SHINKAI Makoto

Mitsuha is a female high school student who lives in a rural town nestled deep in the mountains. She laments that she lives in the countryside, and yearns for the wonderful lifestyle 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 also interested in architecture and fine…

We have met, for each of us to walk forward. Takao, who is training to become a shoemaker, skipped school and is sketching shoes in a Japanese-style garden. He meets a mysterious woman, Yukino, who is older than him. Then, without arranging the times, the two start to see each other again and again, but only on rainy days. They deepen their relationship and open up to each…

In the near future a woman named Okamura Aya, or Aa-chan, has been working for two years and has begun living on her own for a job opportunity. With Aa-chan's mother working overseas as a doctor, Aa-chan's father Kouji is now living alone with the family's long-time pet cat Mii-san. One night, Aa-chan returns from a long day at work, and as she rests on her bed, she…

* Television commercial for the major correspondence education company Z-Kai. The high school students Miho and Shouta prepare for exams. Miho comes from an island without even one cram school, while Shouta lives in Tokyo and works a part-time job. Both are striving to pass exams so they can enter college. The pair enrol in Z-Kai's correspondence education courses, and their…

For the longest time, it's just been the two of them. Kanojo and her cat Daru are inseparable, having grown up together. Now a junior in college, Tomoka — her roommate of a year and a half — moves out of their shared apartment, and in order to keep her living space, Kanojo must find a job. Day by day, Daru watches her continued efforts from a cat's-eye view, eagerly awaiting…

High school student Hodaka leaves his home on an isolated island and moves to Tokyo, but he immediately becomes broke. He lives his days in isolation, but finally finds a job as a writer for a shady occult magazine. After he starts his job, the weather has been rainy day after day. In a corner of the crowded and busy city, Hodaka meets a young woman named Hina. Due to certain…

This is the story of two close friends, Toono Takaki and Shinohara Akari, who became separated by space and time: Part 1 — The Chosen Cherry Blossoms (26 min.): Because of family relocation, Shinohara Akari had to leave Tokyo after graduating from elementary school. The strong feelings between Takaki and Akari keep them in contact, but they worry that they may not meet again…

Suzume, a 17-year-old girl who lives in a quiet town in Kyushu, meets a young man on a journey "looking for doors." Suzume follows him to a ruin to a dilapidated building in the mountains and finds a free-standing, undisturbed door as if "it" alone were saved from devastation. Suzume feels drawn by an invisible power and reaches out to the door... Soon, doors all over Japan…

In an alternate history of the aftermath of World War II, Japan has been cleaved in half, with the south—Honshu and the other islands—allied with the United States and the northern island Hokkaido annexed by the enigmatic Union. It was on Hokkaido that a mysterious tower had been built, a strand of metal reaching up out of the atmosphere, visible from the northern tip of…

Can a poem save your life? Words are powerful. Insults and rumors can derail a career; a bit of encouragement can give someone the strength to pursue their dreams. When a high school boy skipping class to sketch shoe designs and a taciturn woman drinking a morning beer meet in a Tokyo park, they say little, but the woman bids farewell with an ancient tanka poem. Will the boy…