Makoto Shinkai

The story of the high school students Mikako Nagamine and Noboru Terao. When the alien Tarsians attack, Mikako volunteers to be a pilot in the space force that will protect mankind. The lovers try to remain in contact using cellular telephone text messages, but as each battle takes Mikako further from the Earth, each message takes longer to arrive. Will their love stand the tests of time and distance? (imdb)

The story takes place in a alternate postwar period, in 1996, where Japan is divided. Hokkaido is ruled by the "Union" while Honshu and other southern islands are under US authority. A tall tower was built on Hokkaido, which could even be seen from Tokyo. In the summer of 1996, three middle-school students make a promise that they'll cross the border with a self-constructed plane and unravel the tower's secret... (imdb)

5 Centimeters Per Second for the speed at which cherry blossom petals fall, petals being a metaphorical representation of humans, reminiscent of the slowness of life and how people often start together but slowly drift into their separate ways...

A cat observes his owner.

A coming of age story involving young love and a mysterious music, coming from a crystal radio left as a memento by an absent father, that leads a young heroine deep into a hidden world. (imdb)

Takao, who is training to become a shoemaker, skipped school and is sketching shoes in a Japanese-style garden. He meets a mysterious woman, Yukino, who is older than him. Then, without arranging the times, the two start to see each other again and again, but only on rainy days. They deepen their relationship and open up to each other. But the end of the rainy season soon approaches... (film-book.com)

Okamura Aya reminisces about the times her family had together

A young woman brought a hamster back to her apartment. While watching the cuteness of the hamster was enjoyable, she suddenly recalled her boyfriend she used to have. (ANN)

A man and a woman, talking over their relationship. (myanimelist.net)

Mitsuha is the daughter of the mayor of a small mountain town. She's a straightforward high school girl who lives with her sister and her grandmother and has no qualms about letting it be known that she's uninterested in Shinto rituals or helping her father's electoral campaign. Instead she dreams of leaving the boring town and trying her luck in Tokyo. Taki is a high school boy in Tokyo who works part-time in an Italian restaurant and aspires to become an architect or an artist. (imdb)

A high-school boy who has run away to Tokyo befriends a girl who appears to be able to manipulate the weather. (imdb)

High school students Miho and Shouta are preparing for college entrance examinations. Miho comes from an island without even one cram school, while Shouta lives in Tokyo and works a part-time job. Both are striving to pass exams so they can enter college. The pair enroll in Z-Kai's correspondence education courses, and their lives cross before they realize it.

Suzume is a high school student living with her aunt in a small Kyushu town. She meets Sota, a young man visiting from Tokyo. Suzume learns that he is a "tojimeshi," tasked with closing mystical doors acting as portals to another world, to prevent calamity from befalling Japan.