Monday Anime: Your Name

I’ve been putting off reviewing this for a long time, because I didn’t want to seem like I was going all Makoto Shinkai fanboy, which I totally have. I mean, I’m absolutely in love with the guys movies, but being the serious professional blogger type person that I am, I really don’t want to appear like I am totally in love with the guys movies.

There’s appearances to keep up, and what not.

Eh, fuck appearances. I love this guys work. He just astounds me with his ability to weave an emotionally complex narrative, where the characters are complex, rich, and engaging. I wish I was half as good at telling a story as he is.

Total fanboy. I confess.

Oh, no. He’s going full fanboy!

Still, I do have an obligation to my one or two adoring fans to be honest, and tell them this movie is great, which it is. I wouldn’t want to be seen as the kind of person who kept great things from people, just to avoid looking like a fanboy, which I totally am. Appearances, and stuff, once more, compel me.

It’s difficult being beloved.

Okay, I actually have no integrity at all, and just didn’t have a chance last week to watch a series, then Season Two of Jessica Jones dropped, and well, I’m sure you can see how things were just too crowded for me to do anything but post this review that I’ve had half written for about two months.

In addition to a lack of integrity, and staggering hubris, I’m also lazy. Just so lazy.

Roll out of bed, write a review, go back to bed.

Your Name is a 2016 feature film that you have already heard of, and probably read about a million reviews on, since it was about the biggest thing to hit the anime scene since Attack On Titan crushed our souls by killing more characters than Game of Thrones, and leaving George R. R. Martin feeling like he’d wimped out with the Red Wedding.

Yes, I’m a horrible person for bringing that back into your mind. I know. It’s okay. Just think of Joffrey’s death, feel that warm glow in your heart, and all will be well.

Your Name revolves around Mitsuha, a young shrine maiden living in a small town in a very rural area, and Taki, a high school student living in Tokyo. At first appearing to be just a bit of a character study, the story takes a quick turn into the weird as the two realize that on occasion, a couple times a week, they swap bodies.

It always happens when they are asleep, and they have a hard time remembering much about it all when they wake up the next day, but a very regular basis, the two wake up, and spend an entire day, living each others lives. Naturally, it gets weird.

Mitsuha hates the country life, and wants nothing more than to go to Tokyo, where the bright lights and bustle of the big city are sure to cure her boredom, and growing aggravation with the little community she has known all her life. Taki, on the other hand, is lost in his own ennui, the bright lights and bustle of the big city having drained pretty much his entire sense of passion or drive.

He learns how to be a bit of a bitch, too. Which is weird.

As the two deal with the body swapping, leaving notes to each other on their cell phones about the events of the day, so they don’t create more confusion with their friends and family, they begin getting to know each other in a way very few people ever do. They see themselves better, and the world around them, in new ways, and start feeling a sense of appreciation for all they have, and all they could be.

Now, if this was all there was to the movie, it probably wouldn’t be so fascinating. There’s much more to it, though. The obvious move of just meeting each other does come up, and Mitsuha even does go to Tokyo to meet Taki, only to discover he has no idea who she is.

At a loss, Mitsuha cuts her hair, and goes to the town’s festival, just in time to see a passing comet, which the movie has mentioned a bunch of times, split apart under Earth’s gravitational pull, dragging a massive chunk down onto her home town.

From Taki’s perspective, Mitsuha and he simply stop switching bodies, and he can’t reach her on the phone number she gave. This isn’t odd, as he’s never been able to. As time passes, however, and he continues not swapping with her, he grows concerned, and sets out to locate her town, and her.

The big reveal comes when, after an exhausting search, Taki finds Mitsuha’s home town, or what is left of it. Three years ago, it was destroyed by the comet impact, and almost no one survived. He finds Mitsuha’s name in a listing of the dead, and realizes that they weren’t just swapping bodies, they were swapping through time.

Mitsuha has been dead for years.

So, wait. is this necrophilia?

Determined to try and save her, and everyone else he met living her life, Taki manages to swap back with her once more, on the day the comet is to impact, and the two team up to save as many townspeople as possible, leading to one of the most emotionally satisfying moments I’ve ever had in a movie.

Shinkai does a lot right with this movie, despite his own claims he thinks it could have been better. While I would have loved to have seen that movie, I think the guy sells himself really short with what he did make. Your Name is an amazing emotional journey, and really sets itself apart from his previous work by being hopeful.

A lot of his past work has dealt with despair, loss, grief, and isolation. All handled with amazing skill, mind you, and incredible stories, but when the cat decides to get hopeful and shoot for a happy ending, he really just excels far beyond what I thought he was capable of.

I mean, just look at the detail.

One of the things that makes the movie work so well is the exploration of rural verses urban life. I’ve lived both, and I can tell you, the movie really does give the benefits and drawbacks of both a fair examination. Living in a small rural community means you don’t have access to a lot of stuff, but you are surrounded by people who know you, and care about you. Urban life grants you a lot more opportunities, but isolates you.

A joke early in the movie is that Mitsuha’s home town has two bars. This is cute, but I live in a small rural community with five. For real. There’s five different bars within a ten minute drive of my home. So, yeah. That’s spot on. Despite the abundance of bars, there’s no much else, either. No movie theaters, or bookstores, or anything else to do, if you want an activity besides getting drunk.

On the flip side, Taki’s life in Tokyo involves everything costing an arm and a leg. Just going out with friends to a cafe is an absurdly expensive endeavor. It also breeds a certain level of apathy, and arrogance, as a brief scene shows when Taki’s friends are absently commenting on the woodwork of the cafe they are in. As if that even remotely matters to the quality of the food.

Seriously. I get ambiance and all, but I’ve eaten in dives that made better meals than the best looking restaurants I’ve ever been in. Little hole in the wall diners who have put out the best tasting stuff I’ve ever eaten, despite the worn out carpet, peeling paint, cheap tables, and mismatched chairs.

Sometimes mismatched is a miracle, ya know.

Appearances aren’t everything, and this is delivered in a subtle way with in the movie. Sure, the cafe may be fancy, but it’s also absurdly expensive, and I doubt the food was any better than what Mitsuha ate at home.

Sorry, that was random, but having living in both rural and urban areas, it was a detail that jumped out at me, and impressed me, with how deftly and subtly it was woven into the story.

It was a neat way of saying, it doesn’t matter where you are, happiness, and satisfaction, can be right in front of you. People often seek to change their location to improve their lives. The old concept of the grass being greener. While it is true that more urban areas often better opportunities, that doesn’t inherently make them better places. No more than the lack of opportunities in a rural area mean there is nothing there of worth, and value.

Anyway, that aside, let’s look at the characters.

They look fucked up to me.

Mitsuha is who we spend most of our time with through the first half of the film, and we get a real good sense of why she’s so frustrated. She and her sister, Yotsuha, live with their grandmother, who is the head of the shrine. After their mother passed away, their dad kind of flipped out, abandoned the priesthood, and became mayor of their town. He is, obviously, corrupt. Or at least, as corrupt as any small town politician can be. He’s in bed with the local construction company, and in general, is kind of a dickhead.

The thing is, Mitsuha is best friends with Tessie, who’s dad runs the construction company, so it creates an appearance that gives her lots of grief with her fellow students. She only really has one other close friend, Sayaka, and the three of them often long for something to do, besides the nothing they generally do. Mostly, however, Mitsuha wants a life other than being the estranged daughter of the mayor, a shrine maiden, and the target of animosity from her fellow students, who assume she is as corrupt as her dad.

Leaping into Taki’s body gives her a taste of that other life, and in turns out, it’s also got it’s complications. While the big city may have lots to do, it’s easy to get lost, and Taki’s part time job as a waiter at an Italian restaurant is a ton of hard work. Like Mitsuha, Taki’s mom is out of the picture, and his dad is so involved with work, he’s barely present, leaving Taki to more or less manage his own life with no real adult influence.

He got out of bed, AND dressed himself. Wow.

This seems freeing at first, but Taki is actually incredibly lonely. While he has a lot of artistic skill, and is thinking of becoming an architect, for the most part, he’s just going through the motions, and is in the grip of a powerful apathy. Everything just seems so pointless, and he’s drifting through life, spending time with his two friends, Tsukasa and Shinta, and sort of pining for a girl he works with, Miki Okudera.

Okudera is more attracted to him when it’s Mitsuha in charge, though, and it’s only when he’s leaped into Mitsuha that Taki really begins to find what is missing from his life. His interactions with Yotsuha, and Grandma, Tessie and Sayaka, and the whole vibe of small town life, reminds him of what it is to be loved, supported, passionate, and driven. The animosity of Mitsuha’s classmates, even, is a welcome change from his nigh anonymity at his own high school, which is so large that almost nobody stands a chance of being noticed.

In each other’s lives, they discover more appreciation for their own, and things about themselves they had forgotten how to cherish.

Like, my boobs?

As much as it is a fairly complex exploration of life, and society, Your Name is also a look at love. Obviously, Mitsuha and Taki fall for each other, but with the big reveal, it looks as if they will never meet, and even when they change the past, they forget each other. However, this is where the movie really hits the high mark for emotional storytelling, as both feel the absence of the other, and are slowly drawn together again. Unable to recall the past they shared, they simply feel a connection, as if they are part of each other.

Which is what love feels like. It’s like finding that missing piece of yourself. It’s that feeling of connection, with someone you sense, somehow, should have always been there.

In terms of animation, CoMix Wave really outdid themselves. This movie is amazing to look at. The character designs are inspired, the backgrounds are lush, and the overall quality to the animation is just plain gorgeous. I could rave for a while about the animation quality. It really is incredible, especially during Taki’s re-connection with Mitsuha, all done is this stunning watercolor style. It’s just incredible, and one of my favorite parts of the film.

Honestly, words alone can’t do justice to how beautiful this movie is. It is, hands down, one of the most richly animated films I’ve ever seen. Everything is so incredibly realized. Even the lighting is profoundly done. All of it, is just so damn stunning.

Obviously, the movie was written and directed by Makoto Shinkai. Dude has a real knack for emotional storytelling, and while some may knock him for not being as good at logical storytelling, who the hell cares?

Fuck you, logic!

I mean, really. The core of a good narrative is always in how it engages you on an emotional level. If that’s there, the logic is a bit less important. Yes, it matters, and any story needs to make sense from a logical perspective, but we aren’t freaking Vulcan’s, guys. We’re human. We invest, emotionally, not logically. Emotions aren’t logical.

Shinkai is good at building a story that makes enough sense logically that we don’t need to worry about the tiny details, like the amount of time it would actually take a comet fragment to enter the Earth’s atmosphere and impact. That isn’t as important, because it builds to a strong emotional point, and besides, movies are good at dramatic license with timing.

I guess what I’m trying to say here is that Shinkai is smart in how he builds a narrative. He brings enough logic to the story that we can accept it, while investing emotionally into the characters, and experiencing the whole thing the way it’s meant to be. That’s good storytelling, and smart writing.

There’s a reason I’m a fanboy, ya know.

Stuff like this, partly.

 

The music is from multi-award winning rock band Radwimps, and is, as near as I can tell, their first anime OST. Which they nailed. The background music is spot on, subtle, but strong, and builds each scene in all the right ways. The insert songs are gorgeous, ranging from fun and kind of funny, and sweet, to heartbreaking. It’s an incredibly strong OST, that knows just what it needs to be, and there’s a reason Radwimps has won so many awards over the fifteen years they’ve been around.

Like Shinkai, they really just know how to do what they do.

Overall, this is a movie about life, love, and finding not whee you belong, but with whom you belong. We are all missing a piece of ourselves, and we find that in the people we love, be they friends, family, or lovers. We complete ourselves in others, and that is what really ties us together, and makes us whole.

Shinkai built a strong narrative around emotion, and that emotion is what drives this entire film. It’s not about logic, or about what makes scientific sense. It’s about the heart, and what we feel. It’s about love, hope, and being the best possible version of yourself, in the eyes of those you love, and love you.

Is there anything more important than that? If there is, I’ve never found it.

Best of all, this is a move you can watch over and over, at it never loses the impact. I’ve seen this movie a good dozen times, maybe more. After Serenity, I think I’ve watched this movie more than I have any other, ever. Each time, it fills my heart, and brings me to tears. Considering how jaded, and broken, my heart is, that’s really special. More than special, really.

That’s magic, kids. That’s all that can be. Magic.

And gorgeous animation.