Back in September 27, 2017, while browsing news online, I came across an article that mentioned JJ Abrams was producing a new film. Being a fan of his, it caught my attention. The article was an announcement that Paramount and Bad Robot were planning a live adaptation of the 2016 anime film Your Name, with the writer of Arrival doing the screenplay. Since I'm no anime fan, I was initially baffled by the choice. "Why this particular film?", I asked. So I did a little digging. As I eventually found out, Your Name is currently the highest grossing anime film of all time. On top of that, it's considered as one of the best animated films ever made by both critics and audiences alike. Even SpaceX's Elon Musk is a fan of the film. But what really got my curiosity piqued was when a few Life is Strange fans began comparing the film and the game. It was then I decided to put Your Name into my backlog of "things to watch." However, it was only after I completed the anime trifecta of "cute girls doing military things" that I finally decided to take the time to watch the film.
And, oh my, the praise for the film is not without merit. The following post will put my thoughts on the film from the perspective of a Life is Strange fan. Now if you've played the game but haven't seen the film yet, I will say this: Your Name is perhaps the closest animated film that captures the experience of Life is Strange in less than two hours (or at least a good deal of it). For the emotionally unprepared, the film will hit you right in the feels. If you are at the least bit curious, do yourself a favor and go watch the film. Now if you've watched the film but haven't played Life is Strange yet... as long as you have a decent PC, console or even a high end smartphone, go get the game ASAP!
Now, let's go back in time and swap bodies to change the course of history... (again). SPOILERS FROM HEREON OUT.
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| It's time to be an Everyday Hero... |
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| Time to go on the run... I guess? |
A hazy future
On January 23, 2019, it was confirmed that the comic series for Life is Strange would continue past Issue 4 of the Dust story arc. When this was first announced, I welcomed the news with cautious optimism. Now, after having finished the initial four issues, I feel like a skeptical Star Wars fan who experienced first hand how underwhelming Attack of the Clones was back in 2002. The only recent development for the upcoming issues that has gotten positive reactions thus far is the reveal of Max's new outfit:
Apparently, it's good enough that one fan managed to do a 3D render of it (I'm still waiting for a 3D render of her Dust outfit):
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| I imagined that if Warren gave Max a gift, it would be a yellow shirt with the sigil of House Baratheon: a crowned, black stag on a gold field. So where's the stag? |
On the shore of an unfamiliar reality, Max has landed in a world too good to be true. Rachel, the girl who suffered a terrible fate in Max's reality, is alive and well, and with Chloe. Both of them are starting a new life to call their own in Los Angeles.
Three years have passed since the events of Dust, and although Max is struggling to understand what brought her here, all is well. But then a mysterious young man, Tris, appears, with his own secrets to be uncovered... Tris keeps disappearing and reappearing in the oddest of places. Could he be an echo from a different timeline, or is this something new?
With both the future and the past uncertain, Max's blissful world she has found herself in is about to open up to some harsh realities and surprising revelations, all thanks to a mysterious boy named Tristan.Three years after Issue 4, but why? What's this deal about "harsh realities and surprising revelations?" Why do we need to involve yet another new character into all of this? Is the new guy going to be someone's love interest? Can't we have a simple story where Max hangs out with Chloe and Rachel, along with other established characters like Kate, Warren... or even Victoria? Is that too much to ask?! What does the author have in mind for the endgame?
Since the new issues are being written by the same author, a part of me is hopeful that she has taken the negative feedback for her previous work into consideration. Then again, fans had expressed fears of Max and Chloe being separated when the comics were originally announced, and look how that ended up....
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| Not Taki: "Excuse me! Haven't we.... Have I... met you somewhere?" Max: "I thought so too!" Both: "Could I ask you... your name?" |
"We played hide and seek in waterfalls..."
If there's one thing virtually everyone can agree on, is that Your Name is one of the best looking animated films ever made. The film is visually stunning in its scale, lighting, and scenery. The amount of effort that was put into scene composition and even little details is staggering. Your Name's cinematic presentation is first rate, and is the film's biggest asset. When people say Your Name is a masterpiece, if they meant it from a graphical standpoint, then undoubtedly it is. The art style is so good that it was somewhat difficult to not notice the lack of visual detail when watching other anime films after seeing Your Name for the first time. A remaster of Life is Strange on the level of Your Name's visual fidelity would be a dream come true. The film itself has an appropriate line to describe the overall quality of its own visuals: "It was almost like... like seeing something out of a dream. Nothing more or less, than a breathtaking view."
Interestingly, both Life is Strange and Your Name start out on a somewhat similar manner. The first thing we get to see is a disturbance in the sky that is followed by a voiceover from our protagonist/s. Both the game and the film deal with a seemingly uninteresting premise that eventually turns into a "rollercoaster of emotions." As written on TV Tropes, "Your Name follows the lives of two high school students, Mitsuha Miyamizu and Taki Tachibana, whose lives become intertwined when they begin switching bodies at random." It's when the film's title sequence begins that it diverges from the game. The title sequence itself is used to foreshadow some pivotal concepts and scenes that appear later on in the film. The song Dream Lantern by Radwimps helped made the opening titles an even more engaging sequence to watch.
The scenes right after the opening titles spends time with the film's female protagonist, Mitsuha. How she's introduced feels straight right out of Family Guy. We find out she's living with her younger sister Yotsuha and her Grandmother in the fictional town of Itomori... which, conveniently like Arcadia Bay, had to be situated next to a body of water. Mitsuha is also the daughter of Itomori's Mayor (a character who my brother says has some resemblance to Harrison Ford), but father and daughter aren't on good terms with each other. Her best friends are two high school students, Saya and Tessie, who've lived in Itomori all their lives. It's after school that Mitsuha expresses her desire to graduate soon so she can move to Tokyo. She's backed up by her friend Saya, who comments that the town lacks amenities such as bookstores and dentists. Hmm... a female character that wants to get out of Bigfootville and has an estranged relationship with an authoritative father figure? Sounds like Chloe Price is in good company.
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| The meeting that never happens in the game. |
Right after Mitsuha mentions about "a handsome Tokyo boy", on queue we finally get to see our male protagonist, Taki. Except Taki isn't his normal self. This is in fact Mitsuha in Taki's body. So we get to see him acting like an anterograde amnesiac who doesn't know his own school, friends, or even his job. As a Memento fan, I'll admit it was fun seeing all that. We go through his normal day, and we find out he's a part-time waiter at an Italian restaurant called "The Garden of Words" (a shoutout to the director's previous movie). It's at the restaurant that we are introduced to the film's most visually distinct side character - Taki's only female co-worker, a university student called Ms. Okudera, who turns out has a first name not mentioned in the film: Miki. She's the most visually standout side character because, despite her Japanese name, Miki has the appearance of a Caucasian expat who came from a Disney cartoon that migrated to Japan and changed her Western birth name in the process. As if to highlight her uniqueness, Miki is the only character to have a leitmotif on the soundtrack besides Mitsuha. Taki, to no one's surprise, has a crush on her. Mitsuha arrives at this conclusion as well, and would utilize this fact later on in the film. One fan made this hilarious observation: "Taki thought he had game when he was in Mitsuha's body. Mitsuha got [Miki] to strip the first time they met." ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Before moving on to the next part of the film, I'll be pointing out two potential missed opportunities. In his first scene, we find out that Taki lives in an apartment with his dad. Taki's mom is absent in the film. Neither Taki nor his dad mention her even once. On top of that, the film's detailed backgrounds don't even give any clear hints as to her current whereabouts. Are Taki's parents separated, if not divorced? Is his mom dead? Also, I found it rather odd that Mitsuha didn't bother asking the question "why do I have to work after school?" considering that back in Itomori she was fortunate that she did not need to have a part time job (some miserable life, I know right?). Was the cost of living too expensive? Was Taki simply saving up for college? Is the absence of Taki's mom connected with the fact that he needs to be a working student? At a glance, these may deemed by some as irrelevant questions. But I feel that they ought to have been used to further flesh out Taki's character. On top of that, Mitsuha might have further empathized with Taki's current situation... that living in Tokyo ain't exactly the problem free Star Trek utopia she was dreaming of. Plus, we could have seen Mitsuha helping to reduce the emotional distance between Taki and his dad by relating to her own experiences of living with a single parent.
As the days go on, the body swapping continues. It was only a matter of time that Taki and Mitsuha realize that their so called dreams were actual experiences of them "switching places."
Once they recognize the truth of their situation, an entertaining montage complemented by the song Zenzenzense by Radwimps begins. They lay out ground rules for the other person to follow during the body swapping. In a hilarious fashion, this agreement quickly falls apart as they try to push the boundaries of what the other person would normally do. Taki as Mitsuha becomes more popular while Mitsuha as Taki spends more time with Miki. The montage ends with the now iconic scene showing them writing on each other's faces the words "moron" and "idiot", and them saying simultaneously "Because I don't want a relationship!"
As much as I love this montage, it incorporated two scenes that literally came out of nowhere. One shows Taki as Mitsuha being a competent basketball player. The other is Taki as Mitsuha working with Tessie to create a makeshift cafe at the only vending machine in town selling coffee. What's problematic about these two scenes is the lack of any sort of buildup. No "Chekhov's Gun" was set prior to the montage for either of them. We get zero indication of Taki's secret athletic or woodworking talents. It's not mentioned by his friends, nor is it even hinted at when we see his apartment. Plus, these two skills are never shown or mentioned again in the film. It would have been nice to see Taki as Mitsuha learning the ropes and having to earn his way to win a basketball game and craft wooden furniture. Such a scene or two could have been used to give more screentime for Tessie and Saya bonding with this more popular Mitsuha. (UPDATE: After a little bit more digging around, turns out the companion novel Another Side: Earthbound has two parts that explores these moments.)
One day when Taki wakes up in Mitsuha's body, he thinks that its business as usual and dresses up in a school uniform. Turns out that it wasn't a regular school day. He goes along with Yotsuha and their Grandmother to visit the relic of Miyamizu Shrine, which was situated in the middle of an ancient crater. As they pass along picturesque and breathtaking landscapes, Grandma starts talking about "the flow of time" in the context of "musubi... the local guardian deity." The sci-fi fan in me couldn't resist but smile during this scene. Then Grandma drops a seemingly innocuous line that would prove pivotal later on in the film: "Whether it's water, rice or sake... when something becomes a part of a person, it's a union. It joins their soul." They eventually arrive at the crater, which somehow is connected to the netherworld. As Grandma explains, "In order to return to this world, you have to leave behind what's most important to you." In this case, it's the kuchikami sake that was made earlier in the film, because it's "half of Mitsuha." Now, I'm not sure how rice wine made with human saliva can be counted as "half of a person" when comparing to the Ancient Egyptians preserving entire organs such as the stomach and liver in canopic jars. The scene ends with a beautiful panoramic shot of the countryside during Golden Hour (a sight that Max would have loved to capture on film), and Grandma commenting that Mitsuha is "dreaming right now."
The next part of the film covers Taki finally going on a date with Miki, which was arranged by Mitsuha. Taki, being a certified virgin (his fascination with getting his "hands on [Mitsuha's] ample nacelles" during the body swapping felt like a dead giveaway), has difficulty in saying the right things to Miki. The date ends when Miki arrives at the conclusion that Taki has fallen in love for someone else. Taki tries to deny it. Miki approaches him (as if giving him a good opportunity to kiss her), asking "Are you sure about that?" Taki seems frozen by indecision, and Miki thanks him and bids farewell. Oh man, what a squandered moment. You go out on a date with the one person you have a crush on, yet don't take the chance to express your feelings for this individual?! Unless by that point, Taki subconsciously no longer saw Miki as a love interest. But if he didn't and was still weighing his options, couldn't he have at least given a hug... if not a kiss?
Once night has fallen, Taki attempts to finally call Mitsuha to inform her how the date turned out. Back at Itomori, Mitsuha decided to cut her hair and goes off to see the comet along with Saya and Tessie. The comet splits in half, and we cut back to Taki. He's unable to contact Mitsuha due to her number being "outside the cellular network." We then find out from a voiceover from Taki that after that day, the body swapping "never happened again."
"I'm the ghost in the back of your head..."
Right after his first ever date, we get to see Taki at last doing his pastime: drawing. He recreates from memory places from Itomori, eventually crafting a drawing of the entire town. As he moves on from one day to the next, he seems agitated. This restlessness drives him to finally go on a trip to find Itomori, in the hopes of getting to see Mitsuha in person.
As Taki is on his way to catch a train, he gets an unexpected surprise. Miki and Taki's friend Tsukasa (That Guy with the Glasses) show up at the station, concerned that someone is playing an elaborate prank on Taki. With that, these Three Musketeers head out into rural Japan to find the town in Taki's drawing. Despite Miki's promise of "Guess we'll help you search", Taki ends up being the one asking locals about the mysterious town's location. His two friends meanwhile sample the local cusine and try to enjoy the local sights. At the now "famous" Miyagawa Ochiai Bus Stop, Taki calls off the search.
At a ramen restaurant, while planning their return to Tokyo, a waitress recognizes Taki's sketch. When Taki asks if the town is nearby, a major bombshell is dropped. Itomori was destroyed three years earlier by a fragment of Comet Tiamat. The film's goes through a tonal shift. Later that day, Taki discovers that over 500 people died in the disaster, and that the town hasn't been resettled ever since. Hmm... sounds like what could happen after the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending. Among the casualties was Mitsuha. Taki attempts to rationalize his experiences by asking, "It was all just a dream.... Is she a ghost? Or, did I just make it up, the whole thing?" He's joined by Miki, who notices the band on Taki's wrist. Upon reflecting on his wrist band, he says "The cords represent the flow of time. They twist and tangle. Unravel and connect. And that's what time is." Dreams and the flow of time being mentioned in one scene? The Nolan fanboy in me greatly approves.
The next day, Taki decides to go on alone to the crater where the relic of Miyamizu Shrine was kept. When he gets there, he takes a leap of faith by drinking Mitsuha's kuchikami sake, saying "Musubi... if it's true, that time can be unraveled, just give me one more chance." One fan made an interesting comment on this scene:
After witnessing all those memories, we find Taki awaken in Mitsuha's body on the very day the comet strikes. A most interesting coincidence for Life is Strange fans is that Itomori was destroyed in October 2013! Why did it have to be the same month and year as when the game takes place? (The exact date is October 4, 2013 though, one week before the game's events.) Anyway, what follows is the buildup to my favorite part of the film. It was so awesome that I'll talk about it in its own separate section later on in this post. But to sum things up, Taki finds a way to save Mitsuha and does something badass in the process.
Once the badass moments of awesome transpires, we get to the film's denouement. A time jump to 2021 happens, five years after Taki embarked on his quest for Itomori. According to what I've read online, the five year gap was chosen as a reference to the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. We see Taki attempting to find work as an architect. He meets up with Miki one last time, and they reminisce about that time five years ago when he was obsessed with the incident involving the comet. Before she leaves, Miki shows Taki what appears to be an engagement ring, and wishes that he'll "find happiness too." While Taki's in a cafe, he overhears a conversation between two very familiar characters about their wedding plans. Taki has passes by a peculiar individual one night, as if he sensed the Force in this person. A short montage ensues, showing the whereabouts of some minor characters, and one special girl with a pigtail in high school. When we hear the bridge of the song Nandemonaiya by Radwimps, we get to see the film's opening of two individuals waking up in their separate apartments. Turns out they were Taki and Mitsuha. They carry on their day as usual... until the trains they are on that are going in opposite directions pass by and they see each other again. A frantic search ensues, as one tries to find the other. They end up at opposite ends of a staircase near Suga Shrine.
In what is perhaps the most iconic scene in the film, they walk on the stairs seemingly going on their own separate ways. Until Taki finally takes the initiative and asks Mitsuha if they've met before. With tears streaming down her face, Mitsuha answers what amounts to a resounding yes. They ask the other's name, and the film ends on a very hopeful and poignant note... with the title appearing prior to the end credits like in your typical Nolan film.
What makes this all the more amazing is that the film's director isn't known for making happy endings. As TV Tropes writes:
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| Yeah, this is a real place. Unlike Arcadia Bay... |
The next day, Taki decides to go on alone to the crater where the relic of Miyamizu Shrine was kept. When he gets there, he takes a leap of faith by drinking Mitsuha's kuchikami sake, saying "Musubi... if it's true, that time can be unraveled, just give me one more chance." One fan made an interesting comment on this scene:
While it is probably consumable, that it has been left to sit under the mountain for upwards of three years in an environment conducive for the growth of molds meant that Taki runs the risk of growing very sick when consuming it. However, for the narrative’s sake, I will set aside my inner health scientist and allow this to slide, since his actions allow things to advance.Drinking the kuchikami sake induces Taki into a trance that shows critical moments of Mitsuha's childhood. We find out that her mother died due to some unnamed illness. This caused her father to pursue a political career, and estranged him from his own two girls. When Taki sees Mitsuha on the day of the comet's appearance, he tries in vain to warn her. Since he's in "the space between spaces", which is outside Mitsuha's timeline, she couldn't hear him. Taki could only helplessly watch Mitsuha in her final moments as the comet fragment hits the town.
After witnessing all those memories, we find Taki awaken in Mitsuha's body on the very day the comet strikes. A most interesting coincidence for Life is Strange fans is that Itomori was destroyed in October 2013! Why did it have to be the same month and year as when the game takes place? (The exact date is October 4, 2013 though, one week before the game's events.) Anyway, what follows is the buildup to my favorite part of the film. It was so awesome that I'll talk about it in its own separate section later on in this post. But to sum things up, Taki finds a way to save Mitsuha and does something badass in the process.
Once the badass moments of awesome transpires, we get to the film's denouement. A time jump to 2021 happens, five years after Taki embarked on his quest for Itomori. According to what I've read online, the five year gap was chosen as a reference to the devastating 2011 Tōhoku earthquake. We see Taki attempting to find work as an architect. He meets up with Miki one last time, and they reminisce about that time five years ago when he was obsessed with the incident involving the comet. Before she leaves, Miki shows Taki what appears to be an engagement ring, and wishes that he'll "find happiness too." While Taki's in a cafe, he overhears a conversation between two very familiar characters about their wedding plans. Taki has passes by a peculiar individual one night, as if he sensed the Force in this person. A short montage ensues, showing the whereabouts of some minor characters, and one special girl with a pigtail in high school. When we hear the bridge of the song Nandemonaiya by Radwimps, we get to see the film's opening of two individuals waking up in their separate apartments. Turns out they were Taki and Mitsuha. They carry on their day as usual... until the trains they are on that are going in opposite directions pass by and they see each other again. A frantic search ensues, as one tries to find the other. They end up at opposite ends of a staircase near Suga Shrine.
In what is perhaps the most iconic scene in the film, they walk on the stairs seemingly going on their own separate ways. Until Taki finally takes the initiative and asks Mitsuha if they've met before. With tears streaming down her face, Mitsuha answers what amounts to a resounding yes. They ask the other's name, and the film ends on a very hopeful and poignant note... with the title appearing prior to the end credits like in your typical Nolan film.
What makes this all the more amazing is that the film's director isn't known for making happy endings. As TV Tropes writes:
This film is possibly the first Makoto Shinkai work that has a Happy Ending for everyone else involved. Shinkai's previous works mostly have Bittersweet Ending, but in this film, not only do Taki and Mitsuha managed to prevent a tragic event that would've killed Mitsuha and hundreds of people from happening, they also finally managed to find each other in the ending and break into Tears of Joy upon reuniting with each other. The novelization also heavily implies that they do end up together, subverting the Starcrossed Lovers presented in most Shinkai works. Taki and Mitsuha not only earned their happy ending, we, the audience, also earned it as well after several emotional rollercoaster trips in Shinkai's previous films.
Ironing out the bugs
Since Your Name's release back in 2016, its popularity has surged along with the amount of money and praise it was getting. Of course, a highly regarded film was bound to attract criticism. What I found rather odd was that there was a bigger percentage of critical user reviews from sites like My Anime List as opposed to places like IMDB. Some of the points brought up by critical reviews are surprisingly valid. When combined, they weaken the film's overall quality. For me, the most notable complaints are....
1) "Well, you're safe and sound now, back in good old 1955." One of the biggest plot twists in Your Name is that the body swapping occurred between two individuals who were separated by three years. A major problem arises when you realize that Taki and Mitsuha were somehow totally unaware of the current year they were in. As described on Ranker:
At one critical point of the film, Taki and Mitsuha try to remember each other's names. For some reason, Taki somehow forgets Mitsuha's name at a faster rate than she does. Was it because he tried to write her name? Feels like one more example of plot convenience. Our protagonists being able to recall some specifics while forgetting critical details is a plot point the film failed to resolve in a satisfying manner. As two reviewers noted:
1) "Well, you're safe and sound now, back in good old 1955." One of the biggest plot twists in Your Name is that the body swapping occurred between two individuals who were separated by three years. A major problem arises when you realize that Taki and Mitsuha were somehow totally unaware of the current year they were in. As described on Ranker:
[Your Name's premise] falls apart when you realize there's no way Mitsuha and Taki could possibly have gone all that time without realizing they were in the wrong year.
Both of them had cell phones that display the date. Both had access to the internet and TV. They both attended school, and there is no way they didn't have to write the date on at least one assignment or see it on the board.
Taki had a job, which means he had to deal with a schedule and most likely received paychecks on a biweekly basis. There's absolutely no way this glaring detail escaped both of them.2) "Memory can change the shape of a room; it can change the color of a car. And memories can be distorted. They're just an interpretation, they're not a record, and they're irrelevant if you have the facts." For me, one of the key attractions of Your Name would be the film's use of memory. Taki and Mitsuha writing messages on each other's bodies reminded me of Memento. Sadly, unlike Memento, memory is used to advance the plot in an artificial manner. For example, when Taki is on his date with Miki, he visits an art gallery that has pictures of Itomori, yet he doesn't find out the town's name in the exhibit. Taki also manged to create an accurate drawing of the town. He was able to recollect the layout and geography of a specific place, yet he couldn't take into account its name? Or at least look it up online? It gets worse when considering that Itomori was originally destroyed by a comet fragment, which means that news media would have at least mentioned the disaster and any related details... like the affected town's name and its original appearance. Any records of that would be easier to find than that of some lakeside town where nothing newsworthy happened.
At one critical point of the film, Taki and Mitsuha try to remember each other's names. For some reason, Taki somehow forgets Mitsuha's name at a faster rate than she does. Was it because he tried to write her name? Feels like one more example of plot convenience. Our protagonists being able to recall some specifics while forgetting critical details is a plot point the film failed to resolve in a satisfying manner. As two reviewers noted:
...plot amnesia is introduced for added gratuitous drama. There is no reason for the characters to become stupid, or amnesiacs, and it detracts from the believability of the characters and the plot.
...this film doesn't shy from using amnesia as well. Whenever the two speak to each other, or share messages, or anything, it's almost instantly afterwards that they forget about it. They're left with a lingering feeling of "I feel like I'm missing something" but they still fail to remember anything in the end. This is all because of plot convenience, because it allows the plot to continue on for far longer than it really needs to.
One way this problem could have been mitigated if the film borrowed a key element from Memento: anterograde amnesia. Had our protagonists been afflicted by this medical condition, it would have made the selective memory loss much more bearable to stomach.
3) "But Master Yoda, who could have erased information from the archives?" One of the most egregious examples of plot convenience in the film transpires when Taki finds out that Itomori was destroyed three years earlier. Upon seeing the remains of the town, he checks the diary entries and messages Mitsuha left behind on his phone. At that very moment, all those digital records get wiped out. What?! Why didn't this happen the moment the body swapping stopped? Why did it occur only at the exact time when Taki knew about the disaster? And how did whatever supernatural force that caused this knew exactly what to delete from his phone? Why go through all that trouble instead of simply frying the phone to render it totally useless?
The film does a poor job of establishing its supernatural aspects. If you thought Max's time travel abilities were inconsistent, well.... Take for instance the body swapping. As one fan observed:
3) "But Master Yoda, who could have erased information from the archives?" One of the most egregious examples of plot convenience in the film transpires when Taki finds out that Itomori was destroyed three years earlier. Upon seeing the remains of the town, he checks the diary entries and messages Mitsuha left behind on his phone. At that very moment, all those digital records get wiped out. What?! Why didn't this happen the moment the body swapping stopped? Why did it occur only at the exact time when Taki knew about the disaster? And how did whatever supernatural force that caused this knew exactly what to delete from his phone? Why go through all that trouble instead of simply frying the phone to render it totally useless?
The film does a poor job of establishing its supernatural aspects. If you thought Max's time travel abilities were inconsistent, well.... Take for instance the body swapping. As one fan observed:
Mechanics behind how [the film] uses body switching are never explained in any real capacity: the limitations and constraints associated with switching bodies, such as the preservation of knowledge and experiences, are largely left arbitrary. The largest question audiences are left wondering about is just how much of the other’s memory one has access to when their bodies are switched.
In Life is Strange, Max got her time travel abilities immediately after witnessing her best friend Chloe getting shot in the girl's bathroom. In Your Name, the body swapping is triggered because... Comet Tiamat is only a month away from approaching Earth? Okay... We have an appropriate and unmistakable trigger for time travel in Life is Strange as opposed to Your Name's body swapping. To add to this, why did the body swap take place between two individuals that were separated by a three year time gap? Right now, the only explanation I can come up with is that someone from the future with knowledge of the disaster had to go back to the past to save the town. But if that were the case, why didn't Taki experienced it sooner, say in September 2014 instead of September 2016? These illustrate how ill defined the rules were for the film's unearthly phenomenon. In the words of two different reviewers:
4) "She was beautiful. To me, she was perfect." When Taki swaps bodies with Mitsuha one last time, he got to relive one of her memories... the day she went to Tokyo. According to some viewers online, Mitsuha left in order to "wish Taki good luck in person for his date with Miki."
After wandering around the city for hours, we find Mitsuha sitting at a train station bench. By sheer luck, she spots Taki riding a passing train. Mitsuha scrambles to get on board as the train stops. Once on the train, she tries to get Taki's attention. Since the body swapping for Taki has yet to occur, he doesn't recognize her. What comes next, as one reviewer described it:
What made this scene somewhat break my suspension of disbelief was a simple observation, as described by one reviewer:
I'm not saying they should have tried to explain everything with science, but if they were just gonna do supernatural/fantasy then why build up the [mystery] of the body switch in the first part? And even if it's just supernatural, it still should have some basic rules of how it works, otherwise everything is just deus ex machina and magic that just happens and works because magic.
As much as l like the whole body swapping concept I feel it is poorly explained as are the mystical elements of the story. It literally comes down to some kind of magical spit wine, shooting stars, time traveling yarn, and/or some family bloodline thing, all of which are equally obtuse.... Overall I find that simpler explanations (or any at all) for the mystical elements would have benefited the story.Speaking of "magical spit wine", good thing Taki somehow remembered which bottle of kuchikami sake to drink... or else the film would have gone in a completely different (albeit probably a more comedic) direction:
4) "She was beautiful. To me, she was perfect." When Taki swaps bodies with Mitsuha one last time, he got to relive one of her memories... the day she went to Tokyo. According to some viewers online, Mitsuha left in order to "wish Taki good luck in person for his date with Miki."
After wandering around the city for hours, we find Mitsuha sitting at a train station bench. By sheer luck, she spots Taki riding a passing train. Mitsuha scrambles to get on board as the train stops. Once on the train, she tries to get Taki's attention. Since the body swapping for Taki has yet to occur, he doesn't recognize her. What comes next, as one reviewer described it:
And for WHATEVER reason, the girl doesn't question this at ALL! She pretty much just accepts it, with hardly any struggle. Not asking the guy if he's had any strange dreams recently, nothing. She doesn't even think for a second to wonder, "why doesn't he know who I am?" Even though, if she DID think that way, she'd realize that something's wrong and might even be able to figure out what's going on.Mitsuha was left heartbroken, and decides to disembark at the next station. Just as she's about to step off the train, Taki asks her name. Mitsuha responds, and pulls out the braided cord on her hair. Taki grabs the cord... and keeps it for the next three years as a lucky charm. Hmm... what if Max's blue and red silicone wristbands had a backstory. One can present the case that the body swap happens specifically between Taki and Mitsuha because of this cord.
What made this scene somewhat break my suspension of disbelief was a simple observation, as described by one reviewer:
A strange girl gave you [a] braided cord [on a train] and you don't even know her, why care to keep it for three years?The scene's biggest problem was Taki's reaction... or lack thereof. In the film, he reacts by thinking "What a weird girl." So why did he keep the cord in the first place? Was it because Mitsuha:
- had smitten Taki with her looks?
- helped him with something?
- demonstrated a talent or skill that caught his attention?
- shared a common interest with him (favorite music, movie, book, anime, etc)?
- was in fact his childhood best friend that he "ghosted" years ago, and didn't recognize at first because they haven't seen each other in ages?
With how things stand right now, the most plausible explanation is that it's because of "the will of the Force"... or the red string of fate that connects Taki and Mitsuha deemed it so. This answer can also extend to the reason why was it Taki the one who experienced the body swapping, instead of some random Tokyo boy. The scene would feel much more believable if we see Taki literally fall in love at first sight. Taki could have said to himself, "She's acting strange. But she is beautiful. And somehow she knows my name. Huh. Perhaps I should give her a chance. It's not everyday that a pretty girl wants to talk to me." For Mitsuha, she could have done something to better grab Taki's attention. Perhaps if she acted like a cute, clumsy girl and caused an incident that would have compelled Taki to have a conversation with her... thus providing a better setup for Taki to keep the cord.
5) "I'm not gonna make any excuses for my behavior.... I tried to be a good father, too..." Perhaps the biggest challenge our heroes face in the film was to save the population of an entire town from total annihilation. The final hurdle was for Mitsuha to convince her father, the Mayor of Itomori, to order the evacuation. Alas, we never got to see this happen on screen. In the words of one reviewer:
...the fact that everyone was evacuated before the comet hit OFF screen felt really lazy and that scene could have been fantastic character development for Mitsuha as she would of had to finally confront her father and we could learn more about their relationship. I can perhaps understand that the writer may have wanted to create some suspense for the audience by leaving it ambiguous as to weather or not they escaped but since we find out only three minutes later it seems kind of pointless in retrospect.In Life is Strange, after a critical part of Episode 5, Chloe's stepdad David admits to Max about his failures being a parent. This scene helped humanize David's character to the audience and made him more sympathetic. We never got anything similar in Your Name. This becomes a bigger missed opportunity when you do a little digging and find out that Mitsuha's dad has a better backstory than David for audiences to sympathize with. This backstory was revealed in a companion novel titled Another Side: Earthbound (yes, there's a manga with a similar title, but it only covers two of the novel's four chapters). As one fan describes it:
...[in one part where he's visiting his wife at the hospital, he] said that he felt sorry that he had to bring [his wife to] a low-budget hospital and he [wishes that he] could go to the city hospital if he can. (and asked what Itomori's city [council] have been doing)
[After the death of his wife, Mitsuha's dad] decided to become the mayor so that the hospital(s) will be even matter and lesser people will die due to the low-cost equipment in the hospitals. [He] wouldn't want anyone to [experience what he faced]; [his wife might have survived] if the equipment in the hospital [were]... modernized.Well, that was interesting. It gives the Mayor a much needed backstory. Too bad this was never hinted at in the film. Seeing all that on screen along with Mitsuha's confrontation with her father would've help with the film's overall quality.
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| "You did good Mitsuha. You did good. I'm proud of you." |
Pirate Power
One of the key strengths of Life is Strange is the game's soundtrack. Your Name also has a soundtrack that I found surprisingly good. Made by the Japanese rock band Radwimps in the span of 18 months, the film's music doesn't have the hallmarks of what a stereotypical Western rock band would have brought to the table. On the contrary, the soundtrack in general is closer to classical music than rock. To my amazement, the musical score utilizes a lot of delightful piano and violin instrumentation. Your Name has almost triple the instrumental tracks that Life is Strange has (the former has 23, while the latter has 8). And similar to Life is Strange, the highlight of the film's soundtrack are the songs. Whereas Life is Strange had to use already produced songs in its soundtrack, the songs in Your Name were specially created for the film. On their own, the songs are superb. If you are a Life is Strange fan however, the songs in Your Name hold greater significance. Why? Because, if you read carefully the lyrics, the songs seem more appropriate if they're placed within the context of the game. Sounds far-fetched? The following will emphasize specific parts of the songs with commentary from a Life is Strange perspective.
Zenzenzense:
Sparkle:
Zenzenzense:
Where should I start? How should I explain?The highlighted portion of this verse seems comparable to the line when Chloe tells Max "And... you traveled through multiple realities just to... save my ungrateful ass over and over."
Wanna tell you everything that happened while you were in a long, long dream
I flew through dozens of skies
To tell you adventures I've been through hundreds of millions of light-years' worth
But now I'm here, finally seeing you reflected in my eyes
I wonder if we can push our way throughI'd interpret the song's third verse as Max becoming more decisive through the game's events, her desire to defy the universe's murderous pursuit of Chloe, and that they'll face future problems together.
The countless barrier that's waiting in the future just beyond our view
Side by side, no way we can lose
We'll beat destiny at its own game and make it follow our own rules
And there isn't any weapon besides you that I need to use
Back in the Zenzenzense 'til this dayThe song's chorus can represent Max's determination to save Chloe. As she says to Chloe in Polarized, "You brought me back here, and I can't lose you again. I won't!"
Been looking everywhere for you
I followed the sound of your innocent laughter
And it guided me in the right way
Even if every piece of you disappeared
And if it scattered everywhere
No, I won't waver, I'll start back at one
Look for you all over again
Or maybe instead I'll take the whole universe
Right back to zero again
Sparkle:
Caught in a never-ending game
Seems like the world's still trying to tame me
If that's the way, I will obey
Beautifully struggle every day
This part can signify Max struggling to choose between a limited set of choices that may not have the best possible outcome for everyone. From a meta perspective, she's at the mercy of Dontnod's decisions.
Even the way that you loved
I swear I could smell the scent of yours
And in the way that you walked
I could hear that bright laughter of yours
Since one day you will disappearThe highlighted portion denotes what I feel would be the bare minimum what Max will do if Chloe died. When Chloe says "Don't you forget about me...", Max responds with a simple "Never."
I'll keep every part of you
Make sure that it's burned into the back of my eyes
It's not a right that I'm due
My duty that is must have been kept
Words like "tomorrow" or "future" or "fate"Hmm, we have loads of time related words in the song's chorus. Most interesting. Feels like that they're in line with the game's use of time travel, and all that talk about destiny and fate. The final three lines read like an affirmation of Max telling Chloe "I always wanted my life to be special... an adventure... but not without you."
No matter how far they extend their hands
We breathe, we dream, we raise our love
In a timeless land that is far out of reach
Even the second, hour hands of the clock
They look at us sideways as they tick and tock
How I hope to have forever to spend
This life, no—all future lives
Right here in this world with you
Overall, I say Sparkle is song that can be dedicated to Pricefield (or whichever is your preferred romantic relationship).
Nandemonaiya (It’s Nothing):
If you ask me, Nandemonaiya is Your Name's answer to Spanish Sahara. Thanks to its lyrics, the song feels best suited for the Sacrifice Chloe ending.
I used to wish upon the stars, the toys that I once adored
Forgotten now, are rolling 'round the corners of the floor
Finally, my dreams have counted up to a hundred today
Someday, I'll trade them all for just the very one
Girl that I have seen in school, that never have told "hello"The hundred dreams mentioned can be seen as the outcomes that resulted from Max rewinding time and changing history. However, her ideal choice in this context would be to have the one where Chloe lives. "Trying something new" fits right in when you remember that Max seems more open to try out new things when Chloe's around.
After class today, I waved and said, “See you tomorrow”
It's not really that bad trying something new every once in a while
Especially if I can do it with you by my side
Now, just a little moreThe song's bridge can signify Max's desire to put things on pause when a seemingly perfect moment happens. As she says at the Two Whales Diner, "I wish I could stay in this moment forever... I guess I actually can now. But then it wouldn't be a moment..." The song's bridge is heart wrenching to listen if it's played during the photo montage in the Sacrifice Chloe ending.
Only just a little more
Let's stay here a little longer now
Now, just a little more
Only just a little more
Let's stick together just a little bit longer
Even if you're not around in this wide worldThese lines perfectly sums up how I believe Max would feel after Chloe's death.
Of course it surely would have some kind of meaning
But if when you're not around in this crazy world
Would be like the month of August without summer break
And if you're not around in this great world
Would be like Santa Claus without any glee
If you're not around in this wide world
Oh, we are time fliers
Dashing up the steps of time now
No more playing hide and seek with you and time
And always coming just short
You're quite a showy crier
Want to stop your tears, see your eyes drier
But when I went to wipe your tears dry
You refused but I saw them pouring down your face, I knew why
Crying even when I'm happyIf Max ain't a "time flier", then I don't know who is. It's an appropriate nickname for The Girl Who Can Rewind Time. Playing hide and seek? Sounds like Obstacles to me, except now it represents a more determined attitude of wanting to get the best possible outcome. The final four lines can represent the contrasting emotions that Max would feel after a traumatic event such as Chloe's death, or if she fails to save Kate. That she is deeply hurt on the inside while putting up a facade of normalcy in public, all because she's too "kind and caring." As she said during a moment of calm in Chrysalis, "This is what it's like to be alone and feel lonely at once..."
Smiling even when I'm feeling lonely
It's because the heart of mine
Has made it here before my body
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| If only "The High Seas" band in the Life is Strange comics were likable as them... |
"I don’t think I’ll ever know how much destiny I’m changing… But who ever said we only have a single fate?"
Players who completed Life is Strange will have their own opinion regarding the game's ending. But everyone who made it that far will point out that it's (probably) the worst thing about the game.
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| "Why does somebody always have to die in this scenario?" |
In Your Name, a near identical scenario is presented. A backwater town faces a doomsday scenario, and a heroine has to be saved from dying. However, no one is sacrificed. With how this entire segment of the film turned out, it's as if someone played Life is Strange and hated the ending so much that they decided to prove Dontnod wrong by showing that you can save both the town and the heroine. How did they manage to pull that off? Well, here's a recap....
Taki wakes up in Mitsuha's body on the day that Comet Tiamat passes Earth. After one final Family Guy worthy joke involving Yotsuha, we get a conversation with Grandma. Turns out that she had some "strange dreams" in the past. Taki surmises that the ultimate purpose behind the body swapping was to prevent the upcoming disaster. He then enlists the help of Tessie and Saya, who are shocked by Mitsuha's new haircut... as though the first thought that came into their heads was that their best friend was contemplating suicide. After declaring "It's up to us to save everyone!", the group spring into action. They use a clubroom at the school as a temporary lair to come up with a plan to evacuate the town. It involved a takeover of the town's warning system from school, and to detonate a bomb somewhere in town. Saya was to broadcast the evacuation orders, while Tessie had to get some "water gel explosives" from the storage site of his dad's company. Taki as Mitsuha decides to convince the Mayor, an endeavor that fails as the Mayor figured out that his own daughter was in fact someone else. Feeling forlorn, Taki as Mitsuha walks back to the town proper, and tries to persuade some kids to leave town. Yotsuha appears on the scene, and gets a plea from her elder sister to "leave town with Grandma before dark." Yotsuha feels concerned, and reveals that Mitsuha went to Tokyo the previous day. This fact gives Taki pause, wondering if Mitsuha is in his body at the crater. He takes action by borrowing Tessie's bike and heads up, saying to him and Saya to "Get things ready as we planned." At the shrine god's relic, Mitsuha wakes up in Taki's body. She goes to the crater's edge, and sees a lake where Itomori once stood, which leads her to the conclusion she had died sometime ago. Elsewhere, as Taki makes way to the crater, he retrieves Mitsuha's memory of her trip to Tokyo from the day before. In the process, he looses Tessie's bike by accident. Later on, Mitsuha as Taki senses "a disturbance in the Force" and hears her name being called out. She calls out Taki's name, and promptly the two search for each other. They run at the crater's edge, but can't see each other due to the being separated by 3 years. They sense the other's presence after running past each other. But it's only after Golden Hour (or Magic Hour) starts that they finally see each other. It happens at that specific moment only because, as one viewer wrote, it's "the moment (dawn or dusk) when 'one' might encounter unnatural things." The pair have a long overdue face-to-face and heartwarming conversation. It's here where the film depicts in a literal manner what is arguably the most notable line from Interstellar: "Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space." As one fan described the scene:
Author Robert McKee wrote the following in his book Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting:
With all that in mind, it's worth remembering the excuse... ahem, I mean, "logic" behind Life is Strange's ending:
And props to Shinkai and Toho for resisting the temptation to call Weathering With You as Your Name 2.
Under twilight, Mitsuha berates Taki for having groped her and being bold enough to drink the Kuchikamizake, but their conversation soon turns into a warm one — despite having never met physically, the two are as close as any friends, and after resolving to try her best to help evacuate the town, Mitsuha and Taki write their names down so they will remember after they return to their own timelines. The two revert into their original bodies after, and Mitsuha sets off to try and save Itomori’s inhabitants.At that moment, the song Sparkle by Radwimps begins to play. Mitsuha and Tessie rendevous at the town's electric substation, with Tessie musing that they're "both officially criminals." After setting up the explosives, the pair contact Saya to give final instructions for her War of the Worlds broadcast of a fake attack on the town. Moments later, the explosives go off, causing a blackout in the area. On queue, emergency sirens blare and Saya begins broadcasting the evacuation plan. Mitsuha and Tessie make their way to the festival grounds, warning of a wild fire. With a good deal of people not leaving the area, Tessie felt that it was necessary to implicate first responders to aid in the evacuation... which needed the Mayor's approval. Mitsuha runs off to the Town Hall to confront her dad. As this happens, Saya gets apprehended, ending her broadcast. Tessie is busted by his dad, with him saying "This is the end." The comet is shown splitting in half in the sky through several beautiful shots. While running to the town hall, Mitsuha tries to remember Taki's name. She trips over, and finally sees what Taki wrote on her hand: "I love you." Mitsuha seems to have mixed emotions over this, as it won't help her remember his name. Nonetheless, she pushes on to the Town Hall. As the song ends, we get to see a couple of shots from the film's beginning before the comet fragment hits the town... landing at Mitsuha's house of all places! The film would later on confirm that the evacuation was a success, with the official story that there was an emergency drill on that same day.
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| Mitsuha: "Taki... I'll always be with you." Taki: "Forever..." |
True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure - the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character's essential nature.This quote is clearly demonstrated in Your Name. Taki could have taken the easy way out by having Mitsuha leave town all by herself. Instead, he decided to save not only Mitsuha, but her family, friends, and ultimately the rest of the town's inhabitants. This is all the more striking when you recall that we never got to see Taki forming a deep emotional connection with anyone else in the town. For Mitsuha, it's important to remember that earlier in the film she declared "I hate this town!" Despite that, she decides to carry out Taki's plan to evacuate the town, saying "I'll do my best." Before the game's final decision, Max tells Chloe that "You are all that matters to me" and "I won't trade you." In contrast, Taki and Mitsuha don't get emotionally compromised that they loose sight of saving the town. The fact they only had a few minutes to make a decision during Magic Hour and didn't debate if is worth helping 500 strangers makes their efforts all the more praiseworthy. Taki and Mitsuha saving a town that didn't owe them anything is a defining moment for both of their characters, giving perhaps the best example that they matured within the course of the film.
With all that in mind, it's worth remembering the excuse... ahem, I mean, "logic" behind Life is Strange's ending:
You make a sacrifice to accept your life as it is, to stop trying to have a perfect life, changing everything, and to stop looking to the past. This is the metaphor and the theme of the game. Somehow, you need to accept grief, you need to accept the past, you need to stop trying to make everything perfect, and then think about the future. To make a compromise, and then go for a while and try to make the best of your future, not by changing the past.While its a sound idea that people should learn from the past (not "live" in it), focus on living in the present, and plan for the future, there are far better ways to convey this notion instead of some no win scenario that forces an undeserving character like Max through a lot of undue pain and trauma. And where the hell is the "compromise" that Dontnod mentioned in the ending? Souls for one soul? Balderdash! After giving it much thought, Your Name (accidentally) provides a far less insulting execution of showing the theme for Life is Strange's ending. The "grief" in the film is Taki and Mitsuha forgetting each other in the eight (or nine) years after Itomori's destruction until their fateful encounter at the end. One article from Polygon described this "grief" in an interesting manner:
They never get to really hold each other. They’re bound to this faint memory of an intense emotion they shared with each other, but they can’t remember the other person’s name as time goes on. They can’t remember what the other person looks like. As much as they want to, they can’t be together.Our protagonists have accepted the past and stopped trying to make everything perfect. As Polygon puts it:
Taki and Mitsuha don’t spend their five years planning in the back of their minds a way to get back together with the one person they long for the most. This isn’t a Hollywood-style romantic film. They accept they’ll spend their lives yearning for this part of their life that they’ll never get back and deal with the ennui that can often times elicit.Neither of them travel back in time after Taki's first and only attempt. By the film's final act, Taki and Mitsuha have already thought of the future. Taki searches for work while Mitsuha is acclimating to living in an urban area. While no one dies, it sure ain't the unambiguous fairy tale ending that Dontnod was determined to avoid at all costs. To borrow a third quote from Polygon:
Your Name is a sad movie. It has a happy ending and there are funny moments, but it’s sad. It’s heartbreaking. It’s absolutely devastating. It manages to achieve all of this because of how honest its characters are about not expecting anything. They’re content with the idea of living with a dull ache, just like many of us are. We move on. We try to forget. We continue living.
Your Name ends on a happy note, but Taki and Mitsuha’s decision to persevere [is] where the movie finds its real heart.... Your Name reminds us it’s okay to move on even if we never truly let go.If the film had a fairy tale ending, then Taki and Mitsuha would reunite immediately right after the town's evacuation, with their memories completely intact, be hailed as heroes, and have a much deserved, loving kiss before the film cuts to the end credits. Your Name's ending feels like a cathartic combination between the game's theme of "There's always some compromise, some trade-off you have to do, and then you have to focus more on what comes next than what came before" and the wish fulfillment of Max saving both Chloe and Arcadia Bay's residents. To borrow a phrase from Captain America, Your Name does not "trade lives." The film did not need to subject Taki and Mitsuha through excessive, gratuitous suffering to convey its themes to audiences.
Since we are on the subject of Life is Strange's ending, I'd like to bring up what Dontnod has stated regarding the matter of changing the game's ending:
I think we are really happy with the final product.... "We've been, of course, looking and listening to the players' reactions." I see that some players feel there should have been more endings or more variations on endings based on your choice, but still, for us, I don't think we'd change the way it is, because it was really important that those two endings, like we said before, offer definitive choice.... We still don't think we'd change anything, even if players would have loved to see more outcomes based on their choice.Now contrast Dontnod's arrogant, shameless, out of touch response to what Your Name's director Makoto Shinkai has said on his film's overall quality:
There were things that we couldn't do.... For me it's incomplete, unbalanced. The plot is fine but the film is not at all perfect. Two years was not enough.Despite the film's critical and financial success, it was a real surprise reading this for the first time. Instead of using "artistic integrity" as a shield to hide behind and pretend there is nothing to change, Shinkai responded in a manner that Dontnod should have when it came to the very faulty ending of Life is Strange: there is room for improvement. It's tragic that Max Caulfield didn't have a level headed creator like Shinkai to give her a better ending that she deserves.
And props to Shinkai and Toho for resisting the temptation to call Weathering With You as Your Name 2.
Characters and society
The characters in Your Name are an interesting bunch. To some degree, one could get this feeling that they are bland, generic and (at times) cliched. Taki feels strangely like a blank slate, as though he was created to be the player character in a RPG. Thankfully the film made him and most of the other characters likable to say the least. After watching the film the first time around, the one shortcoming I immediately pointed out was the lack of character development. As one fan observed:
Now that's out of the way, I guess it's time to ask if Your Name's characters are comparable to the cast of Life is Strange.... Not quite. This is because the similarities between the film and the game's characters are imprecise. Despite what my comparison pictures may have implied, I don't think that Max and Mitsuha are very much alike, at all. Max and Taki are more similar, as they are both artistically inclined, have no siblings, and lived in the big city. Then again, Max looks like she never had worked before, is more introverted than Taki, and that she is not as daring in getting her hands on someone's "no touching zones"... especially if its a stranger. On that note, if you thought Warren was a creepy stalker, Taki's fondness of grabbing Mitsuha's "ample nacelles" should give you pause for thought. Remember, we don't see Warren crossing that line with Max... even when he's drunk at The End of the World Party. Among Your Name's characters, I feel that Tessie is most similar to Warren, given his solid friendship with Mitsuha and his dependability to even blow up a power station... which reminded me of that part in Episode 3 when Max asked Warren's help to make a pipe bomb. This leaves Saya as the Kate Marsh of the film (the dependable, polite girl best friend), except she ain't religious, doesn't have to put up with bullying, nor has suicidal thoughts. Strangely enough, there is no real Victoria Chase nor Nathan Prescott equivalent in Your Name (the two girls and that one guy who kept teasing Mitsuha doesn't count), and the film has no villains like Mr. Jefferson. For Miki, I say she has a passing similarity with Rachel Amber: the beautiful girl, who is popular with the guys, with an air of mystery to her. Luckily for Taki, despite not returning Miki's feelings for him, she doesn't "betray" him and the two remained good friends. It's tempting to compare Mitsuha to Chloe, given their dislike of their respective hometowns and the presence of an overbearing father figure in their lives. But Mitsuha is not a "hellraiser" like Chloe. Despite her "hatred" of Itomori, the loss of her mom and her dad becoming distant, Mitsuha never succumbed to vices such as smoking, drinking, and drugs to cope with her problems. Nor does she become a delinquent who eventually gets expelled from school. Then again, Mitsuha wasn't abandoned by Tessie and Saya. And despite the red string of fate that binds them together, Taki and Mitsuha weren't downright miserable when they were apart. The sense of longing that they felt is described well by Polygon:
Speaking of suicide, you may have noticed I've barely talked about one of the key pillars of Life is Strange - social commentary. That is not the focus of Your Name. Yes, the film could have explored in depth subjects like the contrast between rural and urban living, keeping traditions or abandoning them, what it means to really be in another person's shoes, etc.... But given all the material the film had to juggle simultaneously in less than two hours, I won't consider the lack of social commentary as one of its faults. Though it's a fact still worth mentioning for those wondering if this film has any. If you want a worthwhile film with high school students that tackles issues such as bullying, depression, and suicide... I strongly recommend the other great anime film of 2016: A Silent Voice. If I were to describe A Silent Voice in a Life is Strange context, well imagine a story where Nathan Prescott and Kate Marsh are the protagonists, with Nathan trying to make amends for the wrongs he did in the past. For those who have yet to watch A Silent Voice, I want to point out that its art style and direction are vastly different from Your Name. With its more somber subject matter, A Silent Voice has a soundtrack that uses well integrated ambient sounds than full fledged instrumental pieces. Plus, supernatural elements are nonexistent in the film. But all that and more is probably going to be a different blog post for another time....
For any Life is Strange fan, I'd give an honorable recommendation for the 2006 anime film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which really puts "choice and consequence" as the centerpiece of its story. Unlike Your Name and A Silent Voice though, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time lacks something that made the former two films really special. I guess part of it had to do with the fact that the protagonist of that film "pissed [her] power away on high school drama."
Part of the reason why I was first drawn to Your Name was the fanfare it was gaining among movie goers. I was curious to see if this really was "the greatest anime film ever" or if it was a glorified tech demo like Gravity, a pretty looking film with no actual substance that somehow got more awards than Interstellar. I'm glad to say that it is not the latter. But after giving it much thought, it's easy to see why some folks would consider Your Name as overrated, to say the least. The flaws I've cataloged in this post, when all added up, prevents me from hailing Your Name as a "masterpiece" in the same way I consider films such as Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and The Dark Knight as cinematic masterpieces. It's ironic that I see the film the same way that I consider Life is Strange: a great but flawed experience. Overall, I've enjoyed the film very much. Part of that enjoyment stemmed from the mere experience of watching it. As one fan wrote:
Once again, I recommend Your Name to anyone who is the least bit curious to see it, even if you are not an anime fan like myself. Life is Strange fans most especially will find it right up their alley. To "borrow" some of the praise for Dust issue #1:
My main gripe is that I feel they weren't explored enough to feel a strong sense of emotional attachment. Their lives, personalities, traits, habits, friends, lifestyles, etc are all explored in the first ~20 minutes, I personally felt that we only skimmed the surface of these characters and are forced to go further into the shallow end of a pool, only hoping that it gets deeper to actually swim around in this world of possibilities. I wanted to laugh, cry, and even relate more with the characters, but I felt that I only read about them in a story, or saw them in a film (which I did).
I wanted to feel they could have actually existed, but the film seems to be a bit too reliant on cliche tropes to incite certain emotions. The feeling I felt is similar to seeing characters smiling and laughing with each other, and having to individually accept that this is enough to establish their inner motivations, time spent together, individual goals, etc. I felt like it wasn't enough, and just had to accept that Taki and Mitsuha were the way they were. It felt sometimes that their actions were baseless and lacking a strong motivation to be deserving of the emotion the characters poured into their actions.It's worth mentioning the love story in Your Name does not play out like your conventional Western romance. The phrase "I love you" is never spoken in the film... only written on Mitsuha's hand. Life is Strange has more instances of showing physical signs of affection than Your Name. The film is borderline platonic, since Taki and Mitsuha never hug - let alone kiss - on screen. To borrow three lines from Spaceballs, this is a romance "Without physical contact. Without being held. Or kissed." This fact has been used by the film's critics as proof that the romance feels forced. As one viewer wrote:
...at what point do these characters fall in love? During the first half of Your Name they are casually dealing with the body switching problem, then during the second half of the film they're in love. At no point do we get to see them doing anything that would lead to any romantic feelings developing. The only explanation we have is... that they were destined to be in love even if they barely know each other.In a way, these critics do have a point. The film does feel like "the beginning of a beautiful [romantic relationship]" as opposed to an actual love story that grows organically within two hours. This observation reinforces my original nitpick for the film: more character development was needed. The main cast of Your Name aren't an annoying nuisance like "The High Seas" band from the Life is Strange comics, so it would be beneficial for them if they had more character moments.
Now that's out of the way, I guess it's time to ask if Your Name's characters are comparable to the cast of Life is Strange.... Not quite. This is because the similarities between the film and the game's characters are imprecise. Despite what my comparison pictures may have implied, I don't think that Max and Mitsuha are very much alike, at all. Max and Taki are more similar, as they are both artistically inclined, have no siblings, and lived in the big city. Then again, Max looks like she never had worked before, is more introverted than Taki, and that she is not as daring in getting her hands on someone's "no touching zones"... especially if its a stranger. On that note, if you thought Warren was a creepy stalker, Taki's fondness of grabbing Mitsuha's "ample nacelles" should give you pause for thought. Remember, we don't see Warren crossing that line with Max... even when he's drunk at The End of the World Party. Among Your Name's characters, I feel that Tessie is most similar to Warren, given his solid friendship with Mitsuha and his dependability to even blow up a power station... which reminded me of that part in Episode 3 when Max asked Warren's help to make a pipe bomb. This leaves Saya as the Kate Marsh of the film (the dependable, polite girl best friend), except she ain't religious, doesn't have to put up with bullying, nor has suicidal thoughts. Strangely enough, there is no real Victoria Chase nor Nathan Prescott equivalent in Your Name (the two girls and that one guy who kept teasing Mitsuha doesn't count), and the film has no villains like Mr. Jefferson. For Miki, I say she has a passing similarity with Rachel Amber: the beautiful girl, who is popular with the guys, with an air of mystery to her. Luckily for Taki, despite not returning Miki's feelings for him, she doesn't "betray" him and the two remained good friends. It's tempting to compare Mitsuha to Chloe, given their dislike of their respective hometowns and the presence of an overbearing father figure in their lives. But Mitsuha is not a "hellraiser" like Chloe. Despite her "hatred" of Itomori, the loss of her mom and her dad becoming distant, Mitsuha never succumbed to vices such as smoking, drinking, and drugs to cope with her problems. Nor does she become a delinquent who eventually gets expelled from school. Then again, Mitsuha wasn't abandoned by Tessie and Saya. And despite the red string of fate that binds them together, Taki and Mitsuha weren't downright miserable when they were apart. The sense of longing that they felt is described well by Polygon:
It’s a subtle ache, like a dull headache on a rainy, gloomy day. It doesn’t take over your life, but it’s noticeable. Some days, it’s more noticeable than others. You want to chase the longing, but you also know you have to move on with your life. You create this stalemate for yourself and deal with the emotional throbbing that comes with longing.They felt something was missing in their lives, sure... but Your Name never gave the impression that one could not live without the other. In retrospect, it's admirable that both Taki and Mitsuha did not suffer severe mental breakdowns or contemplated suicide during the eight years following Itomori's destruction.
Speaking of suicide, you may have noticed I've barely talked about one of the key pillars of Life is Strange - social commentary. That is not the focus of Your Name. Yes, the film could have explored in depth subjects like the contrast between rural and urban living, keeping traditions or abandoning them, what it means to really be in another person's shoes, etc.... But given all the material the film had to juggle simultaneously in less than two hours, I won't consider the lack of social commentary as one of its faults. Though it's a fact still worth mentioning for those wondering if this film has any. If you want a worthwhile film with high school students that tackles issues such as bullying, depression, and suicide... I strongly recommend the other great anime film of 2016: A Silent Voice. If I were to describe A Silent Voice in a Life is Strange context, well imagine a story where Nathan Prescott and Kate Marsh are the protagonists, with Nathan trying to make amends for the wrongs he did in the past. For those who have yet to watch A Silent Voice, I want to point out that its art style and direction are vastly different from Your Name. With its more somber subject matter, A Silent Voice has a soundtrack that uses well integrated ambient sounds than full fledged instrumental pieces. Plus, supernatural elements are nonexistent in the film. But all that and more is probably going to be a different blog post for another time....
For any Life is Strange fan, I'd give an honorable recommendation for the 2006 anime film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, which really puts "choice and consequence" as the centerpiece of its story. Unlike Your Name and A Silent Voice though, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time lacks something that made the former two films really special. I guess part of it had to do with the fact that the protagonist of that film "pissed [her] power away on high school drama."
Closing Thoughts: "You made me smile and laugh, like I haven't done in years."
On February 15, 2019, it was announced that Marc Webb would be directing the Hollywood live adaptation of Your Name. Yes, the same guy who directed those mediocre The Amazing Spiderman movies. Based on my memory of those movies, the live adaptation is unlikely to look as good as its anime precursor. On top of that, despite having James Horner and Hans Zimmer on board, the soundtrack for both Amazing Spiderman movies are forgettable at best... which doesn't give me any hope that the live adaptation will at least be an awesome musical experience, unless they just reuse Radwimps' work. If Paramount and Bad Robot were serious about making a worthwhile adaptation, why is JJ Abrams unavailable to direct the movie? Or why not give the project to some unknown director who is a die hard fan of the original film? A third option would be to persuade a veteran director with a proven track record of making visually striking films. A shortlist, in my opinion, would include Ridley Scott (as long as he has a solid script), Denis Villeneuve (instead of him wandering the sands of Arrakis), or... in some pipe dream... Christopher Nolan. By now, I'd rather have Steven Spielberg direct this live adaptation instead of wasting his time on a West Side Story remake [facepalm]. Is it too late to change the director? At this rate, the flaws of the original film will only be further exposed and amplified by its Hollywood version. Regarding the Western adaptation of his film, Shinkai had this to say:
I guess I can say this is also how I feel when it comes to the current state of the Life is Strange series as well.I often think of the anime I’ve created as my children, but I’m not really that interested in what happens to those children afterwards. The Hollywood version was announced, and though I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out, at the same time, it’s like my son has already set off on his journey, and what kind of adult he grows into is something for him to deal with himself.
Part of the reason why I was first drawn to Your Name was the fanfare it was gaining among movie goers. I was curious to see if this really was "the greatest anime film ever" or if it was a glorified tech demo like Gravity, a pretty looking film with no actual substance that somehow got more awards than Interstellar. I'm glad to say that it is not the latter. But after giving it much thought, it's easy to see why some folks would consider Your Name as overrated, to say the least. The flaws I've cataloged in this post, when all added up, prevents me from hailing Your Name as a "masterpiece" in the same way I consider films such as Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and The Dark Knight as cinematic masterpieces. It's ironic that I see the film the same way that I consider Life is Strange: a great but flawed experience. Overall, I've enjoyed the film very much. Part of that enjoyment stemmed from the mere experience of watching it. As one fan wrote:
Though some might be repelled or jaded by segments that feel like emotional manipulation... [Your Name] succeeds in delivering an engrossing experience, complete with magnificent set pieces, laughs, and heart-wrenching, gripping drama. This film — the culmination of Shinkai’s skill in exploring the melancholy aspects of love and distance, is just as much a lesson on the value of finding happiness through [unshakable] resolve, initiative, and overcoming doubt and hesitation.On whether or not Your Name is a masterpiece, another viewer had this to say:
This isn't the greatest anime, movie, or anime movie ever made. The hype surrounding this work is borderline poisonous, and anyone who actually believes it is bound to be disappointed. Even from a technical standpoint, it isn't perfect. I appreciated the pacing of its individual scenes, but it could've afforded to add up to 20 minutes of content to the first half to better establish the status quo and a few of the characters.... The main characters are fundamentally likable but not especially complex, and most of the side characters feel like they exist primarily to support the movie's thematic objectives. This movie might change your life, but it definitely isn't going to change everyone's life and it isn't going to go down in the halls of film history as a masterpiece. I know many people who haven't seen it probably already suspect as much, but here's confirmation: [Your Name] is remarkable, but it isn't mind-blowing. The anime community has a tendency to overreact. It happens.
So yeah, at the end of it all, I'd say it's well-worth the watch. The movie is a spectacle, and you're unlikely to find yourself bored even if you don't find yourself particularly emotionally impacted (like myself.) I predict it will have a significant impact on the future of anime. I give it a hearty recommendation, and I hope that because of this review at least a few more people will go into with enough sensibility to fully enjoy it.I'll admit that my enjoyment of watching Your Name was helped tremendously by an emotional void that was created after reading the Life is Strange: Dust comics. Seeing some of the best aspects of the original game being presented within a two hour film that had a satisfying ending was an emotional catharsis that I thought could only be brought about by a well made Life is Strange sequel with Max Caulfield as the protagonist. In an E3 2018 interview with YouTube personality Angry Joe, game co-director Michel Koch summed up the fundamentals of Life is Strange:
In Life is Strange, what we like to do is have those relatable characters that we put in some situations. Also to talk about some social issues. So, you have a lot of uplifting moments... but there is also some darker realities of life. And it's a bit of blending those two.Right now, I dare say that Your Name is a more genuine Life is Strange experience than what the comics or Dontnod's middling second installment has brought thus far to the table. Your Name's iconic comet wonderfully captures the series' duality: something so beautiful and uplifting can bring with it something horrible and catastrophic. Hell, I'd even count A Silent Voice as an authentic Life is Strange experience by Dontnod's own definition of the series.
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| Life is Strange: Your Name - Issue #1 cover concept (remember Dust #1?) |
An outstanding film and a must-see for [Life is Strange] fans.
[Your Name] is a must for anyone who experienced the original Life is Strange story.
For those hoping to see more [Life is Strange], [Your Name] is a worthy [film to fill the void].
Fans of the game will be absolutely thrilled; more than anything else it captures the beautiful experience of the game.Now... if only there was a prequel called Your Name: Before the Comet, where we explore Taki and Mitsuha's lives prior to the film's events. And "I am fully buckled in for the ride" if a sequel happens, one that some fans have already dubbed as Your Name: After Story.
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| Life is Strange 2's "road trip" concept would have worked better if we followed this group for all five episodes. |
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| Minister: "Okay. Here we go, the short-short version. Do you?" Taki: "Yes." Minister: "Do you?" Mitsuha: "Yes." Minister: "Good. You're married. Kiss her." Taki and Mitsuha: "I love you." THEY both kiss. FRIENDS and FAMILY applaud. AUDIENCE starts to cry. ROLL MAIN CAST and CREDITS. THE END |
