-Mr Shinkai's Partners
Attention
On the websites that the links represent, it is noticed in Japanese
that every contents must NOT be reproduced or republicated
without each creator's permission. Please respect their rights. Thanks.0-9
A-D
Adam Conlon, Mr (Voice Actor)
He acted Noboru in the North American DVD of Voices of a Distant Star.
Other appers dubbed anime: Saiyuki
Chihiro Suzuki, Mr (Voice Actor)
Mr Suzuki acted Noboru in the professional seiyuu version of Voices of a Distant Star. According to the website of his talent agency, his special ability is drawing.
Other anime: His and Her Circumstances, The Prince of Tennis, etc.
Cynthia Martinez, Ms (Voice Actress)
She acted Mikako in the North American DVD of Voices of a Distant Star.
Other Dubbed Anime She Appears:
Slayers, Excel Saga, RahXephon, Nadesico, etc.
Donna Burke, Ms (Voice Actress)
Aussie singer/nalator living in Japan. She acted the space ship Lisythea's English announcement in Voices of a Distant Star.
Her voices appear in many TV commercial in Japan.
Website: "Dag Music" (English)
http://www.dagmusic.com/index.shtml
E-H
I-L
K. JUNO, Ms (Songwriter)
She wrote the lyrics for THROUGH THE YEARS AND FAR AWAY (HELLO, LITTLE STAR) which is the theme song of Voices of a Distant Star.
Website: "JUNO'S R&R PARADISE!!" (English)
http://www1.kcn.ne.jp/~juno/welcome.html
Kazunari Takada, Mr (3DCG Modeler)
Mr Takada is a prizewinner of 14th DoGA CG animation contest. He is taking charge of 3D modeling of a airplane Velaciela in The Place Promised in Our Early Days.
Website: Valack Carrier (Japanese)
http://www.h5.dion.ne.jp/~aflo/index.html
Kim Yung Sun, Mr (Voice Actor)
He acted Noboru in the Korean DVD of Voices of a Distant Star.
Other Dubbed Anime He Appears:
Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, etc.
Low/Yuuki Mizusawa, Ms (Singer)
Ms Low was a employee of the same
game company as Mr Shinkai and Mr Tenmon as a CG
staff. She is an amateur singer and does not belong to any companies.She sang THROUGH THE YEARS AND FAR AWAY (HELLO, LITTLE STAR) which is the theme song of Voices of a Distant Star. She constitutes a music unit Rabsaris together with Mr Matsumoto. Mr Matsumoto is a friend of Mr Tenmon, and it is a cause that they introduced Ms Low to Mr Shinkai.
She joined a project of online game Mizu no Kakera (Fragments of Water) -once summer of islet- with Mr Tenmon in 2002. The song of the trailer do not contains her vocal.
After that, she has participated in the online game Tenshi no Kakera (Fragments of Angels) -the lost article of memory- with Mr. Tenmon in 2003.
Website: PROMENADE (Japanese)
http://park17.wakwak.com/~one/promenade/
M-P
Mika Shinohara, Ms (Voice Actress)
Ms Shinohara cooperated Mr. Shinkai from She and Her Cat. She and her room became models of She and her room in which The Cat lived. (Herself does not keep cats in fact.) Next, she appeared on the original sound version of Voices of a Distant Star as voice actress of Mikako.
She is not a professional actress nor amateur but a school nurse and health education teacher of a junior high school. Ms Shinohara and Mr Shinkai are graduate of same junior high school in Nagano Prefecture. She entered a health education teacher training school which was in Saitama. Mr Shinkai lived in the same prefecture, so they met again by chance.
Now she has returned to her work at school.
Mizu Sahara, Ms (Manga Artisnt)
Ms Sahara is author of manga series of Voices of a Distant Star (February to December, 2004) and The Place Promised in Our Early days in a monthly manga magazine Afternoon. She got honorable mention in the Shiki Award (rookie manga award of Afternoon) in winter of 2001. Birthday is December 25, born in Yokohama.
Afternoon Website (Japanese):
http://www.afternoon.co.jp/index2.html
Kodansha Publishing Website (English):
http://www.kodansha.co.jp/English/
Noritaka Kawaguchi, Mr (Project Manager)
Mr Kawaguchi is a project manager who is dispatching from ITOCHU Corporation , the parent company of CoMix Wave. He participated in Comic Con International 2002 with Mr Shinkai and Ms Shinohara, which performed in San Diego.
BTW, he is not only a gentleman but also a tough and well-built guy. His knockdown blow is the "Mongolian Chop." ;-)
Q-T
Sumi Mutou, Ms (Voice Actress)
Ms Mutou performed Mikako in the professional seiyuu version of Voices of a Distant Star.
She is not only a voice actress but an actress of theater, teleplay, non-anime film, etc. As a voice actress, she is well known for the role of Kei Amamiya in Jin-Roh. According to the website of her talent agency, her special ability is classical Japanese dance (Nihon buyo).
Takumi Tanji, Mr (Background Artist)
Mr Tanji was born in 1974 in
Fukushima Prefecture. He graduated Tokyo
National University of Fine Arts and Music on 1998. He is a freelance
artist now, and has worked for many live-action movies in Japan (Casshern, Azumi, Dragon Head, etc.) The Place Promised in Our Early Days is the first work for him to join anime and to draw
background arts.He also joined Byousoku 5cm as background artist.
Tenmon, Mr (Composer)
Mr Tenmon was born in Tokyo in 1971.
He starts music composing by personal computer from high school age, and he came to do work of composition for gaming company Falcom after graduation. He met with Mr Shinkai in this company. The company had very severe rule, and moreover, since it was very busy, he had to refrain from all private creative activity.
After Mr Shinkai retired the company in order to make Voices of a Distant Star, Mr Tenmon remained in there for a while. But, now he is also resigns the company and belongs to another game company minori, a subsidiary of CoMix Wave. And he joines amost all Mr Shinkai's projects.
Anyone who watched Voices of a Distant Star will understand that his music harmonizes with the film wonderfully and permeates spectator's heart. Especially the music of the last scene will move you to tears. Probably, without his music, Voices of a Distant Star had become completely different. Mr Shinkai and Mr Tenmon are the wonderful pairs of a supervisor and a composer like Mr Hayao Miyazaki and Mr Joe Hisaishi exactly.
He composed songs of online game Mizu no Kakera (Fragments of Water) -once summer of islet- in 2002.
He has participated in the online game Tenshi no Kakera (Fragments of Angels) -the lost article of memory- with Ms Low.
Website: "Densou-Gakudan" (Japanese)
http://www.den-gaku.net/
P.S.
"Tenmon" is his screen name originally. According to my friend Mr. Shimamura@Willson:
"Tenmon" means "The heaven's gate." Only the people who go heaven could listen the music of the God. But his music is as if melody of the heaven. When we listen his music, he open that gate and conduct chorus of Angels, so we can listen heavens music in alive!
U-Z
Mr Tazawa was born in Saitama Prefecture in 1973. He had worked at a
famous anime studio from 1998 to 2000.He is a new art-staff of The Place Promised in Our Early Days, and he mainly draws characters. He belongs to a four-person group GOD DOG PRODUCTION which creates images, DTP designs, and music. Before this work, and he has been engaged in some TV animation series including Earth Girl Arjuna and Princess Arete, as an freelance animator.
He also makes indies CG anime with his group, and his Life No Color won the Visual Award in 14th DoGA CG Animation Contest.
Website: "GOD DOG PRODUCTION" (Japanese)
http://www.goddog-pro.com/dogstyle/dogstyle.html
Yang Jung Wha, Ms (Voice Actress)
She acted Mikako in the Korean DVD of Voices of a Distant Star.
Other Dubbed Anime She Appears:
Cowboy Bebop, His and Her Circumstances, etc.
Yoshihiro Hagiwara, Mr (Producer, Production Manager)
He is a young producer of CoMix Wave. Mr Nobukazu Sakai (a game producer of minori) introduced Mr Shinkai's She and Her Cat to him. He payed attention to Mr. Shinkai's talent, and invited him to work together.
At that time, Mr Shinkai was working for a gaming company, and the time to work for Voices of a Distant Star was insufficient. Mr Hagiwara was arranged so that CoMix Wave, his company, might support Mr Shinkai. It was very new in Japan that a company supports an indies animation creator without a still commercial actual result.
The support was very helpful to Mr Shinkai, so he resigned the gaming company and can concentrate the work of Voices of a Distant Star. If Mr. Hagiwara was not, Voices of a Distant Star needed much more years to be completed.
(Additional Information: I heard that he resigned CoMix Wave on March, 2003.)
Yutaka Kamata, Mr
Although Mr Yutaka Kamata is not a partner (co-worker) of Mr. Shinkai directly, I add him this list, since he has had influences on Mr. Shinkai. He gave some advice to Mr Shinkai to made Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days.
He is a chief of Project Team DoGA in Osaka, and holding CG animation contest every year with large-scale. DoGA is a nonprofit institution working in order to spread the indies digital image culture using of CG animation. Mr Shinkai is Grand Prix winner of their 12th contest and he became famous by it. Some of Mr Shinkai's partners are winners of this contest too.
Mr Kamata has mentioned about Voices of a Distant Star and Mr. Shinkai on his speech in commendation ceremony of 14th contest,
"Young people, who want to become creators of next generation, always have a target 'I want to become like him/her.'
However, in the case of (Japanese) CG community, a professional CG creator has one side of being 'an operator', who making images defer to client and direct superior, and also has almost no chances to have one's name known.
CG community needs who can be called 'a creator' truly. Not a mere operator, but a who plans by oneself, makes by oneself, exhibits by one's name, and live on by it perfectly.
Although DoGA was going to take out such a man to the world and various activities have been performed from several years before, but it has been crawled.
However, finally, the most suitable man for just calling who is 'the CG animation creator' (Mr. Shinkai) was born."
(Omission of the rest. Japanese source is here .)