It's only been nearly 2 months since Shinkai's last masterpiece "5 Centimeters per Second" was released on DVD but, his next piece of work is already due out this month!

The only thing is, it's not a movie. It's a CM for the Daily Shinano Newspaper which will be broadcasted in Shinkai's home the Nagano Prefecture this month. There are currently two versions of the CM available for viewing at the newspaper site (found top-right), each using different song lyrics sung by Takako Tate who was also born in Nagano. It's animated by Takano Nishimura, the same animation director who worked on 5cm while Shinkai done the storyboarding, background art and filming.

Voiced by Yoshimi Kondo who was the actress for young Akari in 5cm, we see a young girl riding her bike frantically after her dad who is on a train. She tries to say, "Thanks" and the tagline "Conveying those important things," appear.

The CM may only be 15 seconds long but it's already making its way into blogs and Anime news sites. You'll also notice the high quality artwork is still there. This time, the team went to the foot of Yatsuga Mountains back in July, where the Koumi railway line runs for location hunting.

On another note, the October issue of the Da Vinci books magazine, which contains the last part of the serialised version of the 5cm novel, comes out tomorrow in Japan. I hope it won't be long before they announce a date for the standalone novel!