That’s right folks, February 28 is the First Annual Global Makoto Shinkai Day, organised by the wonderful fansite Cherry Blossoms Falling. Plus, controversial anime steaming site Crunchyroll will apparently be offering all the director’s movies available for free for those 24 hours. Good option as a last resort, but really if you can try and get your hands on some DVDs or even Blu-rays if you want to check out his beautiful work for the first time.
I’m not sure how much I’ll be able to participate in the discussion over at CBF, but I am planning to get involved in some way. I’ll be posting (hopefully) two relevant articles, one of which should be my long delayed review of Five Centimeters Per Second. Stay tuned, and enjoy the celebrations.
4 Comments
1 Shii wrote:
What exactly makes Crunchyroll “controversial” or “a last resort”? Is it offering Shinkai illegally? I doubt it!
2 tim wrote:
I must confess I haven’t used Crunchyroll much myself, as I’m based in the UK and from what I understand most of their licenses only cover the US.
I say ‘controversial’ as I’ve read many people moaning about their costs compared to the quality of service, and I use the expression ‘last resort’ purely in this instance: I wouldn’t really want to watch any Shinkai film, especially for the first time, on an internet stream
But maybe I’m wrong – if I can, I’ll try watching one of them on there on Saturday, to check the quality out.
If anyone is looking for more info, check the Crunchyroll site here:
http://www.crunchyroll.com/forumtopic-468856/global-shinkai-day-2009/
3 usagijen wrote:
Thank you for the heads up on this one! I’m pretty much a Shinkai n00b, all I ever watched to date is Hoshi no Koe and 5cm/s, and I don’t really think I appreciated them as much as I wanted. I guess this is the perfect time to savor his works, and finally be a ‘real fan’ or something ^^
4 tim wrote:
To be fair, I still think Hoshi no Koe/Voices of a Distant Star is his greatest work – it might look a little lo-fi compared to his more recent, bigger productions – but the scripting and pacing is flawless, and it’s mind-blowing he made it on his own, in his bedroom.
Anyway – I’ll stop talking about this now – as I was planning on writing a full retrospective to be published on Saturday!