If you liked Your Name, you should probably be excited about its animator’s first film

Unit director and main animator on Makoto Shinkai’s hit films your name Coming up with his own directorial debut, it looks beautiful so far.

Yoshitoshi Shinomiya isn’t a household name, but he has been involved in a few projects that you may have heard of, namely the 2016 film Your Name. Now, Variety reports, he’s hoping to carve out a niche in the directing world with his upcoming animated film “A New Dawn.” Currently, there’s no trailer, but some stills from the production have been released, and they certainly look like they’ll provide a unique visual treat. The film is clearly Shinomiya’s personal work, as it was inspired by the changes in the Japanese landscape following the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake.

The film mainly tells the story of Keitaro, a young man who has lived in an idle fireworks factory for the past four years, which is about to enter administrative proceedings. There, Variety writes, he pursued “visions of a father who disappeared years ago. The site once sat in a dense forest, but the surrounding area was recently redeveloped by the city, which covered the site with solar panels. There is only a little bit of greenery left in the sea of ​​panels around the factory.”

In an interview with Variety, Shinomiya said he first came up with the idea in 2016, saying: “One day, on the way to my studio, my child looked out the car window and shouted: ‘I You can see the ocean! ‘” I realized that the solar panels my kids were seeing through the trees actually looked like water, and at that moment I thought, ‘This is a new landscape in Japan that the next generation will see with this sensitivity. capture it, although I think such a landscape is negative. I feel like that moment was very meaningful to me and I believe it was the beginning of this project. ”

Utsushita, who worked on the character designs for the animated adaptation of Heavenly Delusion, will serve as character designer on the project, while Akiko Majima, background artist for Your Name, will serve as art director. Asmik Ace, the company behind games such as Beastmaster and Civilization, will produce the film along with French production company Miyu Productions.

There is currently no specific release date for the film, but it is expected to be released sometime in 2025.