Makoto Shinkai

Okay, I'll just say it: nobody paints a sky like this guy. Shinkai's whole thing is light, clouds, and the ache of two people who keep just missing each other, and honestly he was rendering background art at a borderline obsessive level long before Your Name made him a household name. What I love is that he never let the "next Miyazaki" label box him in; he scaled up from making Voices of a Distant Star basically solo in 2002 to weaving disaster, loss, and yearning into blockbusters, but the emotional core stayed his. His movies are the kind you walk out of and instinctively look up at the actual sky. That's a rare trick, and he pulls it off almost every single time.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Makoto Shinkai (born Makoto Niitsu on February 9, 1973, in Koumi, Minamisaku, Nagano) is a Japanese anime film director and screenwriter known for visually stunning works exploring themes of distance and longing. He drew widespread attention in 2002 with the nearly solo-produced short film Voices of a Distant Star, and rose to international prominence with Your Name (2016), which grossed over 25 billion yen domestically, at the time the second-highest total for any Japanese film. His subsequent features Weathering with You (2019) and Suzume (2022) further cemented his status as one of Japan's leading animation directors.

Name (English)

Makoto Shinkai

Name (Japanese)

新海誠

Reading

しんかい まこと

Real name

新津誠

Born

February 9, 1973 (age 53)

Origin

Koumi, Minamisaku, Nagano, Japan

Occupation

Anime film director / Animator / Screenwriter / Novelist

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Aquarius / Ox

Blood type

O

Agency

CoMix Wave Films

Agency history

Nihon Falcom (1996–2001)

Active years

1999–present

High school

Nagano Prefectural Nozawa Kita High School (graduated 1991)

University

Chuo University, Faculty of Letters, Department of Japanese Literature (graduated 1996)

Debut

Released the self-produced short anime She and Her Cat in 1999 while employed at Nihon Falcom; made his professional debut in 2002 with the short film Voices of a Distant Star, which he produced almost entirely alone.

Awards & achievements

• 2002 1st New Century Tokyo International Anime Fair Open Competition Excellence Award (Voices of a Distant Star)
• 2002 6th Agency for Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival Digital Art Division Special Award (Voices of a Distant Star)
• 2005 59th Mainichi Film Award Animated Film Prize (The Place Promised in Our Early Days)
• 2007 1st Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Animated Feature Film (5 Centimeters per Second)
• 2014 21st Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film – Best Feature Film (The Garden of Words)
• 2017 40th Japan Academy Prize Best Screenplay (Your Name)
• 2017 49th Sitges Film Festival Best Animated Feature Film (Your Name)
• 2016 42nd Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award Best Animated Film (Your Name)
• 2020 43rd Japan Academy Prize Best Animation of the Year (Weathering with You)
• 2024 81st Golden Globe Award Best Animated Feature Film Nomination (Suzume)

Timeline

1. 1973Born in Koumi, Minamisaku, Nagano
2. 1996Graduated from Chuo University and joined Nihon Falcom
3. 1999Released self-produced short anime She and Her Cat
4. 2001Left Nihon Falcom to focus on animation production
5. 2002Released short film Voices of a Distant Star (nearly solo); joined CoMix Wave
6. 2004Released debut feature film The Place Promised in Our Early Days
7. 2007Released 5 Centimeters per Second
8. 2016Released Your Name, grossing over 25 billion yen domestically — a record for Japanese animated films
9. 2019Released Weathering with You
10. 2022Released Suzume, surpassing 10 million admissions

Spouse

Chieko Misaka (actress; publicly disclosed)

Children

One daughter (Chise Niitsu, active as an actress)

Hobbies

• Jogging
• Reading

Specialties

• Animation production
• Screenwriting

Filmography / notable works

• Official sitehttps://www.shinkaiworks.com/
• Xhttps://twitter.com/shinkaimakoto
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0%E6%B5%B7%E8%AA%A0
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q335080

Tags

• From Nagano
• CoMix Wave Films
• Anime film director
• Your Name
• Suzume
• Weathering with You
• Independent animation origins
• Japan Academy Prize winner

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.