your name

 

Your Name (Japanese: 君の名は。, Hepburn: Kimi no Na wa), sometimes stylized as Your Name., is a 2016

 Japanese animated romantic fantasy film written and directed by Makoto Shinkai, produced by CoMix Wave Films and distributed by Toho. It depicts the story of high school students Taki Tachibana and Mitsuha Miyamizu, who suddenly begin to swap bodies despite having never met, unleashing chaos on each other's lives. The film was inspired by the frequency of natural disasters in Japan.

Your Name premiered at the 2016 Anime Expo in Los Angeles on July 3, 2016, and was theatrically released in Japan on August 26, 2016; it was released internationally by several distributors in 2017. It features the voices of Ryunosuke Kamiki and Mone Kamishiraishi, with animation direction by Masashi Ando, character design by Masayoshi Tanaka, and its orchestral score and soundtrack composed by Radwimps. A light novel of the same name, also written by Shinkai, was published a month prior to the film's premiere.

The film received widespread critical acclaim, with praise for its story, animation, music, visuals, and emotional weight. Grossing over US$382 million worldwide, it became the third highest-grossing Japanese film of all time, breaking numerous box office records, unadjusted for inflation. It received several accolades, including the Best Animated Feature at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, the 49th Sitges Film Festival, and the 71st Mainichi Film Awards; it was also nominated for the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year. A live-action remake is in development at Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot Productions.

Plot[edit]

Mitsuha Miyamizu is a high school student in the rural town of Itomori, Japan. Bored of the town, she wishes to be a Tokyo boy in her next life. Soon, she begins to intermittently switch bodies with Taki Tachibana, a boy from Tokyo. On certain days, Taki and Mitsuha wake up in each other's bodies and must live the entire day as the other, reverting when they go to sleep at night. The two set up ground rules for sharing their bodies, communicating via messages on paper, their phones, and their skin. Mitsuha (in Taki's body) sets Taki up on a date with his coworker, Miki Okudera, while Taki (in Mitsuha's body) helps Mitsuha become more popular at school. While in Mitsuha's body, Taki accompanies Mitsuha's grandmother Hitoha and younger sister Yotsuha to the Shinto shrine on a mountain near Itomori, leaving an offering of kuchikamizake made with Mitsuha's spit. Hitoha explains that god is the ruler over both time and the connections between humans. Mitsuha tells Taki that the comet Tiamat is expected to pass nearest to Earth on the day of the autumn festival. The next day, Taki goes on the date with Miki in his own body; Miki enjoys the date but says she can tell Taki is preoccupied with someone else. Realizing he is falling for Mitsuha, Taki attempts to call her on the phone but cannot reach her. The body-switching stops as inexplicably as it started.

Taki, Miki, and their friend Tsukasa travel to Hida to search for Mitsuha. Taki does not know the name of Mitsuha's village, so he sketches the landscape from memory; a restaurant owner in Takayama recognizes the town as Itomori and offers to take Taki and his friends. When they arrive, they find the town almost entirely decimated by fragments that fell from Tiamat. Since the comet passed three years earlier, Taki realizes that he and Mitsuha were separated by three years, her living in 2013 and he in 2016. He finds Mitsuha's name among the 500 people killed by the comet's impact. Taki begins to lose his memories of Mitsuha, seeing her messages disappear from his phone. In a panic, he races to the shrine and drinks the kuchikamizake. He has a vision and recalls that Mitsuha once came to Tokyo to find him; though he did not recognize her, she gave him a ribbon he has worn ever since. Taki awakens in Mitsuha's body on the morning of the festival, where Hitoha speaks directly to him, explaining that the body-switching phenomenon has always been in their family. Realizing he has a chance to save Mitsuha and the entire town, Taki convinces Mitsuha's friends to help him broadcast an emergency signal, evacuating Itomori before the meteor fragments strike. He then heads to the shrine, where Mitsuha has just woken up in Taki's body. As twilight falls;^{[note 1]} their timelines cross, allowing them to meet in person for the first time. Taki returns Mitsuha's ribbon, and they attempt to write their names on each other's palms, but twilight ends before Mitsuha can write hers.

She returns to the village to see that the evacuation plan failed but convinces her father, the mayor, to order an evacuation. Beginning to forget Taki, she discovers that he wrote "I love you" on her hand instead of his name. Taki awakens in his own time with no memory. Five years later, Taki is a university graduate struggling to find a job. He is obsessed with the impact of Tiamat, when the villagers of Itomori were miraculously saved by a fortuitous evacuation drill, but cannot remember why. One day, he glimpses Mitsuha, who has moved to Tokyo; they race to find each other. As they pass the stairs of a shrine, Taki calls out to Mitsuha, and the two simultaneously ask each other for their name.

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Characters[edit]

Taki Tachibana (立花 瀧, Tachibana Taki)

Voiced by: Ryunosuke Kamiki^[6] (Japanese); Michael Sinterniklaas (English)^[7][8]

A high school boy in Tokyo. He is a 17-year-old student in his second year at Tokyo Metropolitan High School. He is a talented sketch artist and has aspirations to be an architect. He is short-tempered but well-meaning and kind. He spends time with Miki Okudera, working in a part-time job as a waiter at the Italian restaurant "Il Giardino delle Parole".^[b] A running gag in the film is that whenever Taki wakes up and realizes he has swapped bodies with Mitsuha that day, he immediately begins to fondle "his" breasts in amazement, only stopping once Mitsuha's sister, Yotsuha, sees her. Mitsuha calls him out for the habit when they meet in person for the first time during twilight. Taki later appeared in Shinkai's next film Weathering with You.

He lives with his father, who works at Kasumigaseki; Shinkai states, "I think his mother divorced his father a few years ago."^[9]

Mitsuha Miyamizu (宮水 三葉, Miyamizu Mitsuha)

Voiced by: Mone Kamishiraishi^[6] (Japanese); Stephanie Sheh^[8] (English)

A high school girl dissatisfied with her life in Itomori, a mountainous and rural town of Gifu Prefecture, who was born on December 1, 1996. She is a 17-year-old student in her second year at Itomori High School, but in reality is three years older than Taki. Mitsuha is usually seen with her hair tied up with a dark red braided ribbon that she made by hand herself. She and her sister are maidens of the family shrine. After her mother died, her father abandoned the shrine to pursue politics. She lives with her maternal grandmother, Hitoha, and her younger sister, Yotsuha, who is in elementary school. Mitsuha wishes to have a better life in Tokyo than having unavoidable encounters in the small town with her estranged father, the mayor, as well as her role as a shrine maiden (miko) in rituals for her mother's family shrine including making kuchikamizake, an ancient traditional way of making sake by chewing rice and spitting it back out to be fermented - all of which attracts mockery and disdain from her classmates. When switching bodies with Taki, Mitsuha forbids him from looking at or touching her body. Mitsuha later appeared in Shinkai's next film Weathering with You.

Her birthday contradicts with the film's setting that she is 17 years old in the summer of her second year in high school, because as Shinkai says, "In their mind, they both kind of assumed that they were both born on December 1."^[9]

Katsuhiko "Tessie" Teshigawara (勅使河原 克彦, Teshigawara Katsuhiko)

Voiced by: Ryo Narita^[7] (Japanese); Kyle Hebert^[8] (English)

One of Mitsuha's classmates; as of 2013, he is 17 years old^[c] and has a crush on Mitsuha. His nickname is "Tessie" ("Tesshi" in the dub). He is the son of the president of a local construction company, Teshigawara Construction. He is a lover of the monthly occult magazine MU (ja) and a mechanical geek. He has a 50-50 love/hate relationship with his hometown,^[d] Itomori, and from his own perspective, he initiates concrete measures to improve the town's situation,^[e] which earns him the sympathy of Taki (physically, Mitsuha).

In the epilogue, he talks about his upcoming marriage to Sayaka.

Teshigawara is named after Shoko Aizawa's middle school friend, Teshigawara, who appears in the seventh episode of Shinkai's novel The Garden of Words.^[9][10]

Sayaka Natori (名取 早耶香, Natori Sayaka)

Voiced by: Aoi Yūki^[7] (Japanese); Cassandra Morris^[8] (English)

One of Mitsuha's classmates and her best friend; as of 2013, she is 17 years old.^[c] She has a calm but nervous personality and has a crush on Tessie. She is part of the school's radio broadcasting club, so she is tasked by Taki and Tessie with broadcasting the false emergency evacuation alert. Her sister, who works at the town hall, makes a brief appearance in the film.

Sayaka is named after a friend of Shoko Aizawa's from middle school, who appears in the seventh episode of Shinkai's novel The Garden of Words.^[9][10]

Tsukasa Fujii (藤井 司, Fujii Tsukasa)

Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki^[7] (Japanese); Ben Pronsky^[8] (English)

A classmate and friend of Taki. He has a cool personality and, like Taki, is interested in architecture. He works part-time at the same restaurant as Taki and Takagi. He worries about Taki whenever Mitsuha inhabits his body.

In his last scene, he is wearing a ring on his left-hand finger; and when asked about it, Shinkai said, "It's just a backstory, but I believe Tsukasa is engaged to Okudera."

Shinta Takagi (高木 真太, Takagi Shinta)

Voiced by: Kaito Ishikawa^[7] (Japanese); Ray Chase^[8] (English)

A classmate and friend of Taki. He is optimistic and has a large, crisp figure with an athletic appearance. Like Taki, he is an aspiring architect. He works part-time at the same restaurant as Taki and Tsukasa.

Miki Okudera (奥寺 ミキ, Okudera Miki)

Voiced by: Masami Nagasawa^[11] (Japanese); Laura Post^[8] (English)

A university student, one of Taki's friends, and his co-worker at the Italian restaurant "Il Giardino delle Parole". She is a beautiful and fashionable college girl who is popular with male waiters. She develops closer feelings for Taki when Mitsuha inhabits his body. She is a smoker, which Tsukasa discovers when they spend a night together while accompanying Taki on his search for Mitsuha. She is more commonly referred to as Ms. Okudera (Okudera-senpai) by her colleagues.

When she meets Taki in 2021 after a long time, she is wearing an engagement ring and tells him that she is getting married soon. According to Shinkai: "It's just a backstory, but I believe that Tsukasa is engaged to Okudera."^[9] In the original novel, she is described as working at the Chiba branch of an apparel manufacturer as of 2021.

Hitoha Miyamizu (宮水 一葉, Miyamizu Hitoha)

Voiced by: Etsuko Ichihara^[11] (Japanese); Glynis Ellis^[8] (English)

The head of the Miyamizu^{[note 2]} family shrine in Itomori^{[note 3]}, and the maternal grandmother of Mitsuha and Yotsuha. She was 82 years old as of 2013.^[c] Her favorite family tradition is kumihimo (thread weaving). She educates her grandchildren about the history and traditions of the shrine. Her daughter died peacefully after an illness and her son-in-law worked as a politician.

It is revealed in the manga adaptation that Hitoha is alive as of 2021.

Yotsuha Miyamizu (宮水 四葉, Miyamizu Yotsuha)

Voiced by: Kanon Tani^[11] (Japanese); Catie Harvey^[8] (English)

Mitsuha's younger sister with a strong personality. She was 9 years old in the fourth grade as of 2013.^[c] She helps her grandmother and sister preserve the family tradition at the shrine. She believes Mitsuha is somewhat crazy but loves her anyway. She participates in creating both kumihimo and kuchikamizake. Yotsuha attended high school at the end of the film.

Toshiki Miyamizu (宮水 俊樹, Miyamizu Toshiki)

Voiced by: Masaki Terasoma^[7] (Japanese); Scott Williams^[8] (English)

The widowed father of Mitsuha and Yotsuha, and Futaba's husband. He was 54 years old as of 2013. He used to be a folklorist who came to town for research and is very strict and jaded from the event. After Futaba died, Toshiki abandoned the shrine and became the mayor.

Futaba Miyamizu (宮水 二葉, Miyamizu Futaba)

Voiced by: Sayaka Ohara^[7] (Japanese); Michelle Ruff^[8] (English)

The mother of Mitsuha and Yotsuha, the wife of Toshiki, and the daughter of Hitoha. She appeared in a scene where Taki sees her in a vision of Mitsuha's life. Futaba died peacefully from an illness.

Yukari Yukino (雪野 百香里, Yukino Yukari)

Voiced by: Kana Hanazawa^[12] (Japanese); Katy Vaughn^[8] (English)

A literature teacher at Itomori High School. She teaches the class about the word, "Kataware-doki" (meaning twilight). She also appeared in Shinkai's previous film The Garden of Words.

In September 2013, she was living in Tokyo,^[13] but as for why she is in Itomori in this film, the pamphlet states that it is "up to the viewer's imagination."^[14]

Production[edit]

The idea for this story came to Shinkai after he visited Yuriage, Natori, Miyagi Prefecture in July 2011, after the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred. He said, "This could have been my town." He said that he wanted to make a movie in which the positions of the people in Yuriage would be swapped with the viewers. The sketches that Shinkai drew during this visit have been shown in exhibitions.^[15]

In Makoto Shinkai's proposal sent to Toho on September 14, 2014, the film was originally titled Yume to Shiriseba (夢と知りせば, If I Knew It Was a Dream), derived from a passage in a waka poem attributed to Ono no Komachi.^[16] Its title was later changed to Kimi no Musubime (きみの結びめ, Your Connection) and Kimi wa Kono Sekai no Hanbun (きみはこの世界のはんぶん, You Are Half of This World) before becoming Kimi no Na Wa.^[17] On December 31, 2014, Shinkai announced that he had been spending his days writing storyboard for this film.^[18]

Inspiration for the story came from works including Shūzō Oshimi's Inside Mari, Rumiko Takahashi's Ranma ½, the Heian period novel Torikaebaya Monogatari, and Greg Egan's short story The Safe-Deposit Box.^[19] Shinkai also cited Interstellar (2014) by Christopher Nolan as an influence.^[20]

While the town of Itomori, one of the film's settings, is fictional, the film drew inspirations from real-life locations that provided a backdrop for the town. Such locations include the city of Hida in Gifu Prefecture and its library, Hida City Library.^[21]

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