So starts Kimi No Na Wa (Your Name). A film that sent a shiver down my spine within the first minute – an incredible achievement, but a sensation that occurred a few times in its 112 minute runtime.
Makoto Shinkai, the crackerjack auteur behind films such as 5 Centimeters Per Second and The Garden of Words, has created his first masterpiece. A film so visually exquisite that it is almost peerless.
Not that this is all that surprising when you look his previous films that all contained similarly vibrant and evocative art styles. Every second the viewer will be smacked with a smattering of rich, meticulously detailed shots that it borders on dizzying.
Kimi No Na Wa / Your Name (2016)
Yet, Shinkai never lets images linger, quickly cutting to another equally sumptuous shot. In previous films, Shinkai had been accused of focusing more on visuals than on the story and, unfortunately, this was the case. This isn’t true for Your Name, though, as the story and the voice acting are equally as important.
Kimi No Na Wa tells the red string of fate story of Taki and Mitsuha who start switching bodies due to a supernatural phenomenon that occurs in fictional city Itomori.
The film changes focus between the two leads as they come to terms with the fact some days they will wake up in the other’s body, having to deal with the problems being the other gender could create.
Kimi No Na Wa And The Importance Of Names
Eventually, they set some humorous ground rules such as not fondling her breasts, spending all of his money or acting in an innocuous way. Both benefit from the differences in their personalities and learn to co-operate with one another so that each benefit from the situation.
These types of narrative can be difficult to pull off as viewers could easily become lost under a myriad of confusing temporal details, or the film could fall into well-worn clichés. Neither occurs. The switch never feels forced nor jarring. Much like the visuals, Shinkai moves the story along quickly, never allowing a scene to drag, but just long enough that viewers can appreciate each scene.
The Japanese band RADWIMPS score the film to perfection, adding a bouncy soundtrack that compliments the action on screen, ramping up excitement during key moments. Unfortunately, even though the Japanese version is great, the same can not be said about the English dub that fails to capture the nuances of the characters and the high-pitched, emotionless voice acting of the two leads detracts from the experience.
Review: Kimi No Na Wa (your Name) — More Than Just A Body Swap Anime
Even more bafflingly, the wonderful soundtrack has been dubbed by the same band for the English release, bastardizing their own music to the point where it became unlistenable.
The only other half-hearted qualm that I can make about the Japanese release is that its runtime went by in a blink of an eye. If you can criticise a film for this reason, then dock a point off the score. If not, get ready for one of the few animations that can be compared to a Miyazaki film.
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Manga Volume 3
Gamezeen is a Zeen theme demo site. Zeen is a next generation WordPress theme. It’s powerful, beautifully designed and comes with everything you need to engage your visitors and increase conversions.Anyone who knows me knows that Makoto Shinkai is my favorite director in anime. So much so that I even took the time to review every single one of his works. There was a time that I thought he was done with creating movies. He seemed more interested in producing animated shorts, tv commercials, or slightly longer single episodes of anime. Then, late last year, it was announced that Makoto Shinkai was making a brand new feature film called
. I didn’t care what it was about, all I knew was that it was from my favorite director and I wanted to watch it. When the movie came out, it was received with high regards by the anime community at Anime Expo in Los Angeles, California. Then, it caught on like wildfire and earned some tremendous accolades (and continues to earn them even at the time this review is being written.)
As with any Makoto Shinkai/CoMix Wave production, I felt that it would be an injustice to watch this film in anything less than 1080p, but the hype and the pressure of waiting got to me and I watched the 480p DVD Hard Sub. Did
Kimi No Na Wa, Night, Comet, Clouds
Live up to the hype? Does it deserve all of the accolades it has gotten? Was it worth jumping the gun and watching this film in borderline potato quality? I’m about to answer all of those questions with this review!
The story seemed rather convoluted at first, but then I found a way to summarize it so that some who haven’t watched the movie can understand what they are getting into. If you have seen the American movie
By some strange cosmic event, involving the passing of Comet Tiamat, when these two go to sleep there is a random chance that they will switch bodies. At first, like anyone, they have no idea what is going on until, one day, Mitsuha, while in Taki’s body, discovers that he keeps a journal on his cell phone. She writes an entry in there and when they switch back, Taki realizes that this is how they can communicate with each other. Each time they swap, which is several times per week, they keep leaving each other messages in their phones. Sometimes they take liberties while in each other’s bodies and cause a bit of trouble, such as when Mitsuha set up a date for Taki with his co-worker, whom he’s had a crush on.
Kimi No Na Wa Phone Wallpapers
While this is the basis for the first half of the film, I dabbled in whether or not I should talk about the second half. Doing so would reveal HUGE spoilers for the film, but it’s the part of the film that draws out the biggest and deepest emotions from the viewer. I came to the conclusion that I don’t believe I would be happy with myself if I didn’t talk about the second half so I am going to do that. If you’ve seen the movie and wish to know my thoughts, then please continue on. For those who do not wish to be spoiled, skip past the section with the spoiler tags for my spoiler-free summary of the film. If you read between the tags and didn’t want to be spoiled, then all I can say is I gave you good warning.
The back half of the film has Taki wanting to meet Mitsuha. The only clues to her whereabouts is the scenery he remembers from when they switched bodies. Taki is a tremendous artist and he uses that talent to draw the town he saw when he stood on a ridge overlooking it. Miki Okudera, his crush, and Tsutomu Fujii, his co-worker and friend, accompany him on his search for Mitsuha. They ride train after train in hopes of finding a clue as to where Mitsuha lives. It isn’t until they stop at a diner when a chef recognizes the town that Taki drew. The town goes by the name Itomori and when he asked if it was far away from there, that’s when the bomb gets dropped on us.
Itomori was destroyed by a fragment of Comet Tiamat three years ago. 500 people, including Mitsuha, died in the impact. With this revelation, Taki has been switching bodies with Mitsuha three years in her past. This also causes Taki to begin to forget Mitsuha’s name with the only thing guiding him forward is a nagging impulse that he should be searching for someone. Taki remembers the shrine that he visited in Mitsuha’s body and rushes there to find the jug of sake that Mitsuha and her sister left there. He drinks the sake and experiences a flood of memories. This interaction, along with seeing a depiction of the comet in “cave art” on the ceiling causes him to fall into deep slumber.
Your Name (kimi No Na Wa) Css Background [super Smash Bros. Ultimate] [mods]
Taki switches places with Mitsuha one last time on the day the comet is supposed to hit. While in control of Mitsuha, he does his best to warn everyone about the impending impact. The impact occurs and Taki loses all memories of Mitsuha once again. It leaves you wondering if she got out in time, if she survived the impact at all. Then the ending comes five years after the comet’s impact. Taki and Mitsuha are on opposite trains and just happen to catch a glance at each other. Even without remembering each other, they knew they had to meet. They both get off at their first stop and casually pass each other. Taki can’t take it anymore and turns around asking “have we met?” Mitsuha turns around and says she feels the same way. They both then end the movie with “Your name is…” then BAM… credits. I couldn’t think of a more perfect way to
