Institute / Research Cases / QS-RC-119
Makoto Shinkai
Your Name, Weathering with You, Suzume, 5 Centimeters per Second, The Garden of Words. Makoto Shinkai, who paints light and rain, sky and city with minute care and turns hearts and times that pass each other by into stories, is one of Japan's leading animation film directors. Born in Koumi, Nagano, he began making films on his own while working at a game company. In 2002 Voices of a Distant Star, which he directed, wrote and animated almost single-handed, drew attention, and 5 Centimeters per Second and The Garden of Words widened a devoted following. The turn came on 26 August 2016: Your Name became a social phenomenon with box-office earnings above 25 billion yen, and Weathering with You and Suzume followed as major hits. Suzume was selected for the competition of the Berlin International Film Festival. Why did one author's stories spread to a national scale? What was this vessel promised at birth? We read the vessel he was born with against the phases of destiny and time.
At a Glance
The case
- Subject
- Makoto Shinkai (新海誠) — Animation film director
- Period analysed
- 1973–2026
- Three pillars
- Day 丙子 / Month 甲寅 / Year 癸丑
- Void branches
- 申酉 (Monkey–Rooster)
- Destiny area
- 0.09 The area of the triangle formed by the three pillars on the sixty-cycle circle (maximum 1.30)
- Format
- PDF, 14 pages — written in Japanese
- Price
- ¥50,000 including tax
Research Brief
What the case shows
- His destiny holds at once a rare arrangement of stars blessed by heaven with fortune and timing, and a very large vessel in which, when conditions align, honour and wealth follow as he wishes.
- He has a solitary nature that reveals his true feelings to no one, yet at the place his heart returns to sits a star whose fortune grows the more he conveys and is understood. Entrusting an unspoken heart to landscapes and stories overlaps here.
- This vessel grows largest not by pushing forward but by following the flow of fortune. His defining works came in his forties, the decade in which the quantity of his fortune was at its lifetime lowest.
- The twenty years from his forties fall in a period of void. Its entrance coincided with one of the keystones of his destiny coming loose, and a leap beyond the scale of the vessel took place.
- He carries a star that blurs the line between reality and dream, past and present. Stories of swapping places in dreams and meeting across time resonate with this quality of his destiny.
Questions
The questions the report answers
- Why did one author's stories spread to a national scale?
- What overlapped on 26 August 2016, the day Your Name was released?
- How can someone who reveals his heart to no one write stories that move people's hearts?
- What did a leap within a period of void borrow from the future?
Public Record
The record, year by year
Selected events from the public record. Analysis and judgement are given in the report itself.
| 2000 | 庚辰 | Grand prize at the CG Animation Contest for She and Her Cat |
| 2001 | 辛巳 | Leaves Nihon Falcom |
| 2002 | 辛巳 | Feb — Voices of a Distant Star released |
| 2004 | 甲申 (天) | The Place Promised in Our Early Days released |
| 2007 | 丁亥 | 5 Centimeters per Second released |
| 2011 | 辛卯 | Children Who Chase Lost Voices released |
| 2013 | 癸巳 | The Garden of Words released |
| 2016 | 丙申 (天天) | 26 Aug — Your Name released; box office above 25 billion yen |
| 2019 | 己亥 (天) | Weathering with You released |
| 2022 | 壬寅 (天) | Suzume released |
| 2023 | 癸卯 (天) | Selected for the competition of the Berlin International Film Festival |
Year pillars change at Risshun, in early February. (天) = void year or void decade. (天天) = void year within a void decade.
Contents
14 pages
- Destiny profile and chart
- Yin and yang charts
- Axis and type of destiny
- Ten-year phases
- Composite numerical table
- The complete officer-and-seal chart
- The heavenly chain of stems
- The isolated main star
- The entrance to the decade void
- The phase of 戊申 and after the void
- The four layers of 26 August 2016
- Timeline chart
- Public record
- Conclusion
Purchase
Order this Research Case
¥50,000incl. tax · PDF · Japanese
Email the case number QS-RC-119. We reply with an invoice; the PDF follows once payment is confirmed.
Analysis supervised by FAITH (Makoto Tokunaga) — MSc Economics, University of Warwick · CICP · Shugakuin Saii