Couple’s romantic journey across the country shows off the warm side of a Canadian winter.

Thanks to the overwhelming critical and financial success (both domestic and international) of anime film Your Name, director Makoto Shinkai currently holds more goodwill than just about anyone in the industry. Shinkai has traditionally taken about three years between projects, and considering how much clout he now commands, there’s no way any producer is going to be able to coerce him back into the director’s chair before he feels like it, and so we’ve likely got a bit of a wait until we see his follow-up to Your Name.

But in the meantime, CoMix Wave Films, the animation studio which produced the visuals for Your Name (as well as every other Shinkai theatrical feature) has created and released a short anime showing a pair of young Japanese lovers journeying through the beautiful natural and urban scenery…of Canada!

Titled Warm Winter Canada, the short video was created as part of the Canada Theater tourism campaign. With the glisteningly moist color palate CoMix Wave Films is known for, the anime follows the couple on a journey around the country, starting in the alpine Banff community before they head to Abraham Lake to see its otherworldly ice bubbles.

From there, it’s on to the Canadian Rockies…

…before arriving at the Pacific coast and going sightseeing in Vancouver.

The video then slings us back to the east, for a stop at Niagara Falls, covered in ice and snow, before heading back into town for some outdoor ice skating in Toronto and watching the celestial show put on by the Aurora Borealis, something that’s often at the top of Japanese travelers’ wish list when taking a trip to the northern reaches of North America.

Calling Canada a “warm” winter destination might seem like a stretch, and the video does conscientiously depict the traveling couple as bundled up against the cold. But though the atmospheric temperature may be low, the experiences they share fill their hearts with excitement, and time and again they meet warm-hearted, helpful locals.

With Your Name having been released in 2016, odds are it’ll be two years or so until Shinkai’s next anime hits theaters. But in the meantime, if Tokyo-based CoMix Wave Films wants to keep rendering other parts of the world in anime form, that’s just fine with us.

Source: YouTube/カナダシアター編集部 via IT Media
Images: YouTube/カナダシアター編集部

Follow Casey on Twitter, where he hopes southern California gets the CoMix Wave Films treatment one day.