Story:
I didn't find this story to be particularly original, and at times, it felt a little out there (yes, even for an anime plot). The concept of a budding romance through the using body swapping has been done to death, though its usage beyond just experiencing slice of life moments was new and kind of fresh. That being said, the actual crisis of the film (a falling fragment of the comet which would eradicate a small town) felt a little grandiose compared to the overall tone of the rest of the movie.
The use of the pseudo-time travel plot element was both good and bad in my opinion. While I was watching, the fact that Taki was investigating an event that had happened three years ago, definitely added to the mystery and "what the heck" aspects of the story, but Shinkai literally made zero attempts to actually expand upon the reasoning and mechanics for why this happened. There was even a moment when Mizuha's grandmother basically commented, "Oh you get those body swapping dreams too? Your mother and I got those too. It's some weird s**t" and that was the end of the conversation besides the brief mention of the Musubi threads earlier in the film. I also feel like the "Your name is?" line felt really forced, and almost seemed like a bad pun, and it just seemed like Shinkai wanted this to become a recurring line at all costs, due to the fact that the memory loss was also never really explained. Another gripe I had was about how the movie cut when Mizuha went to confront her father, who was a total dick the whole movie, and then is apparently convinced off screen, and then everyone somehow miraculously escaped unscathed despite the fact that the comet fragments were already plummeting towards them at ridiculous speeds (I seriously think that they underplayed how long it probably takes to evacuate even just a section of a small town).
In comparison to the other two Shinkai movies I've watched (5 Centimeters Per Second and Garden of Words), the overall scale this movie attempted to tackle was larger, and I appreciate Shinkai's efforts to develop as a director and expand his repertoire, but I felt that he was both trying to have an epic story while simultaneously trying to have a slice of life film, and it felt like I watched two movies. And in many ways, that's what this film was: it was about two characters' stories which aligned tangentially through a twist of fate. But still, I felt like they could have been tied together much, much better.
Art:
I don't have much to say on this section. It was a Shinkai film. I expected stunning visuals, and I got stunning visuals, just as much or maybe even more so than any of his previous movies. Shinkai always delivers some of the most visually pleasing anime I've seen, and I'd give the visuals for this movie 11/10 if there was that metric on this site.
Sound:
The soundtrack and background music were okay in my book. The voice acting was good, though I thought it wasn't particularly outstanding. There weren't any tracks that I found particularly memorable (I generally have not in most Shinkai films, which is one of the reasons why I personally think that Shinkai is still behind Miyazaki, because he doesn't have a Joe Hisaishi). If anything, I was a little annoyed at times with the usage of the theme song at some points, because I felt like it was way overused and broke up the flow of the movie at times (though it was never terrible). It just felt like Shinkai was right up in my face about what moments were supposed to be dramatic and shoving the theme song (that I also am not a big fan of) down my throat, trying to tell me how to feel about a moment.
Characters:
To be honest, I never really felt super interested in any of the characters. For what seems like a movie where the relationships of the main characters is a huge draw, they all seemed rather bland. The relationship between Taki and Mizuha felt a little forced, like they were barely starting to see each other as friends, and then suddenly it jumped to I will love you forever (plus the added pseudo-time travel elements made their relationship overly complicated). Though I felt some flashes of chemistry between Taki and Mizuha, I just felt like this time the overall chemistry between the characters was weak, which I feel is strange for Shinkai, since Shinkai's characters have made me feel terrible before they have relationship issues. Similarly, I felt like none of the supporting cast were all that interesting either: Mizuha's two friends (whose names I cannot remember) basically just seemed like plot devices in some ways to me (with the boy being the son of the construction head and the girl being in the broadcasting club), and Taki's senpai and friend basically just tagging along to eat food and ask questions to move the plot and romance along.
Part of the reason I think this is the case is because of how the story is constructed. Because Shinkai had to devote so much time to splitting the story and setting in half, it felt like we only saw snapshots of the characters, and Taki and Mizuha never really got to interact on a truly meaningful level, or in a way which helped develop their characters significantly since they basically communicated with each other via post-it notes (which can be effective, but I didn't think was done well in this case) and groping each other's privates.
Overall:
Story: 5/10
Art: 10+/10
Sound: 5/10
Character: 6/10
Enjoyment: 7.5/10
Overall: 7/10
Though I might have criticized a number of things, I did enjoy watching Kimi no Na Wa a lot, and part of that was because of how different it felt compared to Shinkai's previous films and how I couldn't predict how the plot would progress. That being said, I would definitely say that Kimi no Na Wa is not what I consider to be Shinkai's strongest work of those that I've seen (I would probably still choose 5 Centimeters per Second for that). I definitely liked a lot of things that this film tried to do, but at the same time did not really like the execution of many parts.
I felt like in this movie I saw that Shinkai was trying to take steps to diversify himself as a director, and that I saw the potential, but that in other cases it just didn't quite reach its goal, and that he didn't take advantage of what made his other movies so successful.
