Watched Suzume last week, really enjoyed it, revisited Weathering With You, and ended up liking it way more than I initially did. "Grand Escape" was freaking beautiful. So why not see Makoto Shinkai's arguably greatest work for the 3rd (or is it the 4th??) time, to refresh the memories and see how it stacks up against these other two? In short, yes it's still his best, but despite being similar in several aspects, Weathering With You and Suzume are still just about as good but in their own ways. That discussion is for those movies, but here we're talking about Your Name. And now, without rambling on for too long, I'd like to hopefully quickly share on how I now view the first anime I've ever watched.
Being my first anime, I literally had nothing else to compare it to, but I really liked it at first. Didn't know how good the animation was until I started watching more anime lol. But after that, I came across threads and such saying how the romance was lacklustre. Thinking on it, they seemed to be right. Heck, these two actually barely spent even 5 minutes together in the entire movie! And we're just supposed to expect them to fall in love just like that? No way. I watched a 2nd time sometime around then or after, and confirmed what I had thought. The development to the actual romance could've been better. What is this writing. Also all this time-travelling body-switching stuff is confusing me. Maybe Your Name isn't as great as I first thought it was. Still enjoyable for sure, very pretty visuals, and a great theme: "Sparkle". But idk, maybe this story and its characters could've been a little more fleshed out.
But now after just watching it tonight, I need to pause. Wait a minute, I'm actually really invested in their relationship, and not just for shallow reasons of wanting the boy and girl to get together. Their bond, actually works. And why? Well because they literally BECOME each other on several occasions, how much closer can you get than that? I'm no love expert but I think that's actually a great way to subconsciously grow your feelings for the other person. Plus it makes the scene at golden hour (or was it magic hour or something) that much more impactful, when they finally see each other in their own bodies for the very first time. That was the best moment in the whole movie for most people, and I think it was for me. The other one would undoubtedly be Mitsuha opening up her hand to see the "I love you" written by someone who she wanted to remember but had forgotten. There's reaction vids on that scene everywhere and people freaking lose it. It was just a nice scene for me, but seeing other people bawl their eyes out make me wanna do likewise. Anyway, back to the topic of their romance, well, they kind of work together to well, save Mitsuha herself as well as her whole town. If you don't bond in a life-or-death situation I don't know what will.
Also I always wondered why the meteor seemed to never really be "villan-ized", like made to seem like something dark and evil, about to wipe out a town and the hundreds of lives in it. Instead it's bursting with colours and absolutely beautiful as it streaked across the night sky and split in two. "Sparkle" is playing in the background the whole time and there seems to be like no negative vibes despite a killer asteroid coming to wipe out a portion of humanity. You gotta think: with everything supernatural going on, maybe this meteor was Taki's and Mitsuha's red string of fate. If it never flew past earth, then the town would be fine, Mitsuha would be alive... but would she and Taki ever meet? These two wanted to see each other, but the impending doom of the meteor made them want to SAVE each other, particularly Taki saving Mitsuha, and then Mitsuha carrying on the role and saving the town. Of course this wouldn't have been possible if their body-switching didn't take place, so I'm just gonna assume that this comet flying by distorted space time for these two specific individuals, using their connection to save the people of this town. Supernatural stuff isn't really ever explained in Shinkai's works, you're kind of just supposed to accept that it works how it does. Whatever the case is, seeing Taki realize that his star-crossed lover had died 3 years ago just makes you see how devastated and empty he becomes, and thus goes through great lengths to find and rescue this person from this fate. Even though the meteor is a huge obstacle, it's something that brings Taki and Mitsuha even closer together despite being separated by distance and time.
Let's briefly touch on the ending, like the very end, where they ask each other "WATS UR NAME BRUV". Every time I had watched this, I left feeling empty, thinking: "that's it? no please, give me just a little more..." but not this time. This time, I don't think it could've ended any better way. Just seeing them together, finally, after all this time, is enough. The thought knowing that they had found each other through it all is as rewarding as it gets.
Anyway, I just gotta say as much as I love "Sparkle" and how it will forever stay iconic, I realize I think Weathering With You's centrepiece "Grand Escape" goes much harder. Comparing the two movies themselves, I'd say they are on par, again, good in their own ways despite being kind of similar. But Your Name still gets the slight edge, and I'll be leaving it with a score 0.1 points higher.
7.8/10 |