Kimi no Na wa.

Mitsuha Miyamizu, a high school girl, yearns to live the life of a boy in the bustling city of Tokyo—a dream that stands in stark contrast to her present life in the countryside. Meanwhile in the city, Taki Tachibana lives a busy life as a high school student while juggling his part-time job and hopes for a future in architecture.

One day, Mitsuha awakens in a room that is not her own and suddenly finds herself living the dream life in Tokyo—but in Taki's body! Elsewhere, Taki finds himself living Mitsuha's life in the humble countryside. In pursuit of an answer to this strange phenomenon, they begin to search for one another.

Kimi no Na wa. revolves around Mitsuha and Taki's actions, which begin to have a dramatic impact on each other's lives, weaving them into a fabric held together by fate and circumstance.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Miyamizu, Mitsuha Main

Kamishiraishi, Mone Japanese

Tachibana, Taki Main

Kamiki, Ryunosuke Japanese

Yukino, Yukari Supporting

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Okudera, Miki Supporting

Nagasawa, Masami Japanese

Miyamizu, Yotsuha Supporting

Tani, Kanon Japanese

Teshigawara, Katsuhiko Supporting

Narita, Ryou Japanese

Miyamizu, Hitoha Supporting

Ichihara, Etsuko Japanese

Fujii, Tsukasa Supporting

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Natori, Sayaka Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Takagi, Shinta Supporting

Ishikawa, Kaito Japanese

Bezerra, Wendel Producer

Kawamura, Genki Producer, Planning

Itou, Kouichirou Producer

Takei, Katsuhiro Producer

Reviews

Jan 5, 2026

Soggygrandma

Recommended

After so many months of procrastinating about watching this anime, I've finally watched it an it's PEAK. The animation, the story, the way it delivers emotions straight to the heart - all are SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS. The story isn’t completely unpredictable, but it’s executed so well that it stays enjoyable. The art style fits the story perfectly, and every frame feels like wallpaper material (not screen wallpaper, but real home decoration wallpaper). The characters are well-rounded, with both strengths and flaws, and their reactions to situations feel realistic, making them easy to relate to and see yourself in. Totally recommended - give it a try, and you’ll ... most likely fall in love with it.

R.I.P. Akira Toriyama

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Dec 17, 2025

doryu-P

Mixed Feelings

It's a visually stunning film with an immediately captivating premise, and it’s easy to see why it left such a strong impression on audiences worldwide. The animation is immaculate, with richly detailed backgrounds and atmospheric lighting that elevate nearly every scene. RADWIMPS’ soundtrack is equally memorable, seamlessly enhancing the emotional beats and carrying much of the film’s emotional weight.

That said, beneath the polish lies a story that can feel uneven. The film’s pacing is rushed, especially in its transition between ideas, giving the impression of two different movies stitched together. While the body-swap concept is initially engaging, it is treated more as a narrative gimmick ... than a tool for meaningful character development, leaving the central romance underexplored.

Emotionally, the film often relies on spectacle and music rather than fully earned character bonds. For some viewers, this results in powerful resonance; for others, the characters feel distant and the drama less impactful than intended. Logical leaps and plot conveniences further weaken immersion, particularly as the story leans heavily on fate to justify its turns.

Ultimately, it's a beautifully crafted experience that shines in presentation but stumbles in structure and depth. It’s an enjoyable, unique romance with standout audiovisual elements, even if its storytelling doesn’t fully live up to its ambition.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 8, 2026

051819

Not Recommended

Original review date: 2025-02-26
Re-review because the last review was terrible and receptive to be confusing. After all that, I could see why; though, this film is still overrated garbage for reasons that were largely unheard of earlier.

The actual review:

Kimi no Na wa is a mawkishly sentimental romance story that essentially does with both its first and secondary premises, in addition to both of them feeling like two films in one. It may look stunning, but there are more factors that contribute to engagement aside from being visually appealing. There’s more to a film than art direction, such as the setting, the plot, the characters, and ... whatever else actually gives the film substance beyond a collection of visually stimulating imagery. To the film’s ultimate and untimely demise, it can only really be engaged with your eyes and ears. The story, at its core, is nothing more than a generic hodgepodge of "starborn lovers" and "we were meant to be together" nonsense that doesn't transcend its genre at all, even with the astronomicalbabble thrown into the mix.

The film is clearly divided into two acts; though, the matter of these “acts” merely exists as a less-blunt way of stating that the film feels like two separate stories that were conglomerated into one. The first of these acts involves a body-swap premise involving a teenaged boy and girl living on opposite sides of the country. It’s a common trope, so one should realize that its justification isn’t rooted in anything aside from random astronomical buzzwords thrown together. Even without being reliant on any sort of logic at all, there is nothing new being added to the trope because the body-swap premise essentially goes nowhere. Usually, one might predict that this premise would be used to explore gender roles in society so that both characters involved can learn about the positive and negative aspects of each role. However, from the very first scene, the film makes it apparent that the “body-swapping” premise is mostly presented as a running gag rather than something that may pose a challenge for the two characters involved. The typical challenges are involved such as taking on someone else’s job or finding a class, yet this says nothing about what each character is passionate about. As for the sexual undertones, the boob-grabbing is a slighter “kid-friendly” version of the boy “touching” himself (or I guess herself now?). Otherwise, the way the film handles this new adjustment into a body that’s not really yours hadn’t received a convincing performance. Does Japan just… not teach sex-ed or something? Either way, it’s continent on the unfunny gag, so it’s not like it was going to explore this premise deeply anyway. At best, the characters are slightly inconvenienced given that both their lives and characterization is simplistic in nature.

The characterization is vapid and the audience learns next to nothing about them. Taki is the worst of the bunch, because the amount of screen time he’s given is unjustified. He’s mostly spineless and the film only touches on his passion for architecture (which is never explored) in addition to the few aspects of his character that only exist to give him basic life skills. Did the film need to explore his interest in architecture? No, but when nothing else rings much of interest, one can’t help but see a huge misstep in his characterization. Aside from his unexplained passion for the arts and architecture, the film only gives him the additional “timid guy” characterization, which sets up the plot for his superficial love interest for his coworker. Of course, the viewer may assume that he likes her because he thinks she’s pretty, but that’s about it. In contrast to his counterpart Mitsuha, he demeanor is conventionally feminine compared to Mitsuha, whose demeanor is slightly more conventionally feminine, which comes with a few implications during the body-swap premise, which predominantly focuses on gender roles.

Mitsuha is a bit better, as the film does take the time to explore her family dynamic, even though it was through a piss-poor flashback. Instead of being someone who seems to have nothing going for him, she lives in the countryside and lives with her family to keep some sort of tradition alive. Still, she occasionally runs into issues with her family when she is partaking in said traditions because she gets made fun of by other people or whatever. In fact, her father seems to enjoy partaking in the harassment she faces—a shitty archnemesis dad trope in action—that involves resolving a one-note conflict with a one-note character where behavior appears to have probable no cause. At one point, she loudly exclaims that she wishes she was a boy that lives in the city for reasons that only align with shitty foreshadowing, because it's not even subtle. She really only faces the most minor of flashbacks, which is why the film has a particular tendency where Mitsuha is expected to do most of the work, while Taki gets a disproportionate amount of screen time.

Now, when regarding the body-swap premise, whether or not it actually attempted to say something about gender, the purpose of the story device can be seen as a way for two characters to learn about each others lives. However, the film essentially goes nowhere with it in terms of character development aside from reinforcing existing gender stereotypes. At times, the characters would act as they would otherwise to confirm this. For example, Taki is not particularly masculine by any conventional standard—he is shy, not assertive, and his hobbies don’t involve much manual labor. Granted, the film is still concerned with breaking character behavior that was never even present in the first place; it almost feels as if it were a shitty, modern screwball comedy. For example, when Taki is in Mitsuha’s body, he acts out of character when he kicks decks over, acts like a dick, or plays basketball better than all of the boys. This behavior is never justified because Mitsuha was never confronted for acting too feminine earlier. Besides the attempt at comedy, there was no real reason for these scenes to be in because they are never addressed or hinted at later in the story. It may seem like a stretch to make these connections, but keep in mind that this is the same film that uses boob physics as a running gag.

Mitsuha’s transformation is equally sexist, which is strange considering the amount of wasted potential here and there. The film only goes as far as making Taki more shy and unassertive than he already is. Specific examples throughout only highlight his incompetence as she is unable to work a job, unable to find her way to class, and angering the boys at Taki’s workplace because g0d forbid a boy know how to sew. Apparently, all of the other boys at the workplace liked the only other female coworker that worked there for some reason. So, why didn’t they bother shooting their shot? No reason given other than the fact that a guy with feminine powers (real quote btw) tried to out-do them, to which Taki appears to be embarrassed by. However, this is perhaps the only scene where Mitsuha does learn something positive about the conventionally masculine trait of assertiveness, so good job. Even then, the fact that Mistuha favors Taki’s undertakings—which includes setting up the pointless date scene for him—she is never truly the central focus of the film. Her character progression is otherwise linear and only concerns convincing the father who hates her for some reason to listen to her for once, but even this is a large step ahead of the one positively received scene in the film; her assertiveness was never expanded upon otherwise. Basically, the film only goes as far to characterize the two main characters as basic stand-ins for [insert gender archetype here].

The romance aspect is never explored or developed with any depth because the characters have established no real reason to be with each other. This is worsened by the fact that the character interactions in general are no good and essentially negate the whole body-swapping premise. The film could’ve taken the time to explore each other’s lives aside from the usual shtick or work and school so that each character actually has a chance to be in-tune with each other. For instance, family dynamics appear to come into play because both of their families are largely different. Taki’s family for example seems to only be bound by the presence of his father while Mitsuha has a close relationship with her grandma and younger sister. Wow, interesting family dynamics! Maybe this film uses the body-swap premise to help characters learn more about each character’s lives, or not. After all, no youth chooses his/her family, which could tie into the film's half-assed "fate" theme. The film never explores body-swapping as having much of an impact on the characters themselves and is only concerned with developing a one-note romance. Thus, the characters involved have appeared to learn nothing while in each other’s bodies.

At this point, the writers assume that the audience should take their likeness towards the two’s relationship development, but doesn’t provide much of a reason as to why. Their relationship is entirely one-note as Mitsuha does all of the heavy lifting—as explained earlier. Moreover, the emotional connection between the two is rather idealized as Taki seems to have nothing going for him; he just looks like any other isekai protagonist ever that just so happened to not be isekaid. Like many other aspects of the film, the development aspect never takes place. No, crying after you wake up after a supposed “dream” is not indicative enough of a naturally developed romance. The romance is written in purely because the first half of the film is inharmonious with the second, wherein the writers expect us to just “go along with it” despite there being nothing in their relationship worth investing in.

The second act isn’t much better, and it can be argued that it’s worse simply because of its stark contrast to the emotionally manipulative and aimlessly pointless first arc. Instead of failing at everything it does, the second act also… fails at everything it does. Their romance never develops into anything meaningful aside from the Hallmark-esque/Disney-esque tropes of “girl moves into the big city to move in with guy” as well as “love at first sight” with no other justification as to how the film establishes its logic. The film is largely concerned with developing a relationship that would’ve otherwise fizzled out realistically—Taki’s crush did exactly that—so that the characters in the film can save the day or whatever. There's more than one climax of the film—with none of them being particularly memorable—so the plot also feels directionless. Still, plot conveniences and contrivances are practically everywhere and is the film's most fatal flaw. Without spoiling it, the characters are conveniently written to forget past events, including those that have happened mere seconds ago. It may seem as if it tied into the film’s aspect of fate; however, the film seems to write around this premise rather than with it. It’s a very contrived way of passing off all critique of the film under the guise of it being thematic.

Kimi no na Wa can succeed as a motion picture were one to take it as a mere sequencing of images. In doing so, the film tends to show the artstyle off whenever they can, usually crafting a few scenes with the intention of them being made into desktop wallpapers. Otherwise, there's not much else to pull from in terms of artistic merit. Congrats on having a high budget I guess.

All in all, the story is a bland showcase of an unreliable trope involving two characters who share zero chemistry with each other. In addition, the themes are uncompelling and the story has a difficult time establishing its own logic. In spite of wanting to potentially develop a heart-throbbing climax, the film lacks the finesse to even build steam on the way there. It's quite difficult to view this from a metric that isn't an appeal to emotion, that being boredom, intrigue, or otherwise. Art itself is largely subjective in that it defines itself, which makes it difficult to pass it off as being “boring” and leave it at that. the two by a metric that one may view as more depersonalized. Either way, I felt nothing in a genre that thrives of “feels” or whatever the main appeal of the genre is; I only picked it up because of the high rating.

***MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW***

Specific illogical inconsistencies in the film:
1. Taki forgets the name of the town that Mitsuha lives in and draws a sketch of her town from memory. Owing to the fact that the world’s information exists at the tip of his fingers, it does not bother him that a Google Maps adjacent exists. In this case, he is intelligent enough to have a well-above average photographic memory and art skills, but not intelligent enough to search for a small business that he might’ve come across in Itomori.

2. Modern technology persists as a problem in that small devices that fit into your pocket carry loads of information that the average person would keep track of on a daily basis. For example, the phone often replaces several old technologies which have been designed for a specific purpose, instead prioritizing convenience in one place (clock, calendar, camera, etc.). The diary entries that are written on the phones are conveniently deleted upon Taki taking his phone out of his pocket.

3. Taki conveniently forgets both the major impact disaster that happened in his country as well as the girl who he remembers the first name of in the conveniently placed book of names in the library he goes to. Even when accompanied by his friends he still fumbles remembering her name and doesn’t bother trying to tell his friends to make a note of it or anything. After all, it’s the one thing he's adamant about.

4. Taki and Mitsuha conveniently meet each other on the train when the plot needs them to.

5. Taki hesitates to write the hand of the girl he’s trying to remember the name of, only to then conveniently forget her name after the first penstroke.

Of course, fate is a common theme, which could help address a few of the inconsistencies listed above, as the film doesn’t contradict its established logic; rather, it contradicts a real-world application of human behavior. Basically, using fate as a means to put a band-aid over a crack in the asphalt isn’t convincing, nor does it add to the premise of “fate” at all aside from a surface-level viewer interpretation of its theme. In retrospect to what the film attempts to justify, the film’s conception of “fate” never makes a case for itself aside from the faux-symbolism within the appropriately titled “Red String of Fate.” The film may seem particularly contingent upon fate based on either the plot conveniences that drew them together or the main twist the body-swapping premise presents. Having said that, this still answers next to nothing because the film seems particularly unbothered by the weak character interactions. The only conclusion one can potentially pull from is that some sort of g0d is interfering with their affairs, but as stated previously, the film mostly uses this as a ruse to appear more logically consistent.

***SPOILERS END***

Jhintelman puts it best: “it's like a sh!t wrapped in tin foil, looks shiny, smells and tastes really bad.”

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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