Your Name 君の名は (2016)
Your Name (君の名は)
Written and Directed by Makoto Shinkai
Rated PG
Note: This review does contain a few spoilers. Rest assured I didn’t give away everything (especially not the ending and other important points) but I found it difficult to summarize the plot of the film in order to get people interested in seeing it without revealing a few things.
My first encounter with the work of Makoto Shinkai was when I watched a film back in 2008 called 5 Centimeters Per Second, a wonderful animated tale that exposed me to themes that Shinkai would look at in his films like young love, impermanence in life, loneliness, reflections from characters on where their life is going, hanging on to those invisible connections to people and so on. Just from this film alone, it is easy to see how he has become such a figure in anime today. He seems to know how young people think and how they see the world and by making films that address their concerns, hopes, dreams etc. combined with stunning imagery, good dialogue, and realistic relatable characters, he clearly reached a growing audience who was likely looking for someone who shared their feelings. His work is clearly geared for the late teens and young adults who are still trying to figure themselves out but there is an appeal that makes his work accessible to pretty much all ages.
With each film, he manages to explore his themes in different ways. His first project, Voices of a Distant Star (2002), was a 25-minute short which he made almost entirely by himself that dealt with a future where humanity is at war with aliens in deep space and the lead character tries to keep in contact with her friend through the e-mail function on her cell phone (which takes a long time to receive and send due to deep space). This film explored the need to keep in contact with a loved one even when time moves differently between the two. The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004) is another science fiction film that explored the bond between childhood friends and the need to keep a promise made long ago to a certain girl or face regrets. 5 Centimeters Per Second (2007) takes a look at young love between a boy and a girl that eventually fades as they go their separate ways and live separate lives in different parts of Japan. Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011) is a fantasy film that took a look at the need for people to accept that death is a way of life and saying goodbye to a loved one who has passed on is not a bad thing. And finally, The Garden of Words (2013) deals with a growing bond between a High School boy training to be a shoemaker and an older woman who meet in a park on rainy mornings during the Japanese rain season (and no, nothing naughty happens in this film…relax).
Today’s topic, Your Name, is a film that already has a good reputation. It is the highest grossing anime film in Japanese history, is a huge critical and commercial darling in Asia, Europe and is now one here in the US (critically, I mean. The jury is still out box office wise.), and this is pretty much Makoto Shinkai’s breakthrough feature in the sense he made a film that not only reaches a wider audience than his previous works but makes him more of a “household name.” This is similar to what Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) did for Guillermo del Toro or what The Dark Knight (2008) did for Christopher Nolan. And what will predictably follow due to Shinkai’s rising fame is that it will be considered cool to call his work over-rated and repeated attempts will be made to delegitimize him and his work in the years to come. Welcome to the internet.
To get back on track, Your Name explores a star crossed romance between a boy and a girl but does so in the framework of a body swap movie. I normally don’t like body swap films because more often than not they usually come off to me as “OH NO! I’m in somebody else’s body!! I hope hijinks don’t ensue!!!!” Your Name is probably the only film like this that had me completely engaged with it. Shinkai avoids the pitfalls that accompany the body swap movie (too many scenes of embarrassing misunderstandings that make for an uncomfortable sit, jokes you can see coming a mile away and are not funny, contrived and forced attempts to tug at heartstrings among other things) and also manages to transcend it in a way that only he can.
(Slight spoilers in the next two paragraphs. You have been warned.)
The story centers around two High School kids, a boy named Taki Tachibana who lives in Tokyo and Mitsuha Miyamizu who lives in a rural town called Itomori. At random times, when they fall asleep, they wake up in each other’s bodies and each person has to spend the day as the other. This causes enough chaos the first few times that they work out a system by leaving notes and instructions on each other’s cell phones so each would know how to behave like the other. During the course of this happening, the two begin to learn about each other and start to fall for each other.
But one day, they stop switching. When Taki sees that the texts and instructions left by her on his phone start to disappear and he sees that she died when the town of Itomori was destroyed 3 years previously when a comet fragment struck it, he notices he’s beginning to forget her name as well. But upon remembering the times he spent in her body learning from her grandmother about Shinto teachings of the spirit world co-residing with the living (which is an aspect of this story that would require a whole different research paper) and Mitsuha putting a batch of Kuchikamizake (or “chewed mouth sake” where a person chews rice and slowly spits it into a container to let it ferment naturally) in her family shrine which was referred to as leaving a piece of her in there, Taki drinks the sake and attempts to go back in her body to save her, save the residents of Itomori and maintain the connection to her as well as remember her name.
Now in order to talk much more in depth about the story, I would have to go into bigger spoilers and I won’t do that. This is one of those films that is best to go in knowing as little as possible and let it wash over you. The narrative unfolds at a natural pace that does not feel rushed, allows for genuine immersion to happen and nothing felt like it needed to be added or subtracted. In fact, this is a movie that requires more than one viewing. The narrative incorporates concepts from the native Japanese religion of Shinto and understanding what is happening to Taki and Mitsuha is somewhat dependent on one’s knowledge of Shinto. I say somewhat because you really don’t need to know about it to enjoy the film, similar to how one doesn’t need to have knowledge Japanese history to enjoy Seven Samurai (1954), but it’s an aspect that enriches the film.
All the characters in the film, even down to the smaller supporting ones, are all for the most part very well fleshed out and given depth. Be it Taki and his interactions with Ms. Okudera (his superior at his job and initial crush) or Tsukasa (his High School Friend). Or Mitsuha with her High School friends Katsuhiko and Sayaka, these are all characters that behave like real people and they are not written in a way that tries too hard to sound like people who are young. In other words, the dialogue doesn’t try to consciously sound hip or cool. The voice acting for both the Japanese and English tracks are very good and you could tell that the actors on both tracks were giving their all to make sure that the final product was the best possible one.
As with every Shinkai film, the film is beautifully animated and his trademarks are all present and accounted for. Be they the gorgeous shots of nature, images of the stars and galaxies in the nighttime sky, or even the lens flares, it wouldn’t be a Makoto Shinkai film without these things. It was animated with what appears to be a combination of hand drawn style with the assistance of computers and I’m fine with that. I usually don’t care how something is animated (well…as long as it’s not truly hideous) as long as the storytelling is strong. For example, I love the TV show Home Movies and the animation in that show looks like it was slapped together in an afternoon with Elmer’s glue, Crayola markers, and popsicle sticks but it’s the dialogue, humor, and situations that makes one forgive the low-quality animation. All too often I see people complain as to how anime is produced today and while I as well would love to see the old fashioned hand-drawn animation done 100%, I also live on planet Earth and understand that it is too expensive to do that nowadays unless someone out there is willing to throw serious money out there to have it done. Hey anime fanboys, please remember that the storytelling is what truly matters here. Something can be beautifully hand drawn and still be terrible (X the Movie (1997) is a great example of that).
The film’s soundtrack is provided by the Japanese rock band called RADWIMPS. I have no idea what that name is supposed to mean and, I’ll be honest, this aspect of the film is something I had concerns over. My tolerance level for most J Pop or Japanese rock is very low (unless said J Pop or Japanese rock is written by Yoko Kanno then it’s automatically made of awesome) but I really can’t complain about the music provided here. The songs fit what was going on in the film and are not intrusive. It got the job done.
This is a film that even those who normally don’t like or don’t really care about anime find themselves liking it. I will state right now that whatever preconceived notions one might have as to what anime is, Your Name is not it. This is not a film that has annoying Japanese school girls with large sweater muffins that should realistically wreak havoc on their lower backs being menaced by demon tentacles or another in a series of lame sci-fi shovel wear that you can find filling up bargain bins. Your Name is something truly exceptional. It’s not quite sci-fi, fantasy or even a slice of life drama combined with a tale of young love. Shinkai mixes all of these into something that could be another genre entirely and again is something only he could come up with. While The Place Promised in our Early Days is my uncontested favorite, this will most definitely rank not only as one of his all-time best but also one of my favorites. Since repetition is key to helping people remembering things, I will leave all you out there with the following exhortation:
See this movie.
See this movie.
See. This. Movie.
