Your Name

On the third episode of this Anime August, Scarlett, Gunner, and Ashley have a thoughtful conversation about the smash hit anime film, Your Name, as Jake twiddles his thumbs thinking up his next joke. Which is the same thing he did while writing this episode description!

Mitsuha is just a small town girl that gets on a train going anywhere. Taki is just a city boy that wakes up in Mitsuha’s body. And she wakes up in his. The pair share their bodies with one another and communicate through notes on their phones but one day that all stops. Years later Taki goes to her small town to meet her only to learn that it was struck by a meteor. Upon learning this his memory begins to unravel as he fights to remember only to recognize a place Mitsuha’s grandmother brought him to and he falls and is transported back into her body the day she died. Taki along with Mitsuha’s friends go out of their way to evacuate the town to save everyone despite the mayor, Mitsuha’s father. Right before the crash Taki returns to his body only for Mitsuha to return and the adult Taki meets the young Mitsuha at dawn between the worlds and time only to begin forgetting one another and try to remember. Back in the present an adult Taki runs into an adult Mitsuha, each asking one question of the other, whats your name?

The red string of fate leads the pair from “Small Town Girl” by Journey into a Freaky Friday situation that is only destroyed by the plot if a disaster film only to be saved with a Groundhog’s Day situation. The film relies on the fact that its two characters are partially on a delay between when the other takes over their body. Its a sweet film thats excellently written and directed.