I realize director Satoshi Kon may not be universally renowned, but I frequently recommend his films to folks who love great storytelling and imaginative, visionary work. To me he was one of the most original filmmakers of our time, someone who treated animation as a canvas, and combined reality, dreams, and memory in unprecedented ways. I remember my shock and heartbreak upon learning that he died in 2010, at just 46 years old. Fifteen years later I still think about him often, and the impression his work left on me.

What drew me in wasn’t just his technical brilliance, which was obvious. You could see the fingerprints of some of his influences, like (his mentor) Katsuhiro Otomo’s narrative and visual intensity, Hitchcock’s psychological thrills, and even Terry Gilliam’s absurdist surrealism; but Kon always cut his own path. He had a razor-sharp editing style, where a cut could take you from one world to another in an instant. But behind the gorgeous visuals, dazzling transitions and dreamscapes, there was always empathy. His characters, no matter how flawed or strange, were deeply human.

In a tightly focused ten-year burst, Kon produced four landmark feature films and a singular TV series. His breakthrough directorial feature debut Perfect Blue was an unnerving and modern take on identity and obsession. Millennium Actress was a sweeping love letter that transcends history, cinema and reality. Tokyo Godfathers was warm, funny, and heartbreaking all at once (and probably one of the more unconventional and original holiday films you will see). And Paprika remains a dazzling exploration of the space between dreams and reality, and influenced many other directors and films in its wake, including Christopher Nolan’s Inception. And then there’s the series Paranoia Agent, which is still one of the wildest things I’ve seen on television, a fever dream that captures the paranoia of everyday life.

What saddens me the most is thinking about the stories he could still be telling that we’ll never get to see. At the time of his passing, Kon was working on Dreaming Machine, a “family-friendly fantasy” meant to be a creative departure for him, perhaps his first “mainstream” film. It was left unfinished and unreleased (I’ve read it was about 40% completed), and that’s a tragedy in itself. Given that his relatively short career exhibited so much thought provoking brilliance, it pains me to contemplate what he might be making today. Truly one of a kind. Although he left us too soon, I’m confident that his body of work and genius will stand the test of time, discovered (and rediscovered) for generations.