A THOUSAND PICTURES, A MILLION WORDS
This original anime film was directed and written by Yoshitoshi Shinomiya at Studio Outrigger and released in 2026.
10 years ago whilst creating his magnum opus Your Name, Makoto Shinkai entrusted the single most important moment of it to a background artist by the name of Yoshitoshi Shinomiya. What resulted is maybe the single greatest animation cut in film history.
10 years later background artist Yoshitoshi Shinomiya would also become a screenwriter, a color and character designer, a storyboard artist, a key animator and animator director and last but not least the director of his own feature film, one called A New Dawn.
A New Dawn is not a good film, or more specifically it is not a good story. While I doubt the veracity of the subtitles I read the context and character issues present in the translation manifest within the film in jumbled editing, an opaque plot that only gains clarity in the final act and characters who exist instead of live and breath, slaves to the stumbling pacing of the 3 acts this 75 minute film is declaratively built around.
Yoshitoshi Shinomiya failed to recapture the magic of his efforts under Shinkai’s pen and I personally doubt history will ever remember to efforts of “Screenwriter Yoshitoshi Shinomiya”, but while that version of him does now exist it does not diminish the monument that is “Yoshitoshi Shinomiya the Artist”.
A New Dawn is not appreciated as a film but as a museum, a curated art gallery to the vision of the mad genius Yoshitoshi Shinomiya, a vast and connected collage containing thousands of individual pieces that all tell the story of one man pushing his stylistic ambitions against the wall that is traditional animation production and breaking free with a work that only he, as he is here and now, with the industry connections he currently possesses, could make in all of human history.
A New Dawn is plainly one of the most gorgeous pieces of audiovisual art I have ever seen, one that does carry the friction of a stillborn story yes but one meant to be consumed with the eye’s, not the brain. Every image is a pastel dream, framed in elegant and captivating ways, accompanied by the crackling energy of Shuta Hasunuma‘s musical score.
A New Dawn is a glittering dreamscape, dense with lived settings and vibrant imagination. It comes alive in Norio Matsumoto‘s dance sequence, takes off in Shinya Ohira‘s raging fire and explodes into a new star with Yoshitoshi Shinomiya‘s own blue fireworks. While the journey to get there is only passively enjoyable the moment of purpose for this entire film filled me with elation, as the falling star of man’s own creation first reflected off the solar panels within the film, then my glasses, and then at last met my eyes I knew I would forever be blinded by the impression “Yoshitoshi Shinomiya the Artist” had made on me.
A New Dawn is not to be understood as a film, it simply fails to achieve that goal due to the disposable talents of a screenwriter no one will ever recall henceforth. It can and should be digested another way, broken down into the individual frames that make up its animated format it suddenly glitters like mossanite; not the diamond most people would immediately think of but a gemstone capable of reflecting an even more brilliant shine.
TIS THE END!
Yoshitoshi Shinomiya‘s A New Dawn is a piece of art I implore everyone to take into themselves. Not now perhaps, hopefully in a cinema or at the very least with official subtitling to polish off some of the unintentionally rough cut edges. Remember it, seek it out when available and let Shinomiya’s universe bloom before your eyes too because I can promise nothing like this will ever exist again. Me, I can only hope this is the jumping off point for his directorial career because I’d love to see him create another unforgettable, momentarily all consuming firework of art once again.
FINAL RATING: 5.5/10
A New Dawn can’t currently be streamed anywhere, please wait for a official release.
