Finally changing taste? Makoto Shinkai: I am tired of writing love stories

In an interview with Looper, the director of "The Journey of Bell Buds" Makoto Shinkai explained why the male protagonist is a chair most of the time in the movie. He said that he wanted to downplay the romantic relationship, so he turned the male protagonist into a chair.

In fact, Shinkai said he was starting to get tired of making the average "boy meets girl" movie: "I feel like in Your Name, I've done everything I could possibly do in a 'boy meets girl' story, 'will they, can they, meet'."

"Originally I wanted to make this story about Suzuya traveling with another girl." He then added that he wanted to "move towards more of a sisterhood romance," but his producers told him to stick with a love story that was more in line with his previous work. So while his audience still loves this kind of story, he's tired of it.

On the other hand, Shinkai said he wasn’t too concerned with LGBTQ depictions, and that he was just telling a human story with universal themes. He said that if the female lead was male or non-binary, the story of Suzuya’s Journey would have worked just as well: “It doesn’t have to be set in a male/female context; it’s about humans overcoming difficulties.”

Looper also reports that Shinkai told Japanese media last year that a producer thought it was "too early" to make a road trip movie about two women.

In Japan, "The Journey of Bell Buds" ranked first in its first week of release in November 2022. The domestic box office also set a record, with the box office exceeding Japan's domestic box office reaching 752 million yuan as of April 17. In the United States, the pre-screening box office alone reached 680,000 US dollars.