Your name

“Your name” is an anime film created by Makoto Shinkai in 2016, an artist who has brought some of the greater anime of all times. To give some examples, other impressing artworks that he has done are movies such as "Children who chase lost voices", "The garden of words" or "Voices of a distant star"… He likes to tell stories about star-crossed lovers which are kept apart for some reason. Your name is not an exception of that…except that there’s something incredibly unique in this film that I’ve honestly never seen before: this is a body-swapping story.

The film begins with Mitsuha, a young Japanese girl who wakes up in her room, begins to touch herself, and realises with surprise that she has lady parts. It can be confusing for the viewer, because that would be something normal for a girl of her age. However, what really happens is that Taki (a boy who also lives in Japan) is currently inhabiting her body. That same boy wakes up in his own house, begins to touch himself, and realises that he has men parts. At that point, the viewer starts to understand what’s happening: Mitsuha and Taki have switched bodies. The film is about the story of these two characters who once in a while wake up in the physique of the other without previous warning, and they must learn how to spend that day in the other person’s life. As a result of it, they start to learn about each other, and finish by appreciating one another in an extremely unconventional way. At the same time, they have to figure out why this strange swapping is even happening.

In this film, there is a lot of Japanese humour that you would never see in an American film. It is, in all ways, a unique and original story with amazing hand-drawn traditional cel animation (a style that US companies as Disney or Pixar have almost completely abandon in favour of CG animation). The illustrations are gorgeous and completely breath-taking: any fan of hand-drawing movies is going to appreciate it very much.

However, it is not only a fun a humorous film, but also an emotionally powerful movie with a serious and amazing message, which I am not going to tell you in order to not spoil the story😊. It is true that in other reviews such as "The Lion King" or "Monsters Inc" we have talked about their meanings, but that is because we suppose that you all have already watched them. However, “Your name” is not as common here in Europe, and we hope that with all the information that we have given you will watch it.

Then, we will post on our Instagram account a story so you can all tell us what you believe the message is. Hope you enjoy it!