Kakomareta Sekai (lost Makoto Shinkai 3DCG animated short; 1998)

Official name of the 3DCG animation

Status: Lost

Kakomareta Sekai (「囲まれた世界」, known as The World be Enclosed) is a 30-second long 3DCG animation short film done by Makoto Shinkai (the creator of Your Name and Suzume) using Lightwave 3D that was originally viewable at Shinkai’s website in 1998, becoming his first work in his entire career, but was taken down in February 1999 due to bandwidth issues and that Shinkai only intended to use it as a program practice for his next works.

History

Kakomareta Sekai was inspired by Japanese novelist Murakami Haruki's book Sekai no Owari to Hado-Boirudo Wandarando (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World). The music was done by Tenmon, who is also responsible for the music in Shinkai's works like:

Kanojo to Kanojo no Neko (She and Her Cat').
Hoshi no Koe (Voices of a Distant Star).
Kumo no Muko, Yakusoku no Basho (The Place Promised in Our Early Days).
Byosoku Go Senchimetoru (5 Centimeters per Second).
Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo (Children Who Chase Lost Voices).

Status

The search has been in effect since the beginning of the 2000s by numerous fans of his previous works, being the first registrations in anime forums, Reddit posts and Chinese websites. Here is a list that adress the topic of the work:

Baike Baidu entry.^[1]
AniDB entry.^[2]
MyAnimeList entry.^[3]
Anime-Planet entry.^[4]
Шикимори/Shikimori entry.^[5]
My Anime Shelf entry.^[6]
Simkl entry.^[7]
The hunt for an obscure Makoto Shinkai work. (Reddit).^[8]
Makoto Shinkai’s Kakomareta Sekai (Reddit).^[9]
“The World be Enclosed” by Makoto Shinkai, Where to Watch? (Reddit).^[10]
Kakomareta Sekai (Enclosed World) by Makoto Shinaki, where can I watch? (Reddit).^[11]
The World be Enclosed (囲まれた世界 Kakomareta Sekai) by Makoto Shinkai (Reddit).^[12]
Makoto Shinkai’s first film - The World Be Enclosed (Reddit).^[13]
Lost Media Wiki Forum entry.^[14]

On February 13, 2021, a YouTuber called ErickAnime uploaded a video with a series of screenshots of the actual short that was at the archive Makoto Shinkai website on a Wikipedia link at the References section.^[15]^[16]

On March 01, 2021, a Reddit user called u/LeifErickson17 share in the previous mention Reddit post^[12] the video with the screenshots of Shinkai's blog and the "inspiration" for the search of this work.

On June 12, 2021, it was shared a screenshot at the YouTube video description proving the video resolution and audio quality of the main content.^[17]

【260*195・30秒・Sorenson・2.2MB・16bit22KHz】

On July 12, 2021, it was shared at the same video description that the Tenmon's blog was found, including a comment regarding the music that he used for the short.^[18]

On December 06, 2021, it was shared at the description of the video that the images were written with Adobe Photoshop 5.1, that according to a GitHib Gist, it was released between May 1998 and February 1999, confirming the original release date of the project: 1998.^[19]^[20]