Sayaka Natori

Your Name. is a 2016 animated film written and directed by Makoto Shinkai. It was made by the studio CoMix Wave Films and released by Toho. The film first played at Anime Expo in Los Angeles in July 2016 and then opened in Japan on August 26, 2016. It runs for 107 minutes. It became a huge hit around the world, earning about 400 million US dollars. For a few years it was the top-earning film ever made in Japan, until Demon Slayer: Mugen Train passed it in 2020. The movie follows two teenagers who live very different lives. Mitsuha Miyamizu lives in Itomori, a small and quiet town in the mountains next to a lake. Her family runs an old Shinto shrine, which is a place where people pray to traditional Japanese gods. She helps with shrine duties, such as old dances and making a special rice drink, and she finds all of it a little embarrassing. She lives with her grandmother and her younger sister, and she is tired of the slow country life. She wishes she could be a boy in Tokyo in her next life. Taki Tachibana really is a boy in Tokyo. He goes to high school, works part-time as a waiter in an Italian restaurant, and likes to draw buildings. His days are full and fast. Then something strange starts to happen. Some mornings, Mitsuha wakes up inside Taki's body, and Taki wakes up inside hers. It does not happen every day, and when they switch back, their memories of the day become cloudy, like a dream. At first they think they are only dreaming. But their friends tell them they acted strangely the day before. So the two begin to leave notes for each other on their phones and even on their skin. They make rules about what the other person may and may not do. These parts of the film are very funny. Mitsuha, in Taki's body, is better at talking to his pretty coworker than he is. Taki, in Mitsuha's body, does not understand how a girl at her school is supposed to act. Over time the two become close, even though they have never met face to face. They want to find each other. A comet is passing near the Earth in the sky above them, and it becomes more and more important to the story. The film turns from a light comedy into something much more serious and emotional. It is best to watch it without knowing more. The film is famous for its beautiful art. Shinkai is known for bright skies, shining light, and very detailed city and country scenes, and Your Name. is full of them. The Japanese band Radwimps wrote the music and songs, and many people say the soundtrack is a big reason the film became so popular. Ryunosuke Kamiki voices Taki and Mone Kamishiraishi voices Mitsuha in Japanese. Critics loved the film. It won Best Animated Feature from the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and it also won prizes at the Sitges Film Festival and the Mainichi Film Awards. It is the first film in what fans call Shinkai's "disaster trilogy," followed by Weathering with You and Suzume. The movie mixes romance, comedy, small-town tradition, and big questions about memory and fate.