Friday 19 February 2021

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #233: Your Name (2016).

 

Mitsuha (voiced by Mone Kamishiraisa in the Japanese version) is a high school girl inhabiting the rural Japanese town of Itomori, but she's so bored there she wishes she could be a boy in Tokyo in her next life. That wish comes true much sooner than that, however, when she inexplicably and suddenly switches bodies with Tokyo student Taki (Ryunosuke Kamiki). She's a family-oriented dreamer; he's short-tempered but essentially nice. Yet if they though swapping bodies with each other was bizarre, what happens when they meet in person will puzzle them even more.

As any of my followers here (if I have any) will attest to, I can't get enough anime. But I must say, I could get enough of this slice of it. Your Name has stunning visuals but that alone never makes for a compelling movie, and writer-director Makoto Shinkai worked his visuals around what I considered a very dully cliched and predictable body-swap narrative. By halfway through its 107 minutes I'd already drifted off (although I did sit through the full film), and Japanese rock band Radwimps' annoying piano score didn't help. In fact, those two elements ruined it for me.

There are certainly worse anime movies than Your Name, but there are many better than it and how it holds 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and fifth place at Japan's all-time box office just bamboozles me. 6/10.













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