Makoto Shinkai's animation film Your Name, featuring two teen protagonists, will open in mainland theaters on Friday.[Photo provided to China Daily]

But after they gradually develop a chemistry, the plot takes an unexpected twist - the girl was actually killed in a disaster three years earlier.

Most of Shinkai's previous titles ended on a sad note, but Your Name is different.

The 2011 Tohoku earthquake, the most powerful earthquake recorded in Japan's history, is one reason why Shinkai changed his style.

"Before that (the earthquake), Japan was a stable society. The public believed that daily life would go on as it had in the past, with no hint of turbulence," he says.

"But the earthquake made everyone nervous: Now, the city or town, which they had lived in for decades, could disappear suddenly. So, I needed to inject some color or optimism into the movie," he says.

In his work, Shinkai, who has been an animator for around two decades, favors adolescent romance. And this can be seen in The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004), 5 Centimeters Per Second (2007) and The Garden of Words (2013).

Many fans say they are touched by the "pure love" they find in his work, and find that Shinkai's style has hit a new level in Your Name, in which he skillfully weaves time travel and romance into a suspense-filled tale.

Meanwhile, animation film experts say Shinkai's popularity also has social and industrial significance.

Cao Xiaohui, vice-president of the animation institution at the Beijing Film Academy, says: "Every 10 years or so, Japan produces a world-class animator. Before Shinkai, there was Tezuka Osamu, Miyazaki, Otomo Katsuhiro and Kon Satoshi, but few of their animated classics were screened in China."