Special feature of 1905 film networkThe goal of production is to hope to surpass the previous work.
Three years ago, Your Name. "made Makoto Shinkai famous, from a niche animation director to the mass market. The film won 25 billion box office in Japan that year, and the global box office also reached a record of 330 million US dollars, surpassing becoming the world’s highest-grossing Japanese film.
Three years later, Makoto Shinkai, wishing to break through himself, brought a new work, The Son of the Weather, which was still favored by Japanese audiences. Up to now, Japan’s box office has exceeded 14 billion yen, and it will also represent Japan in the best international film Oscar next year.
However, The Son of the Weather really surpassed Your Name. "Is it?
First of all, from the box office, although it is currently the top box office champion in Japan, this figure is far less than your name. 》。 China mainland opened more than 45 million yuan on its first day of release. Without considering the influence of competitors, there is still some gap compared with the previous box office of more than 76 million yuan in the same period.
Look at the audience’s evaluation, "Your name. "On Douban, it has a high score of 8.4, and" The Son of the Weather "has a score of 7.1, which is also a lot behind.
Whether it’s the China fans who began to pursue Makoto Shinkai animation from "Five centimeters per second" or based on the analysis of the audience portraits of these two animated films in mainland China, the core audience of Makoto Shinkai animation has always been teenagers under 30.
For "The Son of the Weather", most people still praise the film for its Makoto Shinkai-style classic painting style and beautiful music, but there are many critical voices at the story level:"The plot is really fascinating and fascinating", "The whole story is like a conventional light novel", "Too many logical injuries, rambling plots and forced happy endings."
Makoto Shinkai still tells the story of love between boys and girls. Has the taste of the audience changed now, or has Makoto Shinkai changed? In his forties, he is in the heyday of his creative life and is tasting Your Name. After the commercial sweetness brought by "",did he start to fall into the bottleneck?
"Your name. "Mode 2.0?
The creative idea of "The Son of the Weather" came from a moment when Makoto Shinkai looked up at the sky: "It would be great if I could fly to the cumulonimbus clouds and relax for a while", and it was this idea that prompted him to create this animation about the sky.
The production cycle of the film is one year, and the behind-the-scenes team is mainly "Your Name". ",including producer Genki Kawamura, role designer Tanaka Masayoshi and the score RADWIMPS band.
The painting supervisor was replaced by Tudu Tamura, who was born in Ghibli, and the art supervisor was replaced by Hiroshi, who worked with Makoto Shinkai — — Like The Son of the Weather, the scenes are full of rain.
There are more than 1700 shots in the whole film, which is better than Your Name. There are more than 100, and each frame has been confirmed by the production team. If you only look at posters or stills, you will probably have an illusion: this is another "Your Name". 》？
Yes, it’s still Makoto Shinkai’s exquisite and beautiful painting style. The combination of real-life photos with later drawing, emphasizing bright colors, using light and shadow contrast, etc. This kind of extreme rendering and beautification of real scenes and showing the beauty of things in ordinary life is the symbolic style of Makoto Shinkai’s animation.
The upgrade of "The Son of Weather" on the screen is to increase the complexity and realism of the scene. Makoto Shinkai specially invited meteorologists to provide professional suggestions for the presentation of cumulonimbus clouds and rain. In addition, Makoto Shinkai also used two solar light sources on the screen design at the same time, trying to create more beautiful light and shadow effects.
This story can be seen as "Your name. "Sister", the background setting is also based on ancient legends. The previous work is about the fate connection between the red rope and dusk. This time, it shows the special character "Sunny Girl" who has been passed down for thousands of years and can control the weather changes.
Fan Gao, a 16-year-old boy who left home from the island to work hard in Tokyo, came across Yangcai, a girl who lived tenaciously with her younger brother in Tokyo. After learning that Yangcai is a "100% sunny girl" who can dispel the rain, they started to do business to help people who need short sunny days.
When the heavy rain continued, Yang Cai decided to give his life to completely change the weather. At this time, Fan Gao made his choice between love and the fate of the world.
The scenes in the film, such as Tokyo City, Shinjuku Station, and the shrine, can be found in Your Name. Find the corresponding in ". Makoto Shinkai also seems to want to form his own "movie universe", planting many eggs: Tachibana Taki and his grandmother appeared, and the clerk who gave him advice when Fan Gao bought a ring was Miyamizu Mitsuha.
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"Your name. The great success of the novel is largely due to the use of two theme concepts, namely "time-space transformation" and "body exchange", which have always been popular with the audience.
The former provides games with narrative structure, such as a large number of sci-fi suspense movies, which provides the audience with a space for fascination and continuous puzzle solving, while the latter brings wonders, and so on are classic examples.
"The Son of the Weather" has the fantasy setting that the whole city is shrouded in rain, which seems to be magnificent. Unfortunately, it only stays in the visual beauty. The legend of "Sunny Girl" or the point that Tokyo was originally a sea 200 years ago is not further developed. Finally, it falls on a middle school love, and the pattern is very small.
Makoto Shinkai’s MV lyric rhythm, accompanied by the monologue or narration of the hero/heroine, can also make up for his lack of narrative ability in animated short films, but Son of the Weather exposed his shortcoming.
He tried to follow the typological template of three-act drama in his plays, which was rather blunt, and the film characters also set up quite routine opposites. The love process between Fangao and Yangcai lacked detailed support and was difficult to be convincing. Yang cuisine appeared in front of the public as a "sunny girl", but it did not attract the attention of the state and government agencies at all; The policeman was portrayed as a villain. After being arrested, Fan Gao was able to escape easily with a pistol. His "Japanese drama run" on the railway track was completely divorced from reality. What’s more, Yang Cai is willing to give her life on her own initiative, without giving her any emotional motives. …
These plot development and logic problems that can’t stand the fine products indirectly hinder our emotional empathy for the hero and heroine, and it is difficult to resonate.
"Your name. Is Makoto Shinkai an unexpected success in animated feature films? This time, he seems to have changed back to the animation director who is not very good at telling stories.
Makoto Shinkai’s Invariance and Change
From "The Son of the Weather", whether at the age of 20 or 40, Makoto Shinkai maintained a valuable sense of youth in his creation, and unswervingly created innocence and romance in the film.
"I need you more than the clear sky!" The love shown in The Son of the Weather is not only the phrase "Even if the whole city is turned upside down by the heavy rain" written in The Little Love Song, but also like the Qiong Yao-style oath "Only when the mountains have no edges and the heavens and the earth are in harmony will you dare to die with you".
Behind the unforgettable love is the eternal theme of Makoto Shinkai’s animation: distance and secret. In the secret of two people based on distance, hit their persistence and pain in love directly.
Alien lovers separated by the universe; Japan, which is divided into two parts in Beyond the Cloud, the Agreed Place; The reality and the country of death in the children chasing the stars; The love between teachers and students in the court of words and leaves; "Your name. Space-time separation in "; Life and death in "The Son of the Weather" and the sail height and sunny vegetables separated at both ends by the sky. …
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Based on the differences in time and space, urban and rural areas, age and gender, the love that the hero and heroine carefully guard together or the feat of silently saving the fate of the world is moving based on distance.
Makoto Shinkai’s animation is often evaluated as a "healing system". What we can see from "The Son of the Weather" is the continuation and change of Makoto Shinkai’s creation of the "world system".
What is the "World Department"?
According to the definition of Hiroki Azuma, a Japanese expert in secondary research, "world department" is "a small relationship problem centered on the protagonist (I) and the heroine (you), with no specific settings in the middle, and works directly related to abstract big problems such as the crisis of the world and the demise of the world."
Simply put, it focuses on the pure love between teenagers and girls, but their fate is directly related to the world crisis or the demise of the world. Character setting is often a fatalistic battle girl (you) and an incompetent teenager (me). Teenagers need to make a choice between each other and the world. In the end, most of them sacrifice the ego and achieve the big ego.
EVA is the key work of "World Department", including Makoto Shinkai’s previous cartoons "The Voice of the Star" and "Your Name". "also belong to the" world department ".
The sail height and Yang cuisine in The Son of the Weather are completely in line with the distribution of people in the "world department", and the long rainy days clearly point to "the crisis of the world and the demise of the world".
The definition of "no specific settings in the middle" actually refers to "de-socialization", that is, ignoring the practices of the external environment such as the state and society on the world crisis, and concentrating a huge world problem on the emotional problems of the male and female protagonists.
However, in Son of the Weather, the involvement of "socialization" has obviously increased. Fan Gao’s illegal gun holding, resisting arrest, assaulting a police officer and other acts have strengthened the conflict of opposites and made his love with Yang Cai less pure.
Compare your name. ",Makoto Shinkai’s handling of the ending of the" world system "has also changed.
In the previous work, Tachibana Taki went back to the past to save the town, and then returned to the present to meet with Gong Shui in the street. Even if there is suspense, it will always be a happy ending. This time, the sail is high and Yang Cai is not allowed to give his life. Although they are reunited, Tokyo has always fallen into the disaster of heavy rain, and the ending has not achieved the best of both worlds.
From, The Court of Words and Leaves, Your Name. From "The Son of the Weather" to "The Son of the Weather", Makoto Shinkai’s recent animation works refer to and discuss the social situation, climate change, poverty of young people working illegally and other practical aspects. Makoto Shinkai’s growing pessimism about the current development of the world has also affected his creative style.
After Makoto Shinkai became famous, he was highly anticipated by the animation industry, calling him "the new Miyazaki Hayao". In terms of personal style and audience, he is indeed the most promising animation director after Miyazaki Hayao.
Although he is always addicted to the little love between men and women, Son of the Weather also shows us that he has paid more attention to and thought about the outside world. It’s just that the playwright’s ability is too weak, the handling of realistic issues and love is unbalanced, and his ideological level is far less than that of his predecessor Miyazaki Hayao.
And after the restoration of Spirited Away, it can still be sought after in mainland China, creating a box office success. Will "Children of the Weather" become a classic decades later? It’s hard to conclude that Makoto Shinkai is stuck in the bottleneck, but next, he has to work harder.
