Your Name
(aka Kimi no Na wa)

The Body-Switching ROSSMAN

Your Name is amazing.

Your Name will pull you in and make you forget about life for almost two hours.

Your Name will make you weep like a little girl at numerous times during its runtime, and you will love it for it.

Your Name will restore your faith not just in anime, but in storytelling in general.

Your Name is the record breaking anime movie (written, directed, and edited by wunderkind Makoto Shinkai) that hit Japanese theaters back in August of 2016, and is still rockin' in ticket sales as of this review. As a matter of fact, it just jumped back to the number one spot this past week — its 22nd weekend in cinemas. It is the highest earning Japanese movie of all time, and it's still going strong. And I'm here to tell you that it deserves all its accolades and success.

If you haven't seen Your Name yet, don't read anything more about it. Seriously, just find a way to watch it. Other reviews will spoil the fuck out of it, no apologies, and those bastard reviewers deserve to have their nuts kicked in and their jackoff skulls cracked open. Ruining this movie without any warning should be a felony.

For those of you doubting retards who don't believe millions of people the world over (who love this film, and who have paid multiple times to see it), I'll give you the most basic of synopses now. I'll call the following short rundown spoiler territory though, since totally blind is the absolute best way to go into this film.

Slight Spoilers.

Your Name is about a high school girl named Mitsuha who lives in a remote mountain town. One morning she wakes up very confused with what she finds in the mirror. The next day she appears to be back to normal, but she has no recollection of what everybody around her claims she did the day before. She apparently forgot people's names, where she went to school, and who she herself was.

Mitsuha is discombobulated by everyone else's tales of her amnesiac adventures. Especially because all she can remember is a weird dream where she was in the body of a high school boy who lived in Tokyo. She had to go to this boy's school and pretend to be him during his studies, and then at his evening job as a waiter in an upscale Italian restaurant.

I'm pretty sure that you have an IQ greater than a tsetse fly and have probably put together the fact that Mitsuha and the boy in Tokyo (one Taki) have somehow begun switching bodies. Wackiness ensues as they try to cope with the seemingly random soul-swapping occurrences without fucking over the other person's life, and they set up communication tools between themselves so that they can inform the other what they'd been up to during their other worldly day.

And then, drama... And comedy... And of course lots of death and destruction (this IS an anime, you know).

End of Slight Spoilers

There. That's all you get. And that barely covers only some of the first third of this spectacular, spectacular production. Seriously, watch it. Go find it and watch it! I don't have any stock in this anime production company either. I just love the complete shit out of this film!

The characters are all super fun to hang out with (even with their sometimes weird foibles), and my only issue with them is that I didn't get to see any more of their adventures once the closing credits began to roll. And man, the Japanese voice actors do an incredibly stellar job of vocalizing both their characters, and the other characters in their characters' bodies. The animators did a phenomenal job of animating the two protagonists in the other's bodies too. There was never any mistaking which character was who at any point in this thing. It could have gotten very confusing in lesser hands.

And I need to mention the art in this flick. Absolutely GORGEOUS animation, scenery, and character expressions. Holy shit, the background artists made Disney hand-drawn movies look like an autistic first grader's shitty finger painting. I'm dead serious. As much as I love The Little Mermaid, go back and pay attention to all the background paintings. There's almost no detail in them. Your Name though, every frame is a literal work of art.

Pretty damn good musical soundtrack by the Radwimps too. It didn't stick in my head as much as a Joe Hisaishi score, but it captured the magic of the movie perfectly by being both worldly and still very much Japanesey at its heart. Good pop songs opened and closed Your Name, and I actually bought the entire album off of iTunes just to relive some of the feels I had while watching it over again.

Honestly, I don't have anything really all that bad to say about it. Well... Except that one issue...

Slight Spoilers.

...having to do with a character apparently never looking at a certain date on their phone, or on a newspaper, or anything... But, within the course of the story, there were decent reasons why this can be overlooked. The haze of the "dream," or whatever. I didn't think about it at all while watching it, and only even noticed it after talking about it with the Greenwood crew when it was over. Like I said though, not a big deal. Nothing at all that could ruin your impression of the movie.

End of Slight Spoilers.

An anime film hasn't hit so close to home, making me associate with the characters so much, since I first saw Kiki's Delivery Service in the mid 90s. Kiki's affected me due to her losing her magic, and its close association with me losing my artistic abilities (or at least the desire to draw and create) at the worst times while I was earning my graphic design degree in college. Your Name hit me hard in the way that it perfectly captured what it means to be a teenager, fall in love, lose love, and face other losses that seem incomprehensible to a young mind. Damn it, I'm tearing up just thinking about it again... That doesn't make me a Mary... IT DOESN'T!... *Sniff*

Anyway, go see it. Don't read anything more about it. Just do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it. Do it.

In the end, I feel that I must give Your Name Two RAGING and THROBBING Thumbs Up. I cannot think of a single negative thing to say about it. I loved the scope of it, the characters, the mecha designs, the music, and the emotions that it makes you feel. For the love of CHRIST! JUST FUCKING WATCH IT!

(I was just seeing if you were paying attention there.)

GORO MIYAZAKI

I love Kimi no Na wa! It is the greatest movie that my father has ever made. It is so much better than Spirited Away. Mononoke Hime? Feh! That is like an angry boil on the anus compared to Kimi no Na wa! Laputa is garbage, and Ponyo is like a brain damaged toddler's crayon drawing compared to the masterpiece that is Kimi no Na wa.

I can only aspire to create something as beautiful and eloquent as Kimi no Na wa. I probably never will though, this feature film is simply too majestic. Too perfect. I... What? What was that?...

Who is Makoto Shinkai?..... No..... Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

Oh no... What do I do? Do I backpedal like a politician? Do I say that I never said such things about my honorable father's films? Do I simply lie?.... Are you still recording this?... Oh nooooooooooo...

I guess that seppuku is the only option now. I hope that you all have enjoyed Goro's short career, as it is now over. As is his life.

Kimi no Na wa is a terrible movie. Terrible. It is like dead dog feces. As if a fat dog died, and then two weeks later a cruel child found its rotting corpse, and then jumped on its midsection with glee, forcing many foul things to erupt out of the dead dog's backside. That is what Kimi no Na wa is. Don't see this movie. Go watch Tales From Earthsea instead!

CHI-CHI WILIKINS

I liked it. I liked it a lot. In fact, this Your Name flick gave me the greatest dream I've ever had! After watching it, I fell asleep, and I dreamed that I woke up in the body of a high school girl with an amazing rack!

Unlike the movie though, I didn't go to the girl's school that day, and then hang out with all her friends pretending to be her. Are you kidding me? I spent all day locked in her room. Oh my god... How I wish we had the technology to record dreams...

Wait, is there any porn made of this kind of thing? Body swapping? What's "hentai"? Let me just google this right now.........

Sorry, interview's over. I gots to go, people. Blessed be the world wide web!

Good movie, even better porn! Yeeeeehaw!