Your Name



Your Name (君の名は., Kimi no Na wa) is a 2016 fantasy and romantic drama anime film by Makoto Shinkai, his sixth major release. Its soundtrack is by RADWIMPS. It is animated by CoMix Wave Films and distributed by Toho.

Mitsuha Miyamizu (Mone Kamishiraishi, Stephanie Sheh) is a Japanese high school girl living in the fictional rural small town of Itomori in Gifu Prefecture. Bored and oppressed by the stresses of her miko duties at the family Shinto shrine and her estranged mayor father, she seeks escape by hoping to be reborn as a Tokyo boy in her next life. One day, she finds her wish granted when she awakens as Taki Tachibana (Ryuunosuke Kamiki, Michael Sinterniklaas), a Tokyo high school boy juggling his desire to go into architecture with a part-time job at a restaurant. Initially mistaking the experience for a strangely vivid dream, the two eventually gather enough evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt the truth of the situation and have to work together to get along. However, as the relationship grows, little do they know that there are more surprises up ahead connected to the coming of the comet Tiamat.

The film was well-received both critically and commercially, being the first non-Studio Ghibli anime film to break the US$100 million mark at the Japanese box office, and was number one at the Japanese box office for a number of weekends. It also had top openings in China and South Korea.

In September 2020, an American live action adaptation was announced to be in development. It was initially to be produced by JJ Abrams based on a script by Eric Heisserer and involving a Native American girl swapping with a Chicago boy in line with the Japanese rights holders' desire for it to be westernized. Directorial and writing duties were later given to Lee Isaac Chung of Minari fame, though as of July 2021 he has left because of scheduling problems. Little else is currently known.


 * Aliens in Cardiff: While Itomori itself is fictional, it is modelled after the real Hida City in Gifu Prefecture, a part of Japan largely unknown to foreigners before this film put it in the spotlight. It is in Itomori's vicinity that the crater with the plot-vital god's body is situated, and later on.
 * All Just a Dream: Taki and Mitsuha initially dismiss the bodyswapping as dreams. Later, Taki wonders if the interactions really were a figment of his imagination after learning that
 * All There in the Manual: There is a novelization by Shinkai that adds some information, but is focused closely on Taki and Mitsuha's perspectives. A side novel by Arata Kanoh, Another Side: Earthbound, provides the perspectives of Tessie and Yotsuha, as well as further information on Taki's misadventures in Mitsuha's body and backstory for Toshiki, including how the latter first met the Miyamizu family. Additional manga adaptations for both the film and Another Side: Earthbound also exist.
 * Alternate Universe: Given that The Garden of Words ends with Yukari going back to her hometown on Shikoku, it obviously cannot be aligned with her presence in Itomori here.
 * Attack of the Town Festival:, while Itomori is holding an autumn festival.
 * Bittersweet Ending: While mostly an Earn Your Happy Ending as
 * Cassandra Truth: Mitsuha's grandmother tells Taki-in-Mitsuha that no one in authority will believe that, and is soon proven correct.
 * Casting Gag: Aoi Yuuki plays the eponymous lead of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, in which there is a side character named Sayaka and one of the key plot elements is . Here, she plays a side character named Sayaka, and one of the key plot elements is also.
 * Chekhov's Classroom: Early on, a literature lesson introduces the concept of kataware doki, a kind of witching hour at twilight where reality blurs and one might encounter something inhuman. Later, Hitoha teaches Taki-in-Mitsuha about musubi, how connections can be forged across time and things taken into the body join to the soul. Both these things play vital roles in the climax.
 * Chekhov's Skill: Early on, Tessie's father tells him to learn how to use explosives. He ends up having to do so again later on.
 * Comet of Doom: The coming of the comet Tiamat is a prominent part of the film, and becomes even more so when
 * Contrived Coincidence:
 * Taki, Miki and Tsukasa have lunch at a ramen shop that just happens to be owned by a former resident of Itomori and who thus can tell them about it. The manga makes this a double whammy in that only because traffic just happened to be bad that night.
 * Mitsuha
 * In the Distant Finale, has to be some kind of miracle.
 * Dead All Along:
 * Distracted From Death: According to Another Side: Earthbound, Toshiki Never Got to Say Goodbye to Futaba because he was out looking for another doctor who could save her.
 * Four Is Death: It is on October 4 that
 * Foreshadowing: When Taki finally sees Itomori in person, it is from the high school grounds,
 * Freaky Friday Flip: The main conceit of the film is Taki and Mitsuha's bodyswapping.
 * Freeze-Frame Bonus:
 * Toshiki's first name is only shown briefly on a background banner in hiragana.
 * A very small calendar in the scene where Tessie's father and Toshiki are having dinner shows that
 * A poster is seen in the classroom when Mitsuha first attends Taki's school in his body that shows
 * There is one point when Taki and Mitsuha are both looking through their phones and the date shows it's September 12, but
 * When Mitsuha is, one of the places shown is
 * Shinkai revealed that can briefly be seen in the crowd when now-adult Taki thinks he sees Mitsuha in a train station.
 * The final act briefly shows
 * Gilligan Cut: About halfway through, Taki wakes up in Mitsuha's body again and says that he shouldn't touch her breasts for her sake. Cut to Yotsuha opening the bedroom door to wake her up and seeing just that happening.
 * The Lost Lenore: Toshiki's inability to get over the death of Futaba was a major contributor to the dereliction of his priestly duties and the ongoing estrangement from their children.
 * Maybe Ever After: The film ends with but whether they eventually become a couple is left a mystery. According to the novel for Weathering with You,  and in that film proper  but given the continuity conflicts between this film and that one, whether this is canon is left to the audience to decide.
 * Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: While there is no doubt as to the body swap being supernatural in nature, the comet Tiamat is more ambiguous. Specifically,
 * Missing Mom: Mitsuha and Yotsuha's mother Futaba died of illness six years prior to the start of the film, but still casts a shadow on the family, especially as The Lost Lenore to widowed Toshiki. Taki's mother, meanwhile, is nowhere to be seen, with only a vague allusion late in the novel as to him having to get used to living with the father. Nothing is done with this commonality.
 * Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: In Another Side: Earthbound, Toshiki speculates in-universe that this is the reason why despite currently enshrining the celestial kami Shitori no Kami, the Miyamizu Shrine also has affinity with terrestrial kami like those enshrined by Izumo Taisha: the Miyamizu might have once worshipped a rebel against the celestials until a disaster befell Itomori sometime in the past, which was interpreted as their old kami failing them and led to their changing allegiance.
 * Never Got to Say Goodbye: According to Another Side: Earthbound, Toshiki was out looking for another doctor who could save Futaba and missed out on her last words, having to hear them secondhand from a nurse instead.
 * Never Live It Down: In-universe, whoever Mayugoro the sandalmaker was as a person and whatever else he did, now he is only known as the guy who somehow started a fire in his bathroom 200 years ago that led to the destruction of large parts of Itomori and the loss of the Miyamizu Shrine's records. Both Toshiki (in spinoff novel Another Side: Earthbound) and Yotsuha are appalled that the Great Fire to which his name was appended is his sole legacy.
 * Next Sunday A.D.: The film was released and set in 2016.
 * No Name Given: The customer who slashes Miki's skirt, Taki's father and Tessie's parents are not named, even in the credits.
 * Real Place Background: Itomori is fictional but is based on the actual Hida City in GIfu Prefecture. The restaurant Taki works part-time at is based on Cafe La Boheme near Shinjuku Gyoen. Various other actual locales both in Tokyo and elsewhere in Japan are featured in the film.
 * Reality Ensues:
 * Despite how much Taki's built it up in his mind, Lake Itomori is not in fact the household name of an iconic landmark he'd been expecting, and random passersby in its vicinity aren't much good where actually finding it is concerned.
 * Mitsuha learns the hard way that finding someone in a big city is not, despite her hopes, a quick and easy thing to do.
 * Even extraordinary events will be forgotten after enough time.
 * Taki's plan What, did you think this was some heroic fantasy tale? Even then,
 * The Red Stapler: Hida City in Gifu Prefecture was fairly unknown previously. Within months of the film's release, tourism revenue from pilgrims exceeded the US$100 million mark.
 * Retraux: The flashbacks seen after have deliberate fuzziness, scan lines and other faux VHS effects.
 * Running Gag: Tachibana touching Miyamizu's breasts. He gets more and more comfortable with it.
 * Slow Electricity: After destroy a local transformer, Itomori's lights are shown going out in sequence rather than all at once.
 * Small Role, Big Impact: The thug that slashes Miki's skirt gets no name and little screentime, but his action, and Mitsuha-in-Taki's rectifying it, have major ramifications down the line. This includes Mitsuha thinking about the date she arranges between Taki and Miki, leading to her as well as Miki following Taki to find Itomori and jogging his memory.
 * Small Town Boredom: Early on, Mitsuha laments how there's nothing to do and no prospects in Itomori and that she wants to go to Tokyo to live it up. She gets her wish granted, but probably not in the way she had been expecting.
 * Strong Family Resemblance: Played for drama as according to supplementary novel Another Side: Earthbound, one of the drivers of Toshiki's issues is how Mitsuha's resemblance to Futaba reminds him of losing the latter.
 * True Companions: Despite their initial doubts, Tessie and Sayaka go along with Mitsuha's harebrained schemes knowing full well the risks to themselves.
 * Urban Fantasy: The bodyswapping and other supernatural elements are key parts of the narrative with big effects on Mitsuha and Taki's lives.
 * What Happened to the Mouse?: Toshiki and Hitoha are not heard from again after the Time Skip to the Distant Finale. A Fictional Document states that people were curious about how the former coincidentally, but nothing more is said about the consequences of this interest and he is never shown onscreen again. The latter's status is not brought up at all in the film proper. The manga adaptation has Yotsuha pass a message from her to Mitsuha, but no real explanation of her status is provided and the person herself isn't seen in the flesh either.