Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name has overtaken Hayao Miyazaki’s classic Spirited Away to be the highest grossing anime film of all time.
At the international box office, Your Name has grossed $331,000,000 USD. Spirited Away grossed a total of $289,000,000 USD.
The film was also the first anime not to be directed by Miyazaki to earn $100 million at the Japanese box office, retaining the top spot for over nine weeks. Spirited Away still holds the top spot for the highest grossing film in Japan (¥30.40 Billion compared to Your Name‘s ¥23.23 Billion) whilst Your Name is the fourth highest grossing film.
Because of its supreme success, many have hailed Shinkai as the next Miyazaki. However, speaking the filmmaker told THR that there is no one “who can make films like [Miyazaki].”
“[If] I thought I had the same kind of filmmaking skills as Miyazaki-san, then that would be problematic, but I don’t [think] there is anyone who can make films like him. There is also the factor of eras: When he began making anime, it was during the time of rapid economic growth in Japan, and I think he felt his films had the power to change the world. I don’t have that desire, nor do I feel my films can make society better.”
The plot revolves around the gender swapping between senior high school boy Taki Tachibana and senior high school girl Mitsuha Miyamizu. The two have never met, but their fates become intertwined by the one-in-a-thousand-years fall of a comet. A number of real-life locations are shown in the animated film, including Shinkai’s hometown in Nagano prefecture in central Japan, its neighboring prefecture Gifu and Tokyo. The film is praised for its beautiful cinematography and its use of light.
Speaking to Vice, Shinkai discussed the film and his inspiration behind it. On the film’s gender swapping theme, Shinkai said, “The goal with the gender swapping theme is: how do they get back to what they used to be? I wanted to surprise an audience… I think that’s a universal theme, you know, we don’t know who we’re going to meet tomorrow.”
“And that person might change your life entirely. There’s always that possibility, and while you’re not necessarily actively seeking it, you have that desire deep down.”
According to Shinkai, the film was inspired by the earthquake that struck Japan in 2011.
The international success of Your Name will most likely only continue to grow as Funimation Films have stated that Shinkai’s anime film will hit North American cinemas on 7 April.
Last year, we commended Shinkai’s success by we nominated the Japanese filmmaker to be Resonate’s Asian of the Year 2016/
