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Prior to seeing the two high-def trailers, it had been established in my survey of anime that the best 3-D CG animation graphics was Advent Children, and the best 2-D animation graphics was "Beyond the Clouds." Ghibli fans may contest the latter claim with much merit, but the point I make is conveyed; Makoto Shinkai does some incredible work.
With Miyazaki's eventual retirement an inevitability, many fans and critics have wandered about who, if any, might become the Next One. Makoto, possessing a distinctive art style, a powerful form of story telling is certainly a compelling candidate to pick up the torch.
He is of course young and its far too premature in his career to start discussing greatness; Shinkai's style is modern and minimalist in its realism, and I feel that it lacks still the element of the Fantastic which Ghibli films have used over the decades to really grab audiences, young and old alike, across international boundaries.
His work is good enough, however, that I would reccomend them as gateway anime with which to "shock and awe" first time anime viewers with, for he succeeds in one critical area: Changing the popular foreign perception that animation cannot be as successful a medium in telling serious stories like movies can; his works makes people take anime seriously.
Looking forward to this tremendously.
Contributing to the accolades lavished upon the visuals, I quote myself on my review for "Beyond the Clouds: The Promised Place:"
The graphics are so good, every screenshot could be my wallpaper.
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