“Your Name..” (Kim No Na Wa) is the answer to those who question the limit of imagination. It is a pleasant gift for all anime lovers. The movie will satisfy you emotionally and visually. You will feel excited, curious and even heartbroken. The story with the lead characters of Taki Tachibana and Mitsuha Miyamizu voice given by Ryunosuke Kamiki, Mone Kamishiraishi sets a bar high for the animation industry.
Storytelling/ Plot:
The story starts by the Mitsuha Miyamizu, a high school girl lives with her grandma and younger sister. In a usual day, people start telling her the strange things she did yesterday. She was not able to remember her name, her way to school and sudden change in personality. Something struck to her as a bad long dream and it feels like losing something. Taki Tachibana, a young high school boy in Tokoyo, also felt the same weird feeling as if he was in someone else’s body in his dream, living in a strange village. Soon they realized both of them are strangely connected to each other. After falling asleep they switch lives with each other. Next morning, they are not able to remember but a bizarre feeling is always there. After a while, they soon figure out different ways to communicate to each other. They start leaving text messages, diary or symbols on their bodies. This shift continues for a while.
After some time, everything stopped suddenly. Taki Tachibana was not able to switch places with Mitsuha Miyamizu. The thread which seems to connect both of them lead Taki Tachibana to figure out something is wrong but couldn’t figure out what. Thus, following his intentions, he went on a search for the village he saw in his dreams without knowing its name and location. When he reached Itomori town, what he found made his eyes an inch wider. The town which he saw in his dreams when he switches to Mitsuha was destroyed by Comet Tiamet three years ago. This one hour 47 minutes fantasy drama has plenty of twists and turns in the story.
Animation
The movie is animated by CoMix Wave Films. The animation of town and comet is just stunning. One of the scenes where the comet is about to hit the ground beautifully structures. Attention to details like cooking on the stove, a breeze of cold air, falling leaves, use of sunlight, snowfall and varies colours of the sky is pictured very effectively, leaving no space for any disappointment.
Narration/ Dialogue
“Kim No Na Wa” is based on the book by Makoto Shinkai by the same name. The book was published a month before the movie premiere. It is edited, directed by him. Adding to than, Mokoto has also written the screenplay for the movie. The narration is like poetry, each emotion is expressed with accuracy and dialogues are very well written. Another well-known movies by him, like Garden of words and 5 centimetres per second followed the same style of storytelling. Silence is closely felt in his narration. These two movies were also animated by CoMix Wave Films.
Music / Background
Background score is given by Radwimps who is famous Japanese rock band. Especially, the song “Sparkle” and “Let’s strict together” holds the theme of the movie and got huge popularity. The background is also given by the same band empathize the movie favour. Ambience is very well used. From cleaning machines, hotel ambience and natural sounds are very well used with visuals.
The other side
The plot might be confusing sometimes. Especially, last five minutes consist of a lot of time travel sequences and might be difficult to understand for some audience.
Final Rating 4.6/5