HasMakoto Shinkaibeen creating his cinematic animeverse? Are all of his films connected? Movies such asYour Name(2016) andWeathering With You(2019) granted him a respectful position as an anime authorial creator with the international public, and with the latter representing Japan in the 2020 Oscars for Best International Feature Film, he has been referred to as the next Hayao Miyazaki, which is a very simplistic way of approaching the importance of both anyway.
Nevertheless, while Miyazaki never declared that all of his films (or all of Studio Ghibli’s films, for that matter) exist in the same cinematic universe, minor characters, such as the soot sprites that first appeared inMy Neighbor Totoro, later appeared inSpirited Awayand recently were featured in theStar Warsspecial shortZen - Grogu and Dust Bunnies. Especially if rewatching a lot of Studio Ghibli’s movies, one can hunt and catch a lot of Easter Eggs.
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Following Studio Ghibli
In addition to the obvious presence of the soot sprites/dust bunnies, there is a Totoro book in the library ofWhisper Of The Heart.There is even a Miyazaki look-alike in a scene in which people are gathered around a TV at a shop window. Another look-alike, this time a character who is dressed in the same clothes as Pazu, fromLaputa: Castle In The Skyis seen running on a street inHowl’s Moving Castle.Another Easter Egg forKiki’s Delivery Servicecan be found inSpirited Away: there is a cushion with the character Jiji embroidered in it among toys and cushions in Yubaba’s son Boh’s playroom. The words “Porco Rosso” can be seen engraved on a clock in the filmWhisper Of The Heart.And it does not stop there. There are many other appearances and references made to the other movies and the Studio itself in several of their films.
Did Shinkai Follow The Same Path?
While it can be said that Makoto Shinkai’s takes on his films are mostly grounded in reality, while Miyazaki’s are more fantastic allegoric tales, with the first tackling themes like the intrinsic problems of modern youth, climatic changes, struggles with important decisions and the nature of identity, bothYour NameandWeathering With Youcontain supernatural elements as a basis for their plot and storytelling.
Time Travel in Your Name & The Connection With Weathering With You
Not to make a deep dive into the nature of time travel inYour Name, let us just say that it can be stated that it abides by therules of time travelproposed by Roberta Sparrow in her book “The Philosophy Of Time Travel”, fromDonnie Darko. According to this, there are times when an event – in the case ofYour Name,the death of the people of Iotomori, or at least Mitsuha’s death – leads to the creation of a Tangent Universe, which is highly unstable and lasts for a short time before it eventually collapses, thus creating a black hole that consumes the primary universe and is the destroyer of the very existence.
Yet according to Roberta Sparrow’s theory, an artifact, which is usually associated with metal and tends to have religious importance, will be created as a sign that a Tangent Universe was born, and that will attract the interest of the people affected by this major event. Said artifact is then to be led back to the Primary Universe by a Living Receptor, who is chosen for reasons unknown. InYour Name, the red Musubi string connecting Taki and Mitsuha, while not made of metal, is indeed held in its place when Taki wears it by a metal clip, and the connotation it has isdirectly linked to the red thread of fate, which has a major religious significance for the people of Japan, while the Musubi string itself has its big importance for the people of Itomori, according to their traditions.
This artifact makes its transition between the timelines like this: Mitsuha gives Taki the string in the train station in the corrupted timeline, and he later returns it to her in the corrected one, emphasizing the fact that the string is the artifact, and she is the Living Receptor, indispensable for the restoration of the Primary Universe.
Connections Explained?
Another element very present in Shinkai’s works is mostly related to the weather: water. Rain is almost a character in a lot of his films, such asShe And Her Cat, Garden Of Words, Your Name(after the meteor hits Itomori, it is flooded), andWeathering With You(the entire story is based on the rain that does not stop falling). Also, according to “The Philosophy OfTime Travel”, water is an essential element of time travel, in addition to metal, which might explain why the couple fromYour Namemake an appearance inWeathering With You.
WhenWeathering With Youpremiered at the Grand Rex in Paris, France, at the question and answer session held after the film ended, Makoto Shinkai said that the story ofWeathering With Youtakes place in 2021 and that Taki and Mitsuha meet again in 2022, at the end ofYour Name. By analyzing the events inWeathering With You, and remembering how things were in the world inYour Name’s timeline, it can therefore be inferred that it is very likely that another timeline was created, the one in which the events ofWeathering With Youtake place. Furthermore, Shinkai, in a director’s interview, stated that Taki and Mitsuha did get married, and that he does not care about the different timelines of his works; however, it can also be explained by using thetime travel theorymentioned herein.
With this confirmation by Shinkai himself, and considering that at the end ofWeathering with YouHodaka returns to Tokyo three years after he is sent back to his hometown, and he goes back to see the old lady who is Taki’s grandmother, it is safe to assume that Taki and Mitsuha got married somewhere between 2022 and 2024. Taki is the one that takes help from Hina and Hodoka, when he is visiting his grandmother, who asks for a time under the sun to bid goodbye to her husband after his death. Mitsuha also appears in this film, working in the shop where Hodoka goes to buy a gift for Hina, and helping him with the chosen gift. Mitsuha’s friends, Sayaka and Tessie, also made a brief appearance. Intentionally (and it seems so, since he also confirmed that Yukino is the same character inYour NameandGarden Of Words) or not, it can actually be said that Makoto Shinkai is creating his own animeverse.
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