Pretentious, painful youth, Japanese Guo Jingming? Makoto Shinkai "sins do not come here"

Text | Ling Hu Boguang

A few days ago, Makoto Shinkai's new film "Journey to the Buds" was released, which broke the box office record of Japanese animation in China as soon as it was released, and the final box office is also expected to break the record of "Your Name", and Makoto Shinkai broke his own box office record in China.

However, the reputation of "Journey to the Bell Buds" is the same as that of the previous work "Children of the Weather", unlike the first part of the "disaster trilogy" "Your Name has received rave reviews." At the same time, Makoto Shinkai's works also have these labels, high school student, youth, fantasy, desperate love to come and go.

That kind of pretentious lines, emotional expression some people can't get. As a result, I found that some people on the Internet described Shinkai Makoto as the Japanese version of Guo Jingming. And checked, this statement has not appeared in "Journey to the Bell Bud" now, as early as when "Your Name" became popular, there was this saying on the domestic network.

So the question is, is Shinkai Makoto the Japanese version of Guo Jingming?

The answer is that although there are many problems in Xinhai Makoto's works, especially fantasy works, and even the problems with Guo Jingming's works are somewhat similar. But in essence, the achievements of the two are far apart. And Makoto Shinkai is a leader in the new generation of Japanese animated films. At present, it is not a Japanese animation master, but it is by no means comparable to the speculative Guo Jingming.

The same "painful youth"? What is the difference between Guo Jingming and Xinhai Makoto

Compared with Guo Jingming, I believe that many people have already thought of the key point of "this is the most unqualified time that Xinhai Cheng has been hacked", Bo Guangjun still talks from a slightly professional point of view.

First of all, if you compare Xinhai Cheng and Guo Jingming, the two still have certain similarities. In addition to the fact that the works of both are high school students, youth literature and fantasy and other elements. Both have also written novels, Makoto Shinkai "5 Centimeters Per Second", "Garden of Words", "Your Name", including now "Journey to the Lingya" have novels, the author is still Makoto Shinkai.

Then Makoto Shinkai was also an animation director, screenwriter and producer, while also making games and more.

Guo Jingming is a famous post-80s youth literature writer, and Han Han is arguably the most well-known post-80s writer in China.

Guo Jingming also founded "Minimal Fiction Magazine", participated in the adaptation of comics, then filled in the lyrics, supervised two films, and finally transformed into a director, directing the "Small Times" series, the "Jue Ji" series, and then the adaptation of "Yin-Yang Master" "Qingya Collection" came to an abrupt end.

I have read Guo Jingming's novel, but I regret that I have not read Shinkai's novel. At the same time, the game produced by Makoto Shinkai has not been played, and the advertisement that has been filmed has not been seen. Therefore, I will not talk about comparing the other creations of the two here, let's compare it from three major angles.

First, the creative style, Guo Jingming and Xinhai Cheng's creations are similar on the surface, but the core is far apart

I have read Guo Jingming's novels, and the first time I read them was when I was in my teens, and I only thought it was gorgeous. Later, when I look back after growing up a little, the text of Guo Jingming's novel is just luxurious hypocrisy, and the accurate description is: the novel wraps the pale story with the most gorgeous words, and the core is to wrap the QQ space of junior high school students with the most luxurious brand.

Huh, doesn't this say that novels are not compared?

I haven't read Makoto Shinkai's novels, but I've seen a lot of Makoto Shinkai's animation works, and his fantasy works are inferior to well-known Japanese animation directors such as Hayao Miyazaki. But the animation emotions of Xinhai Makoto urban men and women are very sincere, and the fewer works of fantasy, the more sincere and moving the emotional shaping of urban men and women.

For example, "5 cm per second", "The Garden of Words", "Your Name".

I actually don't pay much attention to the emotional dramas of the male and female protagonists. I pay attention to the handling of the daily life of the male and female protagonists, and the portrayal of daily life is really comfortable, very advanced, very natural and easy to move people's hearts.

How to say it, your confession to the world and feelings for others in your youth are like sentences when others look at your QQ space. But there are 10,000 people, 100 million people who were touched by the opening of the show, that is Makoto Shinkai, which is probably what it means.

Makoto Shinkai's films show men and women busy in bustling and alienated metropolises, crushes, missed and reunited, regretted or broken through the shackles. I think that in the unique urban men and women's emotional control in East Asia, there is a bit of romance similar to Wong Kar-wai's movies. It's just that Wong Kar-wai is a young man and woman in the metropolis, while Shinkai Makoto is a high school student and a young man who has just entered society.

Of course, in terms of artistic achievements, Xinhai Cheng is definitely far inferior to Wong Kar-wai.

On the contrary, Guo Jingming, the core of his "Small Times" series is very suspended. The text of the novel is a pile of gorgeous words, and the movie is all the packaging of foreign luxury brands, completely like a group of poor children. When there was no money, I wrote hypocritical sprinkling dog blood in QQ space, and later when I had money, I used foreign famous brands to sprinkle dog blood.

Guo Jingming's novels are not only "painful youth", he has a more acclaimed book "Sadness Against the River". Because it involves realism such as "school bullying", it was later remade into a movie that Guo Jingming was more acclaimed. But compared with domestic realist works, it is far inferior to "Young You", which still has a "plagiarism controversy", why is this so?

Second, Shinkai Makoto is good at establishing a new generation of Japanese animation film aesthetics, Guo Jingming is also worthy?

The root of this problem is that it is obviously all "youth pain", why can Xinhai Cheng move people's hearts, and Guo Jingming is "moaning without disease". Now that the Internet is convenient, netizens have an obvious question: are you too small to see the technology of making movies, and you don't really think that movies are a little longer than the short videos you usually make

This is still an animated movie, do you know how much work it takes to have a picture in it? You may have spent a second, but he did it little by little, and you may not care about this second, but the thinking of all-round creators such as directors, screenwriters, and artists like Makoto Shinkai is far more than you think.

Purely from the perspective of film, let's not talk about narrative, core expression and so on.

For example, the aesthetic style of animated films, Makoto Shinkai is good at establishing a new generation of Japanese animated film aesthetics, at least one of them. Although it cannot be compared with the older generation of directors such as Hayao Miyazaki, Katsuhiro Otomo, and Mamoru Oshii. But compared with the new generation of Mamoru Hosoda, Gengen Vabuchi, etc., Makoto Shinkai's animation style is also unique.

We know the characters of Makoto Shinkai at a glance, as well as the painting style, storyboard, and some scenes of Makoto Shinkai's signature.

For example, Makoto Shinkai likes to use rain to present large Japanese cities, and then use a ray of light to divide the sky to show the separation between different worlds of the male and female protagonists, or contact. As well as the presentation of comprehensive and meticulous, gentle and peaceful, some romantic and real and trivial details of Japanese society.

This is mixed with a large number of characters, scenes and picture details to show different emotions.

I believe that from the perspective of urban animation (with few fantasy elements), junior high school students and high school students should like "5 centimeters per second" the most, and adult audiences should prefer "The Garden of Words", on the contrary, "Your Name" is its most comprehensive work.

"The Garden of Words" is very delicate for the emotional presentation of urban men and women, some people say that the plot of this movie is thin and the twist is blunt, I think this movie is the pinnacle of Makoto Shinkai's works, less middle two, more mature, the Japanese subtle and restrained character side is vividly reflected, everything that happens is subtle.

Do you substitute into the perspective of the male protagonist, and think about the table mate you had a crush on when you were a teenager? Think of the girl next door you plucked up the courage to talk to? You substitute for the heroine, think about your repressed feelings in middle age, think about your thinking about young people who have feelings for themselves, from age, identity, class.

The final emotional outburst is unscrupulous and unsudden, straightforward and moving.

Although film is called the "eighth art", any art is presented in a practical way.

For example, the proper soundtrack in Makoto Shinkai's anime, as well as the use of songs. Although this is due to the fact that Japanese music is stronger than the Chinese music scene, the director and the soundtrack communicate with the soundtrack at the right time in a certain plot, and the guidance and outbreak of the audience's emotions are very testing the skills of the director and screenwriter.

And what about Guo Jingming? The youth film directed by Guo Jingming has no achievements in film language.

"Small Times" is a Chinese background that imitates the same Western urban theme, the film's style is pompous, the shots are like advertising slides, and the editing, soundtrack and lens processing are a mess. The shaping of Shanghai in the movie is full of a kind of "suspended" ungrounded stacking.

Can you feel the beauty of any lens language in the movie? Can you feel any emotions the characters exude?

The novel "Jue Ji" has the controversy of copying Japanese manga, and the film style is also to learn from similar Japanese anime. At that time, China's first CG live-action film was promoted, but the technical level was far inferior to the similar Japanese CG animation "Sword of Kings". "Qingya Collection" is a little better, because the behind-the-scenes lineup of this movie is very strong, borrowing from Japanese fantasy aesthetics to make some of its own characteristics, but because of the early "plagiarism" back, until now has not turned over.

Guo Jingming's most noteworthy movie "Sadness Against the River", you can compare "Young You". If the latter is not suspected of plagiarism in the original work, its overall quality is not inferior to "Medicine God", and even surpasses it at some levels, mainly in the lens language of the movie.

Zeng Guoxiang is a disciple of Chen Kexin and previously filmed "July and Ansheng". His film lens language and artistic understanding are one stop stronger than Wen Muye's debut novel, and you can see Wen Muye's "Miracle" script is average, and his performance in all aspects is very average.

Let's think about it, is "July and Ansheng" a female emotional movie? What is the quality of the people? What about the display of women's emotions?

Guo Jingming's directing level is not to mention compared with Zeng Guoxiang, even Wen Muye is far inferior, not to mention Xinhai Makoto.

The new film has two polar reputations, and netizens are praised as Guo Jingming of Japan? Makoto Shinkai was hacked the hardest

Although Makoto Shinkai is obviously influenced by his predecessors, such as the shadow of Hayao Miyazaki's "Howl Moving Castle" in his new work "Suzuya Journey", he still established his own animation style and is also a leader in a new generation of Japanese animated films.

Guo Jingming was directly sentenced when he copied "Inside and Outside the Circle", and you compare such a person who was "plagiarized" by a real hammer with Xinhai Makoto. Yes, Makoto Shinkai is inferior to the previous generation of Japanese animation directors, but not to the point of humiliating Guo Jingming.

Finally, I think Makoto Shinkai's biggest problem is that he can't handle long-form works, and even worse if it's fantasy, and what he is good at is the emotions of Japanese urban men and women like "5 centimeters per second" and "Yanba no Garden". The shorter the duration and the more realistic the work, the more sincere and moving the emotion.

He does that kind of fantasy works, including the early "Other Side of the Clouds, The Agreed Place" and "The Child Chasing the Stars", the presentation of the worldview setting, the performance of dream scenes, and the consideration of commercial addition of comedy elements. These will dilute the shaping of emotions, and finally make emotions worse, and fantasy cannot be clearly explained.

This seems to be the place where their generation of Japanese animation directors is generally inferior to the previous generation of Japanese animation directors such as Hayao Miyazaki.

At present, the pinnacle work of Shinkai Makoto in all aspects is still "Your Name", and now the "Disaster Trilogy" has officially ended. If Xinhai Cheng returns to the urban male and female emotions in the future, and there can be progress in all aspects, Guo Jingming really can't touch people's heels.