Not Makoto Shinkai

May 9, 2017 12:31 PM

So I've just discovered Makoto Shinkai in the last week. I saw Your Name in the theater and The Garden of Words on Amazon Prime. I've got one week free on Amazon Prime - Anime Strike channel. What other filmmakers in this genre might I enjoy?
posted by falsedmitri to Media & Arts (5 answers total)

You might enjoy The Great Passage, about a team of people who work on a dictionary. It has some of the same contemplative "slice of life" flavor of Shinkai's films, and you can watch the entire series in five hours. It was one of Anime Strike's big exclusives, and Amazon also just published the novel it's based on.
posted by lunch at 2:23 PM on May 9, 2017

Satoshi Kon is another filmmaker you might enjoy. Many of his films such as Millennium Actress and Perfect Blue depict people connecting in ways apart from realism.

You might also like the films of Hirokazu Koreeda. His films are live-action, but they share the contemplative quality that Makoto Shinkai's films possess.
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 2:33 PM on May 9, 2017

You might check out Shinichirō Watanabe -- his stuff has some action, but his contemplative work is really beautiful.
posted by OrangeDisk at 7:06 PM on May 9, 2017

Enthusiastically seconding Satoshi Kon. Paprika has more of the mind bending quality you may have liked about Your Name, and Millennium Actress and especially Tokyo Godfathers both have the wistful sweetness.

Also, Mamoru Hosoda. I've only seen Summer Wars but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The Boy and the Beast has also received high praise.
posted by lieber hair at 5:22 AM on May 10, 2017

Going through what I saw on Anime Strike specifically, other than the stuff already mentioned above, you should also check out:

- TekkonKinkreet (highly recommended)
- Mushishi
- Nodame Cantabile
- Cowboy Bebop
- Space Dandy
posted by FarOutFreak at 10:32 PM on May 10, 2017