I love Makoto Shinkai. I’ve seen all of his films, have manga and artbooks for his work, and even went to a Your Name pop-up cafe in Japan when that smash hit film first became an international sensation.
Like Hayao Miyazaki, his creativity and vision have the ability to cut through the mainstream and produce magical animes that become critical and commercial successes. He’s a defining director of the modern era of anime, and for good reason.
Shinkai’s massive worldwide success, however, has arguably overshadowed other directors who were breaking through at the same time, at least in the Western mainstream. A case in point is Mamoru Hosoda.
Both Hosoda and Shinkai have long been dubbed the “next Miyazaki” by some quarters. Shinkai’s brilliant first film, Voices of a Distant Star, debuted just a few years before Hosoda began making his own distinct brand of original animes with The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
Despite starting their careers at similar times, more casual anime viewers may be less familiar with Hosoda’s brilliant body of work – instead knowing more about Shinkai, who has made two of the top five highest-grossing Japanese films of all time.
If you’re not too familiar with Hosoda, you’ll soon have the chance to right this wrong as three of his classic films have just been picked up by two new distributors. As Screen International reported, the distribution rights for Hosoda classics The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars and Wolf Children have been picked up by UK distributor Anime Limited and Germany’s Plaion Pictures.
Anime Limited is the British firm behind the brilliant range of All The Anime releases, which includes superb Blu-Ray versions of many beloved franchises including Evangelion, Naruto and Berserk, to name but a few.
Plaion also picked up the rights to Hosoda’s fantastical 2015 adventure The Boy and the Beast, while both Plaion and Anime Limited already had the rights to the Oscar-nominated Mirai and Hosoda’s most recent film Belle.
Interestingly, the firms are reportedly working on a ‘World of Mamoru Hosoda’ theatrical season, which would see some of Hosoda’s work potentially heading to a cinema near you, and opening up his films to a whole new audience.
Out of all the films that could soon be heading to cinemas, my top pick is undoubtedly Summer Wars. The 2009 sci-fi drama is about a timid, high-school math genius named Kenji, who is asked by his classmate Natsuki to go with her to a family gathering in the Japanese countryside. There, he has to pretend to be her boyfriend, while Natsuki’s family gathers for her great-grandmother’s birthday.
Things, however, take a turn for the worse when a sadistic AI is unleashed in the virtual reality world of OZ. This VR world is basically what the Metaverse would be, if it was actually good and useful. In OZ people have their own avatars, can hang out with friends, go shopping, play games – just live out an entertaining, virtual life. However, in what is maybe not the best design decision, OZ is also inextricably linked to real life – and is a place where people can pay their bills, operate businesses and much more. So when a nefarious AI is unleashed in OZ, it causes pandemonium in the real world, but Kenji – who gets caught up in the cyber drama – might have the know-how and brains to save the day.
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It’s a brilliant, exhilarating and exciting anime full of human drama, clever twists and heart-wrenching moments. Like Miyazaki and Shinkai, Hosoda in Summer Wars has a knack for mixing fantasy and human drama to great effect, creating a timeless anime that anyone who loves the genre should experience. And if you’ve never seen it before, you may soon get the chance to watch it and other gems from Hosoda on the big screen.
If you can’t wait that long, you can purchase Summer Wars from Amazon, along with other Hosoda titles like the Blu-Ray for Wolf Children and the DVD of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. You can also rent or buy The Boy and the Beast on Prime Video, and other Hosoda films.
For more anime content, make sure you check out our watch order guides for Neon Genesis Evangelion and Attack on Titan. You can also find out about the release date for the highly anticipated Uzumaki anime, and read our feature that looks at Kiki’s Delivery Service 35 years on.
