The Japanese anime movie “Your Name” is continuing its reign in the box office as creator Makoto Shinkai has been currently dubbed as the new Hayao Miyazaki. With the anime movie’s success, Funimation is also pushing “Your Name” to qualify for the Oscars.
Director and creator Makoto Shinkai are recently being referred to as the new Hayao Miyazaki because of the success of his latest anime movie, “Your Name” otherwise known as “Kimi No Na Wa”. “Your Name” is the fastest and highest grossing Japanese animated film to date, surpassing the records held by Studio Ghibli’s “Ponyo” and James Cameron’s “Avatar”. As of now, “Your Name” has already even won five awards at various international film and animation festivals.
Makoto Shinkai being compared to Hayao Miyazaki is truly an honor for the creator of “Your Name”. Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese director who has created a stellar reputation based on his multi-awarded works with Studio Ghibli, a company he co-founded, with his breakthrough movies such as “Spirited Away” and “Howl’s Moving Castle”. Meanwhile, Makoto Shinkai has made some films that have earned him respect in the animation industry such as “5 Centimeters Per Second”, “Children Who Chase Lost Voices”, and “The Garden Of Words” but it was only through “Your Name” that he rose to fame.
While Makoto Shinkai is finally making a name for himself around the world, Funimation is reportedly making efforts to get the animated film “Your Name” a nomination in the upcoming 2016 Academy awards. In order for a movie to qualify for a nomination in the Oscars, it has to run at least one week in theaters located in the county of Los Angeles. With that requirement, it seems that Funimation will be bringing “Your Name” to theaters this season as reports have been released stating that “Your Name” will run at the Los Angeles Music Hall for a week from Dec. 2 to Dec. 9, 2016.
After the one-week theatrical release in Los Angeles, Funimation is gearing up to release “Your Name” in more theaters all over the U.S. in the first quarter of 2017. Mike Du Bois of Funimation and Kun Gao of Crunchyroll has shared in an interview with iDigitalTimes that the two platforms promise to collaborate to make anime more accessible to all Western audiences.
