Short answer: the director has previously worked under Shinkai.
Summary:
- A New Dawn is an upcoming movie by Yoshitoshi Shinomiya.
- Shinomiya has worked as a background artist for some Shinkai movies in the past.
- It will be produced by a new studio, but fans are optimistic.
Anime movies often get a lot of acclaim. Directors like Hayao Miyazaki and Makoto Shinkai are known to virtually every anime fan, and otaku often look forward to their works whenever they get announced. Still, even anime films by lesser-known directors often get at least some amount of traction.
Just recently, A New Dawn, an original movie by Yoshitoshi Shinomiya, was announced. When the announcement was made, fans immediately thought it was going to be similar to Makoto Shinkai’s works. While the extent of similarity is debatable, there’s certainly at least some inspiration, and it can be easily explained.
What Is It Going to Be About?
The anime movie is seemingly going to be a coming-of-age story of Keitaro and two other young people. There’s not much to be guessed from the synopsis given, but some of the themes covered will include environmentalism — which was also explored by Makoto Shinkai in his latest work, Suzume no Tojimari.
Why Does It Feel Like a Shinkai Movie?
While the revealed key visuals don’t really look like Shinkai's works, there are still some similarities. The themes of the movie also feel Shinkai-like, and, while they were also explored by many other directors, there’s a good reason to guess why Shinomiya might be inspired by Shinkai specifically.
Yoshitoshi Shinomiya is an artist who has done background art for some of Shinkai’s movies. His earliest involvement was in 2011 with Children Who Chase Lost Voices (Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo), and since then he’s worked (mostly as a background artist) on multiple of Shinkai’s movies.
His most notable work was on Your Name (Kimi no Na wa.), where he acted as an episode director for flashback scenes.
With Shinomiya working under Shinkai a lot in the past, it’s understandable why A New Dawn might feel like a Shinkai movie. In fact, that’s why fans are excited for it.
Shinkai’s works are always produced by studio CoMix Wave Films, and Shinomiya did some other work there as well. In fact, while A New Dawn is going to be his major directorial debut, at this studio, he directed a short commercial called Mottainai before.
Moreover, he worked at other studios as well: for example, he was the background artist for the first episode of ufotable’s Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works.
Which Studio Is Working on the Movie?
Interestingly enough, the studio producing A New Dawn won’t be CoMix Wave Films. The movie will be made by studio Outrigger, which, at the moment, is a completely unknown company. Still, fans are positively optimistic because of the known staff and the revealed key visuals.