This is the fifth movie by director Makoto Shinkai and was animated by CoMix Wave Films.
Now going into this movie, I didn't know what to expect. I only saw the first 18 mins in Japanese. I liked it, but was so busy with other anime I just wanted to focus on that and wait for it to be dubbed because I felt the story translated better to an English speaking audience with English voices. So, I was pretty open minded heading into Your Name.
I would like to preface this review that I saw this movie dubbed. I'm glad I did because the English dub songs have to be some of the best I ever heard in an anime. They were top notch and the singer for them put a lot of heart into it. The overall English Dub cast was also excellent. I really felt Sheh and Post did an amazing job in their roles with pulling you into their characters. Sheh really has taken off since she was Usagi in the Sailor Moon Crystal dub. She really took the bulls by the horns and made it her own. I felt Michael Sinterniklaas also did a solid job as Taki. I think the most shocking performance has to be Hitoha played by Glynis Ellis. This was her first role in an anime production and she fucking nailed it. Very good work for a newcomer. Very risky to give a rookie a part in such a big film. Good casting right there by Funimation.
Starting off with the art and animation for this film, it's flat out beautiful. They really nail the realistic areas of Japan and how Japanese people actually look. I felt this was very refreshing, since a lot of anime exaggerates everything. Every character in the movie has very realistic propositions and body types.
Your Name tells the tale of two star cross lovers, Mitsuha and Taki, who one day can suddenly switch bodies with each other. They start to experience and grow from the body swap. As they get to experience what is like being the opposite gender. They both have their friends that play the supporting roles in their respective lives. One of the biggest and most interesting for me would be Miki since she shows an important growth with our main man Taki. I think the biggest side character for Mitsuha would be Hitoha. The others do a good job playing the role of friends and have their little moments. The pacing and storytelling is really top notch and gets a lot of detail and world building out of the way very fast. The writing is nearly airtight with an excellent plot twist near the midway point I didn't see coming but plays out a very realistic scenario. They do a good job flushing out their main leads and giving good define roles to the supporting characters.
On the downside, it is never really explains how they are able to switch bodies and I feel that keeps the movie from being perfect since that was nearly the first half of the movie. I also felt Taki could have used a little more screen time since they spent 18 mins on Mitsuha. I felt he could have gotten the same treatment.
Overall the story is enjoyable from beginning to end and has a very sweet ending that isn't your typical romance ending. They also do a good job using their title of their film.
