Makoto Shinkai’s Five Best Films, Ranked
5. Suzume
We saw this in theaters when it came out in the states and I had high hopes for it. Suzume had excellent reviews, and right away it was apparent that the animation was gonna be something special. However, it quickly falls into a somewhat slow, repetative ferris wheel that you never get off of. In the end, I didn’t feel like I really knew the characters, nor that I cared much about them. And the chair symbolism was largely lost on me.
4. Five Centimeters Per Second
In Five Centimeters Per Second, you start to see the creative genius that is Makot Shinkai blossom, and see his emerging themes of distance between people, that is at once beautiful as it is heart breaking. I love the way this film does what so many other stories about adolescents have done before – showing the pain and hurt that small seemingly unimportant moments can bear.
Still, as a whole Five Centimeters isn’t as compelling as some of the other films on this list. But don’t let that discourage you. Some of its best moments are arguably the best of all Shinkai’s films.
3. Weathering with You
Did you know Weathering With You did incredibly well at the box office? Almost as well as Your Name, even. And for good reason. Although it’s a bit emotional on rewatches, this film works incredibly well. While it’s hard to compete with what many will consider Shinkai’s best film – and undoubtedly it was his breakout hit – this film succeeds by not trying to redo Your Name, while still including those characters in it Marvel Cinematic Universe style. How great is that?
2. Your Name
Your Name is sort of the quintessential anime film, and I doubt many films will come along anytime to rival its place at the top. It hits all the right notes, and does it so well that it’s hard to explain what works so well about it. Like the best masterpieces, it just works. It’s funny when it needs to be funny, and tear-jerkingly sad when it needs to be, and it creates such an intense sense of urgency around the fate of one small town (sort of like Stranger Things) that you can’t help but sit at the end of your seat wondering what is going to happen.
1. Garden of Words
While no other film can compete with Your Name in terms of grandness, there is one film that is even more of a complete masterpiece.
Whereas Your Name was created by a big studio, and has a lot of the glitz and glamor of a major anime film, in many ways, the smaller scale and run time of Garden of Words allows Shinkai to function at his best. Instead of broadening the scope of his story and bringing in high stakes plots, this story does the opposite.
In an almost Hemingwayesque style, it strips down the narrative and leaves it bear to just two people meeting up in a gazebo in the park. And yet, it’s done so well you feel like there is so much more going on. But I guess that’s the point. In a garden of words, there’s so much to be said.
