Makoto Shinkai (born as Makoto Niitsu on February 9, 1973) is a renowned Japanese filmmaker and novelist. He is celebrated for his anime feature films, produced with CoMix Wave Films.

Shinkai started his career as a video game animator with Nihon Falcom in 1996 and gained recognition as a filmmaker with the release of the original video animation (OVA) She and Her Cat in 1999. He followed this with the science fiction OVA Voices of a Distant Star in 2002, marking his first feature with CoMix Wave. His debut feature film, The Place Promised in Our Early Days, was released in 2004.

Shinkai's films have consistently received high praise from critics and audiences alike, establishing him as one of Japan's most commercially successful filmmakers. His three most recent films Your Name (2016), Weathering with You (2019), and Suzume (2022), collectively known as the "Disaster trilogy", are among the highest-grossing Japanese films of all time, both domestically and internationally at the time of their release.