| Your Name. 2016 |
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Your Name. (君の名は。, Kimi no Na wa.) is a Japanese film written and directed by Makoto Shinkai. It is his fifth feature film.
Premiered in Japan on August 26, 2016, it quickly becomes Shinkai's most successful film so far, being one of the highest-grossing Japanese film both in Japan and worldwide.
Plot[]
Mitsuha Miyamizu, a high school girl living in the rural town of Itomori in Japan's mountainous Hida region, is bored with country life and wishes to be a handsome Tokyo boy in her next life. She soon begins to switch bodies intermittently with Taki Tachibana, a high school boy in Tokyo, when they wake up. The two communicate by writing messages on paper, their phones, and sometimes on each other's skin. Mitsuha, in Taki's body, causes him to develop a relationship with his coworker Miki Okudera, while Taki, in Mitsuha's body, helps her become more popular at school.
One day, Taki, as Mitsuha, accompanies her grandmother Hitoha and younger sister Yotsuha to leave the ritual alcohol kuchikamizake, made by Mitsuha, as an offering at the shrine on a mountaintop outside the town. Hitoha explains that the shrine represents the body of the village guardian god who rules over human experiences and connections. Mitsuha's latest note to Taki mentions that the Comet Tiamat is expected to pass unusually close to Earth on the day of the town autumn festival compared to its previous close pass in the past.
The next day, Taki wakes up in his own body. After an unsuccessful date with Miki, who senses that he is preoccupied with thoughts of someone else, Taki tries to call Mitsuha but is unable to reach her. The body-switching abruptly ends, and Taki decides to visit Itomori. However, he cannot remember the town's name, his memories of it are fading, and Mitsuha's messages have disappeared.
A restaurant owner in Hida recognizes Itomori from Taki's sketch and informs him that the town was destroyed when a fragment of the comet Tiamat unexpectedly crashed onto Earth. Taki discovers Mitsuha's name in the records of fatalities and realizes that their timelines were separated by three years.
Desperate to save Mitsuha, Taki goes to the shrine to drink her kuchikamizake, hoping to reconnect with her body and warn her of the impending comet strike. Through a vision, he discovers that Mitsuha, having fallen in love with him, had previously traveled to Tokyo to meet his past self and give him her red kumihimo ribbon, which he has worn ever since.
Taki wakes up in Mitsuha's body on the morning of the festival. Hitoha deduces his identity and explains that the body-switching phenomenon is part of the Miyamizu family history as caretakers of the shrine. Taki convinces Mitsuha's friends, Katsuhiko Teshigawara and Sayaka Natori, to help evacuate the town by cutting the power to the town, making a makeshift explosive that blows up the Itomori power plant and broadcasting a false emergency alert, but the plan fails. Realizing that Mitsuha must be in his body at the shrine, Taki heads back to find her.
Alternate movie poster
Mitsuha wakes up in Taki's body at the shrine. As the sun sets, Taki reaches the shrine, and they sense each other's presence despite being separated by three years. During twilight, they briefly return to their own bodies and meet in person. They attempt to write each other's names on their hands to retain their memories, but twilight passes, and Mitsuha disappears before she can write hers. Taki discovers that he wrote "I love you" on Mitsuha's hand instead of his name.
Mitsuha races back to town, her memories of Taki fading, to convince her estranged father Toshiki Miyamizu, the mayor of Itomori, to evacuate the town. She succeeds as everyone evacuates to the mountains just outside of town, and the comet fragment crashes to Earth, destroying Itomori. Taki wakes up in his own time at the shrine, remembering nothing.
Five years later, Taki has graduated from university and is searching for a job. He learns that the inhabitants of Itomori survived by following the mayor's evacuation order. Taki and Mitsuha, who has moved to Tokyo, catch a glimpse of each other when their trains draw parallel. Compelled to find one another, they disembark and search, finally meeting on a staircase within Suga Shrine. Feeling that they have met before, as they simultaneously ask for each other's name.
Characters[]
Trailer[]
