Kimi no Na wa.

Miyamizu Mitsuha from Itomori is bored with her life. When she wakes up one day, everyone around her was weird, claiming she was acting silly the previous day. Clueless as to what they meant, Mistuha didn’t think there was anything wrong with her. 

Tachibana Taki from Tokyo woke up feeling strange. He was quite sure he was a girl. His suspicion was confirmed when everything that he did that day seemed unusual. He realizes that he must be another person placed in the wrong body.

This suspicion was confirmed when they both realized their spirits were switched. Mitsuha’s classmates tell her she sometimes doesn’t seem to be herself. Now that she knows about the body swap, it all made sense. Meanwhile, Taki found  entries in his journal that he certainly didn’t write. Add to that their hazy memories of the events from yesterday. They don’t seem to remember the body switch. The only evidence are the notes. They left these messages on paper, their cell phones and by writing reminders on their body.

They got used to it eventually until one day the switch stopped. Taki tried to contact Mitsuha but he couldn’t so he decided to visit her hometown. His discovery rocked his world.

The story didn’t seem to have anything special. The only thing I looked forward to was how it was executed. Body switching isn’t new and so is tampering with time. Perhaps the last one was what has drawn a lot of fans. Kimi no Na wa used a different approach from what I sometimes read in science fiction, but it’s not something I’d gush over. Being a science fiction fan admittedly took the fun out of the movie for me. It’s not as complex to me as the others made it out to be. For this short review, I will look instead at the narrative and the animation.

The introduction didn’t have enough time to create characters with very distinct personalities but it was enough to set the mood. There was a portion in the movie showing parts of Mitsuha’s and Taki’s daily activities that showed they began to genuinely care about each other and are actually enjoying the body switch. It’s a formula for either a heartwarming or devastating ending.

I cannot question the quality of the animation and sound. Shinkai Makoto has been recognized in those departments. I had misgivings about his other films so I was skeptical of this one (I don’t care if you hate me for that statement).

I initially had an issue about the paradox created by the different timelines of Mitsuha and Taki. But I guess you could cancel out the problems with the appearance of the Kuchikamizake.

Overall, it was a good film though I would not rank it among the best I’ve seen. The story has an emotional draw and the animation is beautiful. It didn’t have the wow factor I was looking for. The story didn’t shock or sadden me and the lead characters were generic. The pace towards the end was good and I was excited for a while until I started questioning the mechanism. It’s one of those movies which results in divided opinions.

Rating: 8 out of 10