I’ve seen nothing here yet about the Japanese anime Kimi No Na Wa 君の名は。(English title: ‘Your Name’). It seems to be worth discussing.
I watched it a couple of days ago. In fact, when I got to the end I went straight back to the beginning and started watching it right through again. It’s that kind of movie. It’s been a long time since I’ve found any movie so gripping, in any genre.
Last year it was the top movie at the Japanese box office for 12 weeks. The director is Makoto Shinkai, who is being called the next Miyazaki, though his style is very different. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie is rated 98% by critics, 94% by audiences.
It starts out with a teenage boy and girl who begin to wake up in each other’s bodies every few days. At first they think it’s a dream, then it seems that it’s real, and they start leaving messages for each other. You may imagine from this that it’s a light teen comedy, like Freaky Friday or something, and that you can predict where it’s going. But you can’t. The first 45 min is fairly light, but then there is a major unexpected plot twist… and it really starts to get interesting.
It’s an intelligent movie, with an intricate plot. You have to pay careful attention to the details and think about what’s happening and how it all fits together. It takes at least a couple of viewings to pick up the subtler details. It’s also emotionally exceptionally powerful, and the visuals are stunning, even better than Studio Ghibli quality.
“Once in a while when I wake up, I find myself crying. I can never remember the dream I must have had, but the feeling that I’ve lost something lingers for a long time after I wake up.”
Trailer:
The Japanese soundtrack with subtitles is far better than the English dubbed version.
If we are talking about recent great anime movies, I’d say Koe no Katachi is also worth mentioning. I did love Kimi No Na Wa as well and of the two it was easier to watch - I have trouble watching tense social situations and Koe no Katachi had a lot of those. It was refreshing if a bit painful to see school kids being brutally mean in an anime, most of them have a lot lighter tone.
Finally saw the movie and thank you for the recommendation. I was genuinely surprised. The opening 45 minutes or so really did feel like standard stuff, but I did not guess the twists and thoroughly enjoyed the last hour or so.
Highly recommended.
Has anyone seen this director’s other movies? I’m curious about him now.
I have seen* 5 Centimeters Per Second* and The Place Promised in Our Early Days, but can’t remember enough about their plots to say much about them. I remember that I neither liked them enough to gush over them or disliked them enough to complain over them. (I wasn’t even going to bother posting this lukewarm comment, but nobody else seems to have anything more useful to say about them…)
Bothmovies are really beautifully draw, though, and may be worth watching just to experience that, especially in HD on a big screen.
I’ve also seen a few of his shorts, including Hoshi no Koe/Voices of a Distant Star. Hoshi no Koe is impressive in that it is a 25 minute short that was written, drawn, and voiced by Shinkai. (There are two Japanese language tracks available, the original with Shinkai and his girlfriend, and one with two professional voice actors.)
(As for Your Name, while I liked most of the movie, I felt that it unraveled a bit towards the end and didn’t quite “stick the landing.”)
