Your Name (Kimi No Na Wa) - Review
To put it bluntly I watch a fair amount of anime, and Anime Youtubers as well for that matter. Mother’s Basement, Gigguk, Digibro, Exclamation Point (who deserves more subs to be honest), you name one: I’ll probably have watched them.
Recently one of them in particular, Gigguk, posted a video speaking about his own personal favourite anime film, the latterly released film “Your Name” (or otherwise known as “Kimi No Na Wa”), which was directed by Mikoto Shinkai. Of course, upon starting up the video, I was greeted with a spoiler warning, which understandably made me click off the video and gave me the urge to watch the film for myself.
Mikoto Shinkai is a name I’m definitely familiar with in the anime and film industry, primarily after watching his 2007 film “5 Centimetres Per Second”, which became one of my personal favourite films, mainly due to its bittersweet mood and the film’s main message of the harsh reality of “not knowing what you’ve got till it’s gone”, I felt spurred on even more to check his latest piece of work out.
First off let’s talk about the fairly obvious elephant in the room, the animation. By god, this film is breathtakingly beautiful. You can tell that Shinkai has put an almost extreme amount of effort into this film as each frame is bursting with colour and detail, specifically on buildings or natural landscapes. So much so that every single one would probably be adequate on your desktop background. Plus, there’s the very impressive tracking shot that flies off from Taki’s house in Tokyo between the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, all the way out to Mitsuha’s home in Itomori. It’s a stunning shot and not only is it a complete marvel to watch, it also sells the in-movie distance between the two main characters. There’s another factor that also further improves the quality of the animation and that’s Shinkai’s usage of Licencing. Just as an example, in some of the scenes set in Tokyo during the film, a keen eye would notice that on certain buildings there are logos for such companies as Sony, Panasonic, Sharp, Toshiba, the list goes on. This is how much Shinkai pays attention to the detail and it definitely pays off, immersing the viewer further into Your Name’s world.
Secondly, the best part of any film, the story – I’ll be covering the plot and characters of the film here.
The film begins from the perspective of Mitsuha Miyamizu, a high school girl living in the fictional Japanese rural town of Itomori. It’s apparent early on that Mitsuha isn’t keen on living a quiet life in the somewhat desolate town (or out in the boonies as the dub occasionally mentions) and wishes that she could be a handsome Tokyo boy in her next life. Enter Taki Tachibana, a high school boy working a small part time job at an Italian restaurant and living in Tokyo (what are the odds!). Suddenly and randomly every few days, the two swap bodies and are able to live out the other person’s life for a day (think of it a lot like Freaky Friday just not permanently). Thus, the two unanimously decide to work together to keep each other’s lives in check and also attempting to discover why both of them keep switching places, while also improving certain aspects within their lives (Mitsuha helps Taki to strike up a relationship with Miku Okudera, one of Taki’s co-workers, while Taki helps Mitsuha to become more popular at school).
I was considering going into practically extreme detail about the actual plot of the film but I realised that it would take up a large portion of the review and would (obviously) spoil the entire film. I’ll still be briefly mentioning certain characters or events that aren’t extremely important to the plot or that I haven’t mentioned so you may have to ya know, watch the actual film or follow the links below for the entire story overview.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Name#Home_media
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHEjDq9Lh1U
One of the main grabs of the film is that it is able to draw you in and can make the viewer really care for Taki, Mitsuha and their relationship with one-another. I’ve heard criticism of Taki and Mitsuha for being too simplistic and somewhat bland, but I would say that while you can’t call them perfect characters, to say that they are bad or mediocre would be just plain lying. They’re simplistic characters - because a majority of normal human beings are like that. Most people don’t have a hidden backstory or an underlying problem in their lives and don’t need to be incredibly complex characters in order to be good characters. The side characters are pretty good too, with Tessie being hot-headed, but friendly and understanding, and Miku being easy-going, yet thoughtful and likable. The actual story itself (which as I previously mentioned I won’t be spoiling here) is a genuinely heart-warming experience and the main twist of the film will definitely catch you off guard (trust me it’s very subtle and is revealed fantastically). The love story is also built up fantastically, and as Shinkai has done with his other films, he is able to accurately understand and portray a teenage romance, making it feel fairly natural and ordinary. The story and characters are comprehensively incredible (well to me anyway).
Next up, the soundtrack. This is a truly sublime soundtrack and the main songs of the film (“Dream Lantern”, “ZenZenZense”, “Sparkle”, etc) by Radwimps are stellar and match each scene perfectly both in mood and tone. Especially when you consider that the music was basically what shaped certain scenes of the film. Shinkai intentionally changed certain parts of the story / script to work around Radwimps’s music. This in turn helps to “supplement the dialogue and monologue of the characters” (to quote Shinkai himself). The music just syncs so well with the moments of the film and the soundtrack in general works wonders during the more emotional, awe-inspiring and light-hearted moments. Overall, a fantastic soundtrack.
Lastly, I’ll be going over the voice acting (subbed AND dubbed). And to be perfectly honest, both were pretty solid. While the dub’s no Cowboy Bebop (cause ya know every dub ever made has to be compared to Cowboy Bebop), Michael Sinterniklaas (Taki) and Stephanie Sheh (Mitsuha) put in a good shift with the exception of the odd occasional line coming across as slightly melodramatic, and (as much as I personally prefer dub to sub) the sub is of course as you’d typically expect pretty exceptional. Ryunosuke Kamiki (Taki) and Mone Kamishiraishi (Mitsuha) portray their characters and their emotions remarkably well. The side characters of both sub and dub are also fairly impressive and there is no specific actor / actress that could be pointed out as a weak point of the casting. The casting overall for both sub and dub was of the highest degree.
Your Name was just…wow. This was a very surprising movie to me, as I hadn’t really set the film any kind of benchmark going into it and I haven’t really been a big fan of romance films over the course of my life. But Your Name has changed that for me. It’s heart-warming and charming, upbeat and dramatic, detailed and visually stunning…there’s just no perfect word to describe the film... asides from maybe beautiful. The characters are memorable and are portrayed fantastically, the animation and detail is immaculate, the story just clicks perfectly into place, it is a modern anime classic and is truly deserving of the records it has broken; even if Mikoto Shinkai disagrees with it. Just go see it. Trust me. You won’t regret anything.
Favourite Quote: “This feeling has possessed me when I think from that day...That day when the stars came falling. It was almost as if...as if a scene from a dream. Nothing more, nothing less...than a beautiful view.”
Got any suggestions for what i should review next? Just send them to me via messages or via a post on the blog and ill see what i can do! Thanks for any and all support! :)
prguitarman
dededos
blakekathryn
jacobvanloon
turnnoffyourmind
