Jul 23, 2020
***THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS***
Now, to start off:
At first, this film may not seem all too interesting and it may appear to be just a standard “romance” animation between two characters - I was starting to think that at first, but I don’t mind things like that anyway. However, this film is definitely worth putting in the effort to watch all of it; this is because it transforms into one hell of a film. Personally, I find the thought of swapping bodies with each other both amusing and also quite interesting as well as the silly antics that the two protagonists get up to as soon
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as they realise that they have swapped bodies; I loved how they interacted with their family and friends and I found it sweet how traditional Mitsuha and her family were.
However, this where the film takes a dark turn which I was so shocked to see but I also loved it at the same time; this is where the film begins to get really good but also really sad at the same time. As I mentioned, the first premise of the film highlights how the two protagonists react when they find out that they occasionally swap bodies whenever they wake up in the morning and then they start to tease each other as well as laugh and have fun; but this is the last bit of their happiness.
When Taki goes to try and visit her for the first time, he finds out the place she lived was no longer - many people thought that was delusional for this, but the “place” that she “lived” was just a massive crater due to the fact that a meteor had hit it three years earlier killing upwards of 500+ inhabitants (almost a third at the time).
This is evidently quite a shock to Taki because he always thought that they were just interacting with each other in real time, but no, he was swapping bodies with a girl who lived 3 years ago. Ergo, Taki then tries his best to try and save her - he tries to do this by by managing to swap bodies with her one last time in an attempt to warn the inhabitants that the meteor is going to split in two and that extra bit that fell off will devastate their local districts. In attempt to do this, he also visits the shrine in which Mitsuha and her sister lay “a part of themselves” for them to come back to this realm after they were gone. Well, this worked because they managed to see each other via the use of “twilight” (also known as “golden hour”); however, as they get closer to saving each other, they begin to forget each other’s names - they know that they must save someone special to them, but they just cannot remember their names (hence the name of the film, “Your Name”). Mitsuha could have gotten their districts saved a while sooner, but her dad refused to listen to her (who is the mayor of their town/village). After failed attempts at getting people to leave, we finally see the meteor crashing down into the village and destroying everything in its path - sad music plays at the time, I honestly thought they had failed (I believe that’s what the producers were wanting us to think).
Honestly, my review does NOT do this film enough justice; no wonder it is the highest grossing animated film in Japan (Japanese anime film, that is) to date. This film’s story is both comical yet absolutely heart-wrenching and it certainly had me in tears at the end of it because I didn’t think they would.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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