After the discussion on the Studio Ghibli thread, I felt it would be good to have a thread dedicated to discussing the works of Mamoru Hosoda.
For those who don't know, Mamoru Hosoda is a Japanese film director who has become increasingly prolific over the last few years with his highly acclaimed animated films that include The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, and most recently Wolf Children: Ame and Yuki. Before working on the aforementioned independent films, he worked as key animator and director on a few episodes of a number of anime, as well as director of the two Digimon films Digimon Adventure and Our War Game and the 6th One Piece film.
To be honest, I haven't seen all of directorial works (I've only seen S_ummer Wars,_ Wolf Children, and, regrettably, the Americanized Digimon films), but the general consensus is that he hasn't really made a bad film to date, and his movies just keep getting better and better. His most recent film, Wolf Children, in particular seems to be more than a little inspired by Ghibli's works with its themes and emotional core. Now, personally, I don't think either Wolf Children or Summer Wars quite reach the masterpiece levels of, say, My Neighbor Totoro or Princess Mononoke, but it took Ghibli and Miyazaki a little while to get that level as well. Frankly, I'm very much looking forward to what the continuing career of this very talented artist may have in store and I eagerly await his next film whilst also trying to catch up on his old ones (if he continues at his current pace, we can expect a new film in 2015).
So, what do you think?