Makoto Shinkai

A collection of four interrelated, stream-of-consciousness short stories follows women and their cat companions as they explore the frailty of life, the pain of isolation, and the limits of communication.

"Seventeen-year-old Suzume lives with her aunt in a quiet port town in Kyushu. One day, on her way to school, she runs into a young man searching for something and follows him to a ruin in the hills. But inside, all she finds is a single white door among the rubble. As if pulled by an invisible force, she reaches out to open it...and begins an epic journey across Japan connecting the past, present, and future. Follow Suzume’s adventure in this novelization...

"This is the story of Miyu, a woman who lives alone with her cat, Chobi. As Miyu navigates the world of adulthood, she discovers both the freedom and loneliness that come with living independently, and Chobi learns of the outside world through her actions. Time drifts slowly for Miyu and her cat, but the harsh realities of the world soon catch up..."-- cover page 4.

"It's the year 2046. Mikako Nagamine and Noboru Terao are middle school classmates, tentatively sharing an unspoken first love -- but unbeknownst to him, Mikako has been recruited into the UN Space Force, and instead of going on to high school, will join the spacecraft Lysithea to search for the alien Tharsians. As she travels farther and farther to the outer reaches of the solar system, the time it takes for a text message to reach the Earth grows...

"They should have never met... The comet's arrival is imminent, and Taki puts his plan into action to save Mitsuha and the people he has come to care for during his time in her body. Convincing a whole town of skeptics that the sky is falling will take some doing--and a little delinquency--but if Taki wants any hope of a future with Mitsuha, they will have to save the town in the here and now...!"--Page [4] of cover.

"Mitsuha Miyamizu may be experiencing a mysterious bond with an unfamiliar Tokyo boy, but she's not the only member of her shrine-keeping family with transcendent connections. Her little sister, Yotsuha, finds herself getting a curiously closer look at the Miyamizu traditions. Their father, Toshiki, remembers his wife, Futaba, and all the love and pain."--Page [4] of cover.

"The summer of his high school freshman year, Hodaka runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every day, as if to suggest his future. He lives his days in isolation, but finally finds work as a writer for a mysterious occult magazine. Then one day, Hodaka meets Hina on a busy street corner. This bright and strong-willed girl possesses...