Anime at HOME
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
To coincide with the release of Suzume, the latest feature from acclaimed anime director Makoto Shinkai, HOME are hosting a short season showcasing some of the finest animated films to come out of Japan in recent years.
The line up offers audiences a chance to catch up with Shinkai’s previous work, with screenings of two of the filmmaker’s previous movies designed to showcase just why he is one of the most exciting voices in Japanese animation.
First up, on Wednesday 29 March is 2016’s Your Name, a body swap romance that swept away audiences on release. The film follows Mitsuha and Taki, two total strangers who dream their way into each others lives. That’s followed on Wed 5 April by Weathering with You, Shinkai’s 2019 about a young, struggling writer who leaves his home for Tokyo only to encounter a girl with the power to stop rain and clear the sky.
Suzume, the director’s eagerly anticipated new film shows at HOME from Friday 14 April. It contains more chance encounters and supernatural happenings as a 17-year-old girl meets a young man and follows him through a magical door that unleashes a a calamity that threatens the entirety of Japan.
Joining Shinkai’s films in HOME’s mini-season is Takahide Hori’s handmade stop-motion labour of love, Junk Head on Monday 24 April. The 2021 sci-fi animation took 7 years to produce and takes place in a world where mankind has attained longevity through gene manipulation, but finds itself on the road to extinction when the species loses the ability to reproduce.
