Makoto Shinkai

Biography

Makoto Shinkai, born on February 9, 1973, is a Japanese animator, filmmaker, author, and manga artist. He began his career in 1996 as a video game animator with Nihon Falcom and gained recognition with his original video animation (OVA) She and Her Cat in 1999. Shinkai established a partnership with CoMix Wave Films, producing the science-fiction OVA Voices of a Distant Star in 2002, followed by his debut feature film The Place Promised in Our Early Days in 2004. His second feature, 5 Centimeters per Second (2007), received critical acclaim, as did subsequent works such as Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011) and The Garden of Words (2013). Shinkai achieved widespread success with the fantasy romance Your Name (2016), which became the third highest-grossing anime film of all time, and continued his success with the 2019 film Weathering with You. He resides in Japan and is married.