Your Name or Kimi no Na wa is a captivating, emotional story of love that weaves together threads of time, destiny, fate and human emotion. It feels good but also heartbreaking at the same time. It is one of the timeless Anime gems of our time.
Source Photo (1)
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
Your Name or Kimi no Na Wa is a 2016 international best selling romantic fantasy anime film of all time. It revolves around the lives of two teenagers, Taki and Mitsuha.
Mitsuha is a high school girl from a mountainous and rural town called Itomori. Bored with her life, she dreams of escaping her surroundings and experience life in Tokyo as a boy in her next life. She usually ties her hair with a red braided ribbon that she made herself. She lives with her maternal grandmother and younger sister, while her father is the mayor of their town. They have an aloof relationship ever since the father abandoned taking care of the shrine when Mitshuha’s mother died and decided to do politics instead.
Taki is a high school student from Tokyo who excels in sketching and dreams of becoming an architect. He works at an Italian restaurant as a part time waiter and has a crush with his co-worker who is way older than him. He lives with his father.
One ordinary day, Taki and Mitsuha mysteriously begin to swap bodies. It happens intermittently. When this happens, they have to live through the entire day as the other person and will only swap back when they sleep at night. They devised a way to communicate by writing messages on paper, cellphones and their skin.
They went on to live like this; swapping bodies for awhile. Until that fateful day when everything stopped and memories were gradually erased.
OUR TAKE
Kim no Na Wa / Your name is a magical anime film. It’s not just a tale of the usual body-swapping trope; it’s a profound exploration of identity, destiny and the inexplicable bond that ties two souls together. It showed the beauty of the connections of Taki and Mitsuha’s lives despite being strangers living in different cities and different timelines. They are strangers but they share an intimate relationship despite not meeting each other.
I loved how the movie developed their relationship through time slip and swapping bodies. It is in these moments of waking up in the other’s body that they develop their friendship and eventually romantic feelings. It created a longing of being together although impossible. Since they really never met, and they are from different timelines. They were only bound by that feeling of longing, that intense emotion they shared with each other without remembering each other’s name or how they look like.
I am in awe of this film that showed a different perspective of deep love. Even after lost memories, natural disasters and the passing of time, their mind and heart kept those feelings and remember that person who they used to love.
I always wondered though how they will explain it to themselves why they feel that inexplicable attraction, connection and deep love they have for each other when they meet for the first time again in a long time. But I guess they don’t have to explain it. They accepted that they will carry that dull ache of longing that they can’t even pinpoint why or where or what caused it. And they were finally able to release those intense emotions when they saw each other. Not by realizing they can be together or that they finally found each other, but by a sense of familiarity with each other.
Hubby thinks though that the ending could have been more touching if they coincidentally met at the mountain where they met metaphysically for the first time. Where Taki’s motivation to go there is to answer why all these years that rural village holds meaning in his heart, while for Mitshuha’s to remember what saved their village during the disaster.
The cinematography is visually mesmerizing. The landscapes are just so stunning. It will want you to take the next plane to Japan. Heck, it might even make you want to live in Japan. But this is already a given. Japan, for me, in all its aspects, is stunningly beautiful.
The music also captures every moment beautifully. Radwimps created a killer soundtrack that perfectly complements the film’s emotional cadence. It dialled in straight into the vibe of every scene, making every moment even more intense. The main song is especially wonderful and magical, it connected to the feel of the film. Even if I don’t understand the lyrics, the melody certainly felt right. You’ll hum the songs even after the movie’s over.
The movie is not perfect, and i don’t think it wants it to be. But everything in it perfectly fits, it is like a work of art. The incredible animation, the contrast between the greens of rural Itamori and the gray concrete city of Tokyo, the relationship of nature and society, the mesh of sci-fi with romance – all blends in together to create a top-tier film with amazing artwork, music, a story that relates to us all that was told in the most creative way. You will feel all the emotions, and despite the sadness and lost memories, you will notice that you are still rooting for both of them to find their way to each other.
It is a sad movie but with a somewhat happy ending. Though they got another chance albeit a bit vague, it will make you long for what could be, will make you think of how to make them remember.
This movie is an anime gem and one of the best.
THE STANDOUT
There were a lot with this film, but the most notable ones are the soundtrack, the aha moment of why the title of the movie is Your Name, the red hair tie, the joy and meaning of the story of two lives that is deeply connected and heartbreaking at the same time.
If you have watched it, what did you think? And if you still have to watched it, what the why?
I promise that it will blow your mind and make you in awe of how such a wonderful anime came to life. At least it did for me.
Coincidentally, we were rewatching Interstellar last night. And this quote from one of the astronauts felt so fitting for this movie as well.
“Love isn’t something that we invented. It’s observable. Powerful. It has to mean something. Maybe it means something more, something we can’t yet understand. Maybe it’s some evidence, some artefact of a higher dimension that we can’t consciously perceive. Love is the one thing that we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.” —Dr. Amelia Brand, Interstellar
**All images are Photos by Funimation Inc. – © 2016 TOHO CO., LTD. / CoMix Wave Films Inc. / KADOKAWA CORPORATION / East Japan Marketing & Communications, Inc. / AMUSE INC. /**