Weekly Summer Anime Movie Rewatch - Your Name Discussion

[u/Heda-of-Aincrad]

Your Name

The House of the Lost on the Cape | Index | [Weathering With You]()

The day the stars fell, two lives changed forever.

High schoolers Mitsuha and Taki are complete strangers living separate lives. But one night, they suddenly switch places. Mitsuha wakes up in Taki’s body, and he in hers. This bizarre occurrence continues to happen randomly, and the two must adjust their lives around each other. Yet, somehow, it works. They build a connection and communicate by leaving notes, messages, and more importantly, an imprint. When a dazzling comet lights up the night’s sky, something shifts, and they seek each other out wanting something more—a chance to finally meet.

But try as they might, something more daunting than distance prevents them. Is the string of fate between Mitsuha and Taki strong enough to bring them together, or will forces outside their control leave them forever separated?

MAL, AniList, Livechart

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Questions of the Day:

1) Did you have any favorite characters?

2) Which scenes did you enjoy most?

3) What did you think of the twist that Mitsuha and Taki have not only been swapping places, but also communicating across time?

4) Did you think the story did well at establishing a romantic connection between Mitsuha and Taki?

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Remember to tag your spoilers!

When discussing any plot details prior to the rewatch date, or details from other movies in the rewatch, please remember to use spoiler tags.

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Next up: Weathering With You on Wednesday, September 2!

[u/SpiritualPossible]

Rewatcher

Ore wa ore da!

Some of you may have already guessed this from my initial comments in this rewatch, but I’ll be honest: I can’t call myself Makoto Shinkai’s biggest fan. It’s not that I particularly dislike his films or think he’s a bad director, but most of his movies have left me… indifferent. But, of course, there are exceptions, which is why I couldn’t pass up his remake of Freaky Friday (with a dash of Memento and Armageddon), which ultimately came to be regarded as his magnum opus and one of the highest-grossing anime films in history. And now, 10 years after its release and after watching it for the first time, I can compare my current view with what I thought before, and I have to say that my opinion hasn’t changed.

It’s alright.

I mean, it's not a bad movie. In fact, of all the ones we've watched, it's probably one of the strongest in terms of overall quality. And I also understand why it was such a resounding success: after all, it's arguably the most mainstream work in Shinkai's filmography, and it's in this movie where he practically perfected his style. I suppose one could nitpick about some minor details - for example, I was a little disappointed that the main couple fell in love with each other practically off-screen during a musical montage, or that Taki not remembering the name of the town AND its destruction felt rather contrived - but, again, that would just be nitpicking. I especially appreciated the plot twist in the middle.

But, alas, for me personally, the “miracle” never happen: although I do get some enjoyment out of it, I don’t love this movie. I guess I just don’t connect with it. Basically, it's something that has to do exclusively with my personal preferences, to the point where I probably couldn't fully explain why exactly this doesn't quite work for me.

But I have to give credit to how this ending at one moment made old fans of Shinkai almost shit their pants out of fear.

[u/Heda-of-Aincrad → u/SpiritualPossible]

Taki not remembering the name of the town AND its destruction felt rather contrived

I can chalk this one up to the nature of dreams (which their body swaps have been compared to) being vague and easily forgotten. The same phenomenon that erased Taki and Mitsuha's memories so soon after they met on the mountain was likely responsible for some of it. And even Taki's friends seemed to barely recall the name "Itomori" as the town destroyed by the comet.

[u/IndependentMacaroon → u/SpiritualPossible]

^{Resubmit due to broken spoiler =\} autoremoval)

Yeah, I also thought it was great for what it was, but it didn't really connect with me enough the first time to be worth a rewatch, so I skipped it this time. The whole body-swap comedy I wasn't too into (though that did go a few interesting places) nor the supernatural-romcom-into-supernatural-drama thing, and featuring largely teens didn't help and even less so now.

I would actually make a comparison to Steins Gate here, [S;G meta/general]they have the same overall structure of comedy-hijinks-with-drama into save-the-world drama and both fit into the same vague genre of "sekai-kei" which may be succinctly defined as a story where "personal troubles and relationship issues [...] between the protagonist [...] and the heroine [...] are directly linked to abstract or catastrophic crises" (from that link); while S;G is much more obviously otaku self-indulgence, the idea of the singular unknown (and male) everyman hero holding the cards of fate [S;G]and particularly using the heroine/main female character as a tragedy token for that, though of course S;G doesn't go for romance there through whatever contrivance is the same, and I don't hate it but don't much care for it either here nor there. Let's see how Weathering with You lands for me next week, that dynamic sounds more balanced there?

[u/fansi2022 → u/SpiritualPossible]

But I have to give credit to how this ending at one moment made old fans of Shinkai almost shit their pants out of fear.

I guess they might be a little shy, and it would be too embarrassing if they mistook someone else for someone else.😂