While many people expected Your Name to be a film about the transcendence of thread and love (which it is), it is probably one of the biggest projects out there. It is more like something you would expect if Charlie Kaufman and David Lynch collaborated on an animation. However, it was not made by them. Instead, it is one of the most memorable works by Makoto Shinkai, one of the industry’s most active modern Japanese directors.
With films like 5 Centimeters per Second, Children Who Chase Lost Voices, and The Garden of Words, Shinkai tells a story that’s more than just a classic love story. It is pure art, a love letter to many people, including Shinkai.
From an audience perspective, sometimes Taki and Mitsuha find themselves in tears. They have dreams they cannot remember, but the feeling that something is missing lingers long after they wake up. They are always searching for something, for someone. Moreover, that feeling has been with them since the stars fell.
It is almost like a scene from a dream—nothing more, nothing less than a beautiful sight. In short, Your Name is a film that teaches the audience empathy through the transcendence of thread and love. However, it does not just show this love symbolically; it does so in a mature way. The thread is not just a common symbol, even though it is the most obvious one in the film. Taki and Mitsuha connect physically and emotionally, uniting two people.
Mitsuha gives Taki a red thread, which is part of her identity. She wears it every day, only to be surprised when it disappears. Similarly, when Taki drinks Mitsuha’s ritual water, it symbolizes how their identities connect.
Regarding narrative, Your Name is easy to follow plot-wise. However, its complexity helps the story hold together. It lets the audience focus on the details of each plot point and each outcome. Mitsuha and Taki’s realities seem fragmented, but three years apart in different dimensions and times is not that long.
It is like when they quote the initial dialogue about losing their identity, losing something, and suddenly the dream feels so real, but also not. Essentially, they are trying to find a name, searching for half of what they have been missing—love. A common thread between Taki and Mitsuha, both literally and figuratively, can be tied together with a quote from Mitsuha’s grandmother.
As the thread twists, emotions flow between a person and the thread. Mitsuha, in a way, connects with Itomori, becoming one with her past, future, and hometown. The red thread is then wrapped around Taki, so both of them—especially Mitsuha—can stay connected to their hometown, even when comets keep hitting their village. Ultimately, she gives the thread to Taki, offering half of her identity to someone the thread had entangled with.
The story of Your Name can also be summed up as a love of being blind, crazy, and capable of making anyone brave. It is cheesy, but the character development of Taki and Mitsuha is the perfect example of this. Mitsuha is shy, and Taki is grumpy at first. However, as they search for common ground with others, they gain a new perspective. By the end, both Taki and Mitsuha have fully developed, especially in trying to save the people of Itomori from the comet.
For the first and last time, when they can no longer switch bodies, they are no longer the same person. Taki and Mitsuha do things they have never done before. From this point in the story, their actions seem logical. Ultimately, it is their obsession—and yes, it is cheesy—driven by love. Beyond just a story about the transcendence of thread and love, Your Name is also fantastic in visuals.
Shinkai’s style shines like in his other works, and the landscapes feel realistic and authentically character-driven. The fantasy aspect remains grounded in reality, showing how Mitsuha and Taki’s determination to defy the laws of time through their common thread. Your Name is timeless from every angle. Audiences can watch it repeatedly, uncovering its deeper meaning, interpreting it from various perspectives, or simply enjoying it based on their mood.
Who knows, Your Name might just be the most emotional and melancholic animated film experience.
Your Name focuses on a theme that’s not just about love across hundreds or thousands of years but also about comets hitting Earth. It could symbolize, among other things, the fragment that triggers everything—the lake where Itomori’s village was formed, which ties into the Miyamizu Shrine’s reservoir. Whether you look at it as a divine connection, a cultural custom, a metaphor, or something spiritual, in the end, the comet will destroy Itomori.
The container eventually builds love between Mitsuha and Taki. The bonding of the two comment fragments creates an otherworldly connection between the lake and the shrine. They must use a connection using the vessels to save Itomori and join them from the comet. The outline is a major limitation of how Your Name compiles a paradox, not only narratively, through visuals.
The contrast between beauty, trauma, and the magical hyper element of the second highlights the differences between the characters. Your Name is a binary of a crack, taking the story’s context and characters’ relationships. Makoto Shinkai achieves these lines by forming a traditional two-dimensional style. It separates the inside from the outside and how the characters participate and adapt to the surrounding environment.
Your Name is strikingly a statement that anime is a medium that is most often underestimated. It is not just a film about the transcendence of thread and love. However, Shinkai paid close attention to detail through vision and decisiveness. The setting feels alive yet, as it said, magical at the same time. The train system in Tokyo and skyscrapers make an animated film that can be recommended to anyone on the horizon.
It is framed yet visually beautiful but never hinders the story. The two are intertwined with each other both metaphorically and allegorically. In the last scene of Your Name, Mitsuha and Taki ask each other’s names. There is an imaginative glance to the audience about what they did to start their life together. It is an unrelated story about the defamation of looking for a common thread. In short, the film is about looking for a soulmate.
On the other hand, the film balances a fantastic beauty full of reality. Shinkai lives where great visual experiences become a big screen with many ideas.
References
- C., R. (2017). The Metaphysics of ‘Your Name’. Medium.
- Debruge, P. (2016). Film Review: ‘Your Name.’ Variety.
- Heater, G. (2021). The Red String of Fate Kimi No Na Wa Movie Review. Wolfpack.
- Kapoor, M. (2020). Your Name (Kimi No Nawa) Movie Review – Love Pulls Through. The Screen Zone.
- Shinkai, M. (Director). (2016). Your Name [Film]. CoMix Wave Films; Toho.
