THE AUTHOR-Makoto Shinkai who is regarded as one of the finest director of recent time and with works likes "Hoshi no Koe" "GOW" "5CMPS" under his belt,there is no doubt about the caliber of this man.
His majority of works relies mainly on the visual effect where each frame speak a word for itself,the tension he creates between the characters,the emotion he depicts with that and overall execution which even makes a simplest of the story somewhat extraordinary to watch.
I really find myself fond of those and following Shinkai over the years,I realised that plot-based work is never his strong point and when I heard that "Kimi no Na Wa" is a full-length film,I didn't felt much confident about it but the internet made me crazy overnight,reading the reviews of numerous self-made critics and the comments over social networking site,it feed my desire more and more to watch the film and at one point I was like even if I stumble upon a black and white 60P print,I would take it without any hesitation but fortunately I got better than that and I was prepared to ride on the feel train but my experience were utterly different from what I imagine to be.
STORY- First of all the plot isn't original, to begin with,I could relate a lot of work that gives close resemblance.
Let's start with "Ditto" a Korean film where two people living twenty-one years apart in time able to contact each other through radio or "Lake House" an American film with the same concept but the time difference is two years and mean of communication is through letters.
Bringing another work to notice, 'It's a Boy Girl Thing" Where two individuals swapped bodies, adapted to their surroundings, and over time fall in love.
How does it sound?
Finally mixed it up with Japanese settings and some unexplainable science fiction stuff, here comes the idea of the masterminded plot for "Kimi no na wa"
GOING IN-DEPTH-
Anyway, the introductory couple of minutes will give you the vibe of "5CMPS" two distinctive individuals who're always searching something meaningful in their life which they have lost but can't recall, they don't know what trigger the feelings but it initiated since the faithful day when the star passed by.
[A good impression]
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Then it went back to flashback,Mitsuha (the main female lead) a countryside girl and Taki (the main male lead) a boy living in modern Tokyo two completely strangers to each other, started swapping body in dreams and despite the fact that they were from totally different places,they started adapting to the surroundings over time and even made some rule so that it won't hurt their daily life.
It was really intriguing to watch how Mitsuha in Taki's body made a girl fall for him,the breast groping scenes,the cameo of Yukino from 'GOW",learning about fascinating culture ,I could say that this was probably the only entertaining part of the whole story but there are a lot of things that can't be outlook.
[First of all;nobody knows what caused them to swap even seem like the author didn't and secondly,it's surprising that they didn't try to contact each other for real,they didn't notice the date nor tried to talk about it clearly,probably for the sake of the plot to take an interesting turn]
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After spending quality times in each other bodies , finally they stopped swapping and now Taki wants to call him for real but not able to reach her over cell phone,he decided to visit her for real on the rough presumption sketch he made from his memories only to find out later than the place is destroyed by a meteor three years back and she died.
He realized that the Mitsuha he swapped bodies with was three years in the past ,even she came to see him once but he didn't recognize her because of the timeline difference and that's the time she gave him the "braided cord".
Now he went to underground (the place where the body of the shrine god was supposed to be) here comes one of the stupidest illogical plot twist ever with no explanation at all,he drank the kuchikami sake (The sake that Mitsuha made three years by chewing ,spitting and fermenting the rice )
and magically it took him to the past by mean of body swapping to alter it,he was able to experience Mitsuha's past as well,For the success of the story you need to have a sad past of a character and here's no different with it,a two minutes recap of her life with gorgeous animation.
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Now when Taki is back to the past in her body,how would he react is such despair moment?how would he save countless people from the verge of dying?
*GROPE THE BREAST AND FEEL IT*
*USE THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP TO CONVINCE YOUR ONE FRIEND TO BLOW THE POWER PLANT AND ANOTHER TO FAKE REPORT OVER MIC TO EVACUATE PEOPLE*
Sounds so realistic,right?
Next what'll about to happen will sound more realistic than ever,Mitsuha back in senses in Taki's body was extremely surprised but then Taki in Mitusha's body went there after making all the preparation and despite the timeline difference an unexplainable phenomenon happen,they were finally able to see each other and what's the first thing she said to him?
"You pervert you drink that,your grope my breast several times"
Such conversation makes me go WOW.
Now, in short, they were able to share a just little moment until disappearing to their respective timeline and somehow this cause them forget about the memories they had.
Before that,taki wrote that he love her in her hand instead of writing his name because that is "SWAG"
Back to his timeline and having another chance,she miracle able to convince the villagers and her dad to evacuate,again we didn't know how she did it.
It's like you know the outcome of the equation but not the steps,anyway they were saved and Five years have passed since then for taki and eight years for Mitsuha,now both of them live in Tokyo,they passed each other on several occasion but never been a moment where they recognize each other until the train sequence,wasn't that predictable from beginning?
It's unlikely from Shinkai to give an ending like this but for a change,he did it and another reason that made this work mainstream.
*ALRIGHT*
SUMMING UP ALL THE POINTS-
(*) Promising start,entertaining to watch but nothing explain why they were swapping,they didn't even check the dates nor contacted each other for real,you didn't even care to look for the place where the girl is in neither the girl care to look for the boy.
Plot convenience.
(*)A strange girl gave you braided cord in train and you don't even know her,why care to keep it for three years?Plot convenience.
(*)The relationship between the main characters were so vague,I know this is Shinkai's usual style but for a change I thought he'll give us something more but it turn out another cliche romance,I wonder if the use of word "romance" is right or not.
Neither of them knows each other for real,just share the empty shell and experience each other lifestyle,suddenly feeling started to burst out from where?
WOW.
(*)The way he time travel back to save her,the way he convinced the friends in her bodies,the final execution to evacuate the village all feel so foolish and out of the line.
(*)confusion of different timeline-
It's the most complicated part,Mitsuha's timeline was parallel to Taki's timeline of three years ago,she eventually died over there.
But the taki that had the body swapping and all the interaction with her is the one in the future three years ahead,so when he realized that he fall in despair and tried one last time to change the past and he succeeds in the most unrealistic way ever,anyway the thing is that what happen to two different timelines,did they merge or separated?we never got an explanation of that,it's like thing happens so let move on and observe the emotion not the logic behind it.
If we bring the first couple of minutes in the film,we get a clear image what trigger the emptiness inside them,the feeling of missing something important in their life,it was since the day meteor pass by.
-Taki in the current timeline never had the feeling before he interacted with her and even he had no knowledge of the meteor and stuff,he wakes up with vague memories in the mountain after the effort to save her whereas taki's of the different timeline was shown to have all the knowledge of the incident and even had the empty feeling ever since that day.
For mitsuha,she might have more reference to what happen as in the ending,when taki asked her "if they ever met",the way mitsuha reacted to give a good idea of that.
The emotions aspect can never overshadow such part.
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CHARACTERS - There's an interesting perspective on representing the characters,on one hand, there is depiction of rural lifestyle where life moves more slowly and people are bound together by strong relation and the fact that Mitsuha is a countryside girl, she's bound by familial responsibility and inclined to hold on to stability with everything she has but sometimes,she wants to go out of boundary and explore outside world, on the other hand,Taki is from urban area and people over here lives in exactly opposite fashion,taki has been presented as a normal high school guy who's living a regular like,just like you,me or anyone else.
Their friends, families and surroundings are totally dissimilar and Shinkai have done quite well creating a barrier and exposing us to two different atmospheres but I felt like there was a lack of character development.
MUSIC -It won't be wrong to call it as a partial musical film.
We can't deny the fact that each OST is done brilliantly and goes with the flow perfectly, never heard of the band "RADWIMPS" before, but they did some extraordinary job with the music and surely deserve all the praise.
Sometimes it felt like each song was made for each sequence.
ANIMATION-I didn't have the opportunity to experience the visual effects to the fullest extent nor more than 85% voters over here but from what I experience, I can pretty much say that this surpasses even "GOW" and you've to give credit to "CoMix Wave Films",they have been loyal to Shinkai since the beginning of his career and with each project such improvement, unbelievable and the only one they compete with is themselves, there have lots of scenes which have even executed so beautifully that you can find deeper meanings within it.
ENJOYMENT- I got a mixed feeling about this,I thought it'll make me laugh,cry and would be a whole different experience for me,I did enjoy in the in the first half but as soon it progresses,It felt like the plot was trying too hard and with all those illogical stuff going on.
OVERALL -The story wasn't anything special, we can say pretty much mediocre, there were many moments that felt unrealistic and even lots
questions were left unanswered, despite that it has been well-executed
along with the music and animation, which somewhat make it enjoyable to watch but it's no near "Perfect" and just above average.
