"I used to think that Lin Zhiyan was setting Your Name to be the box office champion of the year because he simply didn't take Hayao Miyazaki's The Wind Rises seriously. Now it seems that Your Name's status as the annual box office champion is secure."
"I feel that this time, The Wind Rises is not as good as Miyazaki's previous animations."
"There are too many smoking scenes with the main character in The Wind Rises, and the female lead, Naoko, has tuberculosis. I really can't stand that the male lead couldn't resist smoking in front of her."
"That era was different from now, so it's not like it's incomprehensible, but The Wind Rises feels too bland this time. It's just a flat account of the male lead Jiro Horikoshi's life; there's no build-up or climax. I don't even know which part is supposed to be the climax after watching it. In this regard, I feel Your Name handled it better."
"It doesn't feel like an animation, more like a documentary. If this weren't Hayao Miyazaki's work, I'm afraid it would have been hard to even reach one billion in box office revenue if someone else were the director."
"It's alright. I actually quite like The Wind Rises; it feels more artistic than Miyazaki's previous animations. But Your Name is also quite good. One is an art film, and the other is a commercial film. Since both are quite good, a commercial film is definitely going to have stronger box office performance."
"Something like Spirited Away is an exception. In reality, a box office of over 10 billion is Hayao Miyazaki's standard level. This time, The Wind Rises can also be considered a normal performance. The reason its figures don't compare is simply because Your Name is too strong. This year's box office miracle is no exaggeration."
After all, these are animations from the same year, and at this time, "Your Name" had not even left theaters yet and was still enjoying considerable popularity. Under such circumstances, it was only natural for "The Wind Rises" to be compared with "Your Name."
Of course, this was mainly a spontaneous act by the audience.
In reality, the two animations are not the same genre at all, so there is really no basis for comparison.
Having said that, the animation "The Wind Rises" does indeed have various problems.
This is a story about building airplanes. The male lead, Jiro Horikoshi, lived during the period around World War II.
Since he was a child, he dreamed of building airplanes. After graduating from university, he joined Mitsubishi Heavy Industries with his excellent grades.
He wanted to build civilian aircraft, but the company only received orders from the military and was required to design planes for war.
Although for the male lead, he was trapped in the situation and had no choice—unless he gave up his dream of building airplanes, he had no say in what kind of planes were built—in reality, his actions could be considered complicity in the war.
In addition, this animation has another thread: a romantic subplot.
The male and female leads first met during the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923, but they were separated afterward. They did not meet again for ten years, and then they quickly fell in love.
However, the female lead suffers from tuberculosis, a terminal illness given the medical standards of the time; even as the daughter of a wealthy family, she could not be cured.
At first, she voluntarily proposed going to a highland hospital to recuperate. But later, overcome by longing for the male lead, she snuck out of the hospital despite her ailing health to see him. Then, at the home of the male lead's superior, with the superior and his wife as witnesses, the two got married and became husband and wife.
After the marriage, they spent some time together. Seeing that the airplane the male lead was designing was about to successfully complete its test flight, the female lead left a letter, returned alone to the highland hospital where she had been recuperating, and passed away there.
The ending shows Japan defeated in World War II, with the male lead, Jiro Horikoshi, seeing in his dream the wreckage of the fighter plane he had designed, as well as the scene of his beloved Naoko passing away.
Although the male lead's actions, in nature, make him an accomplice to war, this animation actually conveys a genuine anti-war message, unlike some animations that claim to be anti-war but are actually just anti-defeat. Therefore, there is actually no problem in this regard.
However, since it was 2013, such an animation was relatively sensitive and disliked by politicians in Japan.
This belongs to external issues.
The animation itself also has some problems. As netizens have pointed out, there are too many smoking scenes. Furthermore, it lacks a proper structure of introduction, development, twist, and conclusion; there is no climax. The narrative is like a tedious account, simply progressing chronologically without any suspense, and to make matters worse, it ends on a depressing and heavy note.
If it were a biography or a documentary, no one would have a problem with this kind of narrative, but for an animation, it doesn't feel right.
Fortunately, this is a Hayao Miyazaki animation. His animations always have a slower pace, which allows the audience to watch patiently. Coupled with excellent visual treatment and musical accompaniment, it gives some viewers the impression that the animation is actually quite good.
In reality, if this animation had been directed by someone else, if it weren't a work by Hayao Miyazaki, it's hard to say whether it would have flopped.
The worse the reputation of "The Wind Rises" became, the more beneficial it was for Lin Zhiyan, though he wouldn't stoop so low as to deliberately have people leave bad reviews for "The Wind Rises."
He had been waiting, waiting for a new marketing angle for "Your Name."
While waiting, he suddenly received news about the overseas box office of "Your Name."
While "Your Name" had not yet finished its theatrical run in Japan, it was being released successively in various countries and regions overseas. Just as it had in Japan, the animation performed strongly overseas, with explosive box office results everywhere, truly taking the world by storm.
Even though it looked unlikely for the movie to surpass "Spirited Away" at the Japanese domestic box office, it showed a clear trend of potentially surpassing "Spirited Away" in the overseas box office.
When news of this traveled back to Japan, it was naturally promoted heavily by L.S.Produ and the film's distribution companies. This successfully convinced many people who had already seen "Your Name" at least once to return to theaters for multiple re-watches, and also attracted a new group of viewers.
As a result, the weekly box office for "Your Name," which had been steadily declining since the release of "The Wind Rises," suddenly experienced a second wind, even managing to reclaim the top spot on the weekly box office charts from "The Wind Rises" for one week.
The overseas success also added significant prestige to "Your Name" and helped its supervising director, Lin Zhiyan, gain many fans around the world, taking a major step forward from being a nationally renowned animation director in Japan to becoming a world-class one.
For Lin Zhiyan now, the rise in status and prestige was very rare, not to mention that the explosive overseas box office meant earning more money, which was simply the best thing possible.
Please Support me by becoming my patreon member and get 15+ chapters.
[email protected]/Ajal69
change @ with a
Thank You to Those who joined my Patreon