Have you ever heard about “Kimino Namewa(What is your name?)”? This movie is a Japanese animation and was so popular this winter. So, it has led to a lot of parody clips and has become a hit on SNS. The director who made this movie is a famous director called post-Miyazaki Hayao(a famous movie director in Japan). He delivers his own message and always does new attempts. “5 Centimeters Per Second (2007),”“The Garden of Words(2013),”and “Your Name(2016)” are his representative works. He also has had his name registered on the list of world notable animators in“American Variety Magazine.”
Japanese animation is recognized for its originality and lots of mania. It has even been placed as a unique movie genre. Miyazaki Hayao was born in Nagano city, which located far from Tokyo, and was raised in a rich family because of his parents who operate a construction company. Especially, he was so rich that his parents bought him a computer,so he could focus on his areas of interest, such asscience fiction. Therefore, he was able to make his imagination into reality. However, he is a hardworking and faithful person who rejected his parents’ proposition about construction work to make his dream come true. He wanted to make his own animations. So, he wrote his own scenarios, made his own drawings, edited his movies, and prepared the special effects. His hard work proves that he has a definite goal to achieve and lots of skills to make it come true.
Recently, not only was “Your Name(2016)”so popular in Japan and Korea, his movie contains wonderful stories related to the universe. Especially, he is well known for using light. Thanks to the amazing light arts, his visual video is evaluated as the best by both the public and by professionals. He uses vivid color to depict the sky and madelots of effort in the scene of a shooting star that has fallen from the sky. You can find that there are images of the sky and ofnature in the movie poster. On the other hand, he has sometimes received poor ranking because he usually delivers the contents of his moviesthrough main character’s monologues. They feel a little bit like text book writing to people.
Most of the movies usually lead to the message that the director wants to deliver. Sometimes, a message is delivered so indirectly that people can’t understand. The movie has its value that it is made by many people’s efforts, including the director. Director “Shinkai Makoto” understands the movie’s characters well and is persuading young people to believe that there’s hope and light in these tough daily lives. And, he is conveying a touching story through the movie. Don’t you think this is the secret that makes the movie so popular?
Byun Ji-Young
merry08@cau.ac.kr