Akari
Hanamura Satomi as Sumita Kanae

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“… anata ni… yashashiku shinai de…” (“…. stop being so nice to me…”)

Ah. Yet another heart breaking love story from one my favorite directors.

The title, Five Centimeters Per Second, is the rate at which the petals of cherry blossoms fall. And we all know what a nice theme fleeting moments of these pretty flowers make.

It’s about distances, manifesting in different ways. A physical distance that two… er… friends try to overcome. A distance that a young girl cannot close between her and a person she admires. The movie is very peaceful and quiet, perfect in capturing a certain type of loneliness. It’s very pretty to look at too. The characters are voiced (both literally and figuratively) pretty well and the little scenes presented are touching.
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Official Websites:
Japanese – HERE
English – HERE

MOVIE – 超劇場版ケロロ軍曹 (2006)

超劇場版ケロロ軍曹
(English Title: Keroro Gunso the Super Movie)
released: 2006
directed by: Yamamoto Yusuke
main cast:
(voice only)
Kumiko Watanabe as Sergeant Keroro
Tomoko Kawakami as Fuyuki Hinata
Chiwa Saito as Natsumi Hinata
Etsuko Kozakura as Private Second Class Tamama
Jouji Nakata as Corporal Giroro
Takehito Koyasu as Sergeant Major Kururu
Takeshi Kusao as Lance Corporal Dororo
Mamiko Noto as Angel Mois
Haruna Ikezawa as Momoka Nishizawa
Yui Aragaki as Mirara
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“GM… Sniper… Custom!”

Having bought a rather nifty looking plamo of the currently on-going anime Keroro Gunsou, I decided it’s only fitting to see who the hell I built. His name is Corporal Giroro, part of the Keroro Platoon which is composed of other alien frogs (Keronians) who want to take over the planet of Pekoponians. That planet would be earth and the Pekoponians would be us.

Feeling silly yet?

This anime falls under the kodomo genre (a show intended for children) but I’m pretty sure a lot of older people – like me – will still enjoy watching the series. It’s basically about Keroro (Sgt. Frog in English) and his attempts to take over the world and the mishaps that happen along the way – solved with the aid of his Pekopenian friend Fuyuki. It reminds you a bit of Invader Zim except lighter and it even has its own Gir in the form of Tamama.

Now, as for the movie. It’s entertaining, it’s fun, it gets a bit cheesy but still… it’s total crack and it WILL make you snigger at the very least. It starts simply enough with Keroro and Fuyuki buying a plamo and then chaos ensues after they accidentally unleash an alien that has the capability of destroying the planet.

The comedy is really spot on and it’s very easy to like the characters. The animation is easy on the eyes, the voice actors are really good, the gags aren’t obscenely stupid and it made me laugh. It’s just really, really fun.

I suggest watching this when you’re feeling a bit out of the weather. Great reminder not to take life so seriously. You never know when alien frogs will invade your home.
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Official Website (Series): http://www.keroro.com/
Official Website (Movies): http://www.keroro-movie.net/

MOVIE – ほしのこえ (2002)

ほしのこえ
(English Title: Voices of a Distant Star)
directed by: Shinkai Makoto
released: 2002
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“ここにいるよ” (“I’m right here”)

I happened to have stumbled upon this movie by having a copy of its manga adaptation. I didn’t have the urge to read the manga yet but I had the sudden urge to watch the movie (born mostly out of my surplus of time and a really speedy internet connection). So after about an hour or so of looking for a torrent and a few more hours of waiting for the download to finish, I was finally able to watch Voices of a Distant Star.

First impression? “Hm, robots”. Seriously. The movie opens with a Serial Experiments Lain type of montage which collapses into a Neon Genesis Evangelion scene. Which doesn’t put me off, since I love both mentioned shows.

But Voices of a Distant Star is not Serial Experiments Lain and most certainly not Evangelion. Running for only 24 minutes and 20 seconds, this movie is above anything else, a really good love story.

The main characters are Nagamine Mikako and Terao Noboru. Before they can enter high school, Mikako is drafted by the UN Space Army to fight in a war against aliens dubbed Tarsians. Noboru is left on earth to pursue a more normal life.

The two communicate via e-mail but because of the distance both in time and space between them, their messages take longer and longer to be received. There’s also the mild problem of the twin paradox happening because Noboru is aging faster than Mikako and at the end of the movie, Mikako is 15 while Noboru is 24.

What really surprised me about this movie is how much emotion that creator placed in the characters. It runs for barely 30 minutes and yet somehow, you feel the longing and loneliness.

What’s even more amazing is that the movie was written, produced, directed, edited and dubbed by Shinkai Makoto. On just his Macintosh no less! Furthermore, it won seven awards including 2003 Seiun Award for Best Media of the Year (previously won by Cowboy Bebop in 2000).

Voices of a Distant Star is a truly romantic movie with a science fiction twist and robots along with it. It’s, like many other movies and stories that I like, quiet and simple. Watch it!
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Official Website (dead): http://www.hoshinokoe.com/
Wikipedia Entry: HERE