Review of Your Name / 君の名は, directed by Makoto Shinkai

I remember the years after My Name came out quite clearly. The year the movie had come out I was in high school, and thought that I had to hide my love of movies.

I was a weird, sad, and bullied kid in high school, so I kind of thought that because movies weren’t cool, I had to smother this love and continue on.

It ended up working out once I grew up a little, as I’m now a professional film critic and I work on this blog! I love giving film reviews on the blog, and although I don’t consider this criticism, I still enjoy using this side of my brain.

Anyways, it took a few years after the movie had come out for me to finally watch it. Back then, I didn’t really have any money, so when I would want to watch a movie, it had to be on television or the Netflix account my family shared.

I was eighteen when I got to watch this, had just movie to college in New York City, and was about to start a grand new adventure of my own. So I could really relate to some of the storylines and motives happening in this movie!

Let’s get into the review before I start rambling too much.

Two high schoolers find themselves switching bodies when they go to sleep each night.

The first main character we’re introduced to throughout the movie is Mitsuha, who lives in a rural Japanese town and dreams of living in the big city of Tokyo. She’s tired of living out in the countryside, and because of it, she wishes one day that she’ll become a Tokyo boy in her next life.

But when she goes to bed one night, she finds herself switching bodies with an actual Tokyo boy: Taki. Once they realize what’s going on, they leave each other messages with instructions on how to live and act out their lives, as they go through the day in each other’s bodies before switching at night.

In Taki’s body, Mitsuha gets him a date with one of his coworkers, while Taki helps Mitsuha become more popular at school. Taki also befriends her grandmother and sister, going with the shrine to them, where her grandmother explains that the god of this shrine rules over time and connections—it’s no secret now why these two are switching bodies the way they are. It’s decreed by the gods.

One day, Mitsuha tells Taki that a comet is going to pass over Earth, and when Taki goes on a date with his coworker, she tells him that she understands he likes someone else.

Taki realizes he has a crush on Mitsuha, tries to call her, and realizes that her phone is dead. They also stop switching bodies. So he recreates his coworker and friend to go find Mistuha, and sketches a landscape of the village since he doesn’t know its name.

A restaurant owner recognizes it, tough, and takes them there. The town has been completely destroyed three years prior because of fragments from the comet, and Taki realizes that he and Mistuha were switching across time periods, too.

He’s beginning to love his memories of her, and he runs to the shrine where he went with her family. There, he has a vision where he realizes she came to Tokyo and gave him a ribbon before the time switching.

After that, he wakes up in her body the day of the festival, and her grandmother explains to him this is a family trait.

Taki convinces her friends that this is the only chance to save the town, and they broadcast an emergency message. The town is evacuated, he heads to the shrine, and discovers Mitsuha in his body.

Their timelines have finally intersected, and they can meet for the first time. But as they attempt to write their names on each other’s bodies, before they forget everything, Mitsuha fails to do so, and they return to their timelines.

Mitsuha goes home to learn the evacuation failed, but tells her father to get everyone out. She looks at her arm and realizes Taki wrote “I love you” instead of his name, and, five years later, he has no memories of what happened and is a struggling college grad.

He’s obsessed with how that village was rescued though, but when he spots Mitsuha in Tokyo, they feel like they need to meet. They can’t remember each other, but feel like they’ve meet, so they ask for their names.

Overall Thoughts

Your Name is such a gorgeous movie to watch throughout, as the animation style truly is stunning. I think this is one of Shinkai’s most iconic works, as everything he’s released after it follows the same model of Your Name.

The story is pretty solid in this one as well, and I’m not mad at it at all.

If you haven’t seen this movie and are a fan of animation, I think this should definitely be on your to watch list. Almost a decade later, when I’m writing this, I think it holds up really well.

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