destroying all monsters

Shinkai’s artbook arrives!

FOLLOWING A NICE hefty shipping bill, I finally have my hands on Makoto Shinkai’s brand new book of background art which goes by the title of Sora no Kikou or The Sky Of The Longing For Memories or Memories Of The Sky.

You can already find an excellent review of the content of this book at Xcomp’s blog. As I don’t have much in the way of Japanese reading comprehension, I shall limit my comments to stuff that I know about.

I may as well get my only real criticism of this book out of the way first – It’s too small! Measuring only 260mm x 182mm (10.1in x 7,2in), which is Japanese B5-sized, it doesn’t really have the chance to do justice to some of the sublime artwork that have so blown us away in Shinkai’s movies.

This also puts the mockers on any plans that some people might have had to purchase a second copy to dismember to hang on their walls.

Most of the 120 page volume, around two-thirds, is dedicated to Shinkai’s most recent opus 5 Centimeters Per Second. You have to like any artbook that has a whole chapter dedicated to the railway element of the film.

The design is first rate throughout. I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this. I was originally hoping for large format art taking up most of each page, but the addition of notes and smaller images showing the context of the backgrounds – as well as ‘before’ and ‘after’ cuts – really adds to the experience. I only wish that I could read the text.

Some of the work is breathtaking, which is even more amazing when you think of the amount of effort that must have gone into the various scenes during the montage, and often all for just a fraction of a second.

The last third of the book deals with Shinkai’s two other major movies, his debut, Voices from a Distant Star and The Place Promised in our Early Days, as well as a page or so on his commercial for the Shinano Daily Newspaper. It rounds off with an illustrated description of the animation production process and interviews with Shinkai and other main staff members.

If you’re a Shinkai fan and can get hold of this – apparently the first print run is now very difficult to get hold of – then I’d say go for it. The size issue does slightly take the edge of what is otherwise an outstanding volume, but this is still quality stuff.

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It seems somewhat appropriate, knowing Shinkai’s love of cats, to dedicate this post to Murphy, our last family cat, who died following a stroke tonight aged around 15.