A gorgeous anime that will grab your heart and squeeze.
The Japanese animated film Your Name, directed by Makoto Shinkai, has been a huge hit in Japan. When it premiered at Anime Expo in Los Angeles in July of this year, it gained a loyal following. Shinkai has been called the next Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro), though he shrugs off that compliment. Your Name is based on a novel written by Shinkai and will be released in 2017, both in its Japanese-with-English-subtitles form as well as the English-dubbed version.
In the film, a young Japanese girl named Mitsuha (Masami Nagasawa) is frustrated by her life in a small town. She wishes she could come back in her next life as a handsome boy from Tokyo. Taki (Ryunosuke Kamiki) is a handsome boy from Tokyo with whom she ends up switching bodies over and over again. Though they can’t speak to each other, they leave messages to help out; sometimes on their bodies, sometimes on their phones or in school notebooks. As the mystery unfolds, they realize they’re falling for each other. They’re also separated by time, reminding one of the Sandra Bullock/Keanu Reeves film The Lake House. With a natural disaster looming for one of the characters, they both struggle to save each other and sync their lives.
Fans of Miyazaki can definitely see his influence here, though Shinkai has his own unique style. The animation is stunning, especially the scenes of the looming comet and one time travel sequence, post-ritual sake. It hooks you right from the beginning sequence, which shows spoiler-free shots from throughout the film, giving you a preview of the imagery. Though sometimes anime with particularly stunning animation, can also leave you disconnected from the characters, Your Name doesn’t suffer from that. The domestic scenes, down to the characters sitting at breakfast or taking pictures of their food, are heartwarming with their soft lines and gentle humor.
Heartwarming is the best word to describe the first third of the film. Your Name pulls you in with humor and jokes, from Taki constantly grabbing Mitsuha’s breasts in shock when he wakes up in her body, to her little sister walking in and commenting in disgust, to the domestic squabbles of her friends. Despite the language barrier, the humor works and you find yourself invested in these characters, especially the leads, Shinkai captures the dreamy quality of young love, while also reminding you of that feeling when you wake up from a dream and you’re not sure if what you dreamed really happened.
However, when the action begins, the humor is largely lost. It’s not just that the action scenes don’t call for humor; it suddenly feels like a different film and a bit disjointed, with a comedy at the beginning, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode in the middle as the characters’ friends try to save the town, and a time travel drama at the end, largely leaving the other characters’ stories hanging and focusing on the disaster and the star-crossed lovers.
Your Name is filled with gorgeous animation.
That said, the disjointed feel isn’t enough to make this film anything less than a lovely story to watch and experience. Mitsuha and Taki are characters you can root for and the audience I saw the film with was filled with tears at the end. The animation is so lovely and warm that the three separate parts of the film are something to let go and bring up later after the film has ended and you’re out discussing it over a beer. You can also discuss the rather interesting translation of the theme song from the Japanese rock band Radwimps, who did most of the music for the film.
The Verdict
Though the film suffers a bit from its disparate themes, the animation is absolutely gorgeous and the story will grab your heart and squeeze. Your Name doesn’t quite match the feel of a classic Miyazaki film, but it’s still a lovely story that actually manages to make the time travel mostly understandable. It will be interesting to see if the English language dub takes away from the feel, as is sometimes the case. This is definitely worth a watch.
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