Over the past 10 to 15 years Japanese animation, known in English speaking countries as anime, has become more popular than ever on the worldwide stage. One would think that the increase in both profits and legitimacy would drive new and talented filmmakers to enter the anime fold, yet for most fans, the greatest anime shows and films have remained constant for quite a few years.

One of the most common quests among executives in the anime industry is to find the “next Miyazaki,” referring to the greatest anime director and Studio Ghibli head Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki has the habit of announcing his retirement after the completion of almost every film he makes, only to revoke said retirement several years down the line when he finds a new film he wants to make. But the time it takes him to unretire has grown longer and longer over the past 15 years. Of the 10 films Miyazaki has made at Ghibli, only four have been released over the past 15 years, with seven coming the 12 or so years before that. Point is, the search for a new animation master has grown ever more intense in Japan.

Many thought the “new Miyazaki” had been found a decade ago when Makoto Shinkai singlehandedly created one of the greatest animated short films ever made in Voices of a Distant Star. Hailed as a newly minted master, Shinkai has unfortunately been unable to recapture that magic in the decade since. His latest film is entitled Journey to Agartha in the United States and it retains many of themes and stylistic touches that have come to both define and haunt Shinkai over the past 10 years.

Shinkai’s films are almost invariably romances of some sort. They also almost always deal with the effects of loss and loneliness on one or both of the lovers, and that loss and loneliness is almost always caused by the effects of time and distance between the lovers. Voices of a Distant Star was the most pure expression of these themes. In it a young woman is forced to travel to a distant solar system to fight off an alien invasion, leaving her lover stuck on Earth. Due to the nature of lightspeed wormhole travel, time passes much more quickly on Earth than it does in said wormhole, meaning the girl remains in her mid-teens as the boy grows into a man. The film, in my mind, is the most powerful anime ever released of any sort. And since that time Shinkai has been desperately attempting to weave similar themes into other stories.

Journey to Agartha is maybe Shinkai’s most ambitious film yet. It’s fantasy trappings are highly reminiscent of the majestic worlds seen in Miyazaki’s works. The story revolves around a young girl, Asuna, and her middle school teacher. The lonely girl spends her after-school hours in the forest surrounding her town, while her mother works lengthy shifts at the local hospital. Her father died when she was a toddler, and Asuna is left to mostly fend for herself. One day she is attacked by a strange beast only to be saved by a mysterious young man with super strength and a glowing amulet. The man, who is named Shun, dies shortly afterwards, and through her teacher, Asuna learns that Shun was likely a denizen of Agartha, a world that exists below ground and in which lies the gate between life and death. Her teacher, Ryuji Morisaki, who is referred to simply as Sensei throughout the film, wishes to travel to Agartha to reconnect with his dead wife. Asuna joins him for some unexplained reason. They encounter Shun’s brother Shin, who was sent to bring back Shun’s amulet, which is what grants access to Agartha, as well as a cat named Mimi who was left behind by the dead Shun to guard Asuna.

Why did Shun wish to guard this girl he had never met before? Why does Asuna up and leave her home and travel to a dangerous land with her Sensei? Journey to Agartha does not answer these questions, or many of the other questions that pop up during the course of Asuna and her Sensei’s adventure. Why is Agartha dying? What exactly would happen if Morisaki brings his wife back from the dead? Shinkai chooses to only hint at the answers and let his audience decide for themselves what is going on. It’s not a horrible way to tell a story. Any fan of Stanley Kubrick will tell you that. The problem here is that too much detail is left out, making it difficult to care about the characters. It’s incredibly tough to balance detail and ambiguity in a script such as this, and Shinkai makes the error of revealing too little while not providing enough of interest to make the audience want to figure out the rest. The result is a muddled tale with too many plot threads and characters too undeveloped or too uninteresting to care about. Morisaki is the typical Shinkai character here, and he is the best written and developed of the bunch. But the focus of this tale is Asuna, and she feels like a Miyazaki outcast. She’s a strong girl thrust into a difficult situation, but she lacks the depth that Miyazaki heroines possess, and her foil, the rash Shin is nowhere near as interesting as the complex male leads found in Miyazaki’s best work. In almost every way, Journey to Agartha feels like a pale imitation of Miyazaki’s best, with the addition of Morisaki to provide that signature Shinkai story.

While the story and characters pale in comparison to their obvious inspiration, the art on display here is easily equal to Ghibli’s best work. If one wants to compare Shinkai to Miyazaki in a positive manner, probably the greatest compliment you could give is that Shinkai’s films are as distinctly his as Miyazaki’s are. The absolutely gorgeous background art that defines Shinkai’s films has never been better. Judged purely from that standpoint Shinkai’s film is truly a masterful piece of work. As usual the character design and animation is the weakest point, and it is only in that aspect that Shinkai’s work is in any way worse looking that Miyazaki’s. Still, fans of gorgeous animation should take a look at this film if only to see one of the greatest background artists and animators in the world at work. The music here is done by Tenmon, who has scored all but one of Shinkai’s films. His work here is as gorgeous as usual. From an audiovisual standpoint Shinkai’s works truly are worthy of the Miyazaki comparison.

Of course pretty sights and sounds are only half of an animated film. And until Shinkai can tell a story as well as Miyazaki, the comparisons to the master are far from warranted. At nearly two hours long Journey to Agartha has more visual splendor than seen in almost any other animated film I can think of. And because of that I recommend it to any animation fans. Just understand that you are going into this for the visuals and the music, not for the muddled and poorly paced story that tries and fails to emulate Miyazaki’s best works.

2/5