Now that the gang has completed our reviews on legendary anime film director Makoto Shinkai's Your Name, Weathering with You, & Suzume, we dive into four of Shinkai's films-before-the-fame so to speak, created in the years before Your Name became an international hit—2002's Voices of a Distant Star, 2004's Places Promised in Our Early Days, 2007's 5 Centimeters Per Second, and 2013's The Garden of Words. Stick around for our 4-film tier list, reflections on Shinkai's growth as a director and filmmaker, and recognition of Shinkai's formula and his union of sci-fi/sci-fantasy and love stories. Content warning: SPOILERS, strong language.
