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Over 300 people crowded into the room to see Makoto Shinkai speak at New York Anime Fest -- but MTV Geek readers get a special audience, because we were able to sit down and chat with him right after the panel.

Shinkai is the director of the critically acclaimed anime Voices of a Distant Star, 5 Centimeters per Second, and most recently, Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below, which had its U.S. premiere at NYAF. He was looking forward to visiting Central Park and the Empire State Building on his New York trip, but he took a few minutes to talk to us.

MTV Geek: You were a graphic designer before you started making anime. Did that influence you in any way, either in the way you approach the work, the way you do your work, or the content of the work itself?

Makoto Shinkai: When I was working at the game company, I wasn’t just doing graphic design, I was doing the entire product management, so I would do the graphic design, I would create the advertisements, even the catch copies. I would figure out what kind of packaging and design of the packaging, so I was basically doing total product management at that time. I approach anime work in a similar way: I am thinking about all aspects and how to deliver them to the end user.

MTV Geek: Do you think your unusual background puts you at an advantage or a disadvantage?

Makoto Shinkai: I would like to believe there are a lot of merits I derive from my background, but I feel a little bit of a complex in that I didn't have the traditional background as an anime director. I feel inferior sometimes. But then like today, when I see all those fans getting excited and showing love and appreciation for my work, I feels that it is OK that I didn’t not take the traditional career path as other anime directors and creators have.

MTV Geek: It's one thing to make an anime, another to get people to watch it. I know your first anime, She and Her Cat, won the grand prize at the 2000 DoGA CG Animation contest.. How did you get it to viewers before that?

Makoto Shinkai: I put a promotional video up on the internet and I made a bunch of CDs—at the time it wasn't DVDs, I burned it on a bunch of CDs—and I sold them at Comiket. I sold around 5,000 of them, which is a big number. And then you could order them by mail on my website.

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