Weathering with You: Impressions from a Life is Strange fan (MAJOR SPOILERS)

If you've been reading my previous blog entries, you probably knew this post was bound to happen.

As someone who enjoyed Your Name., I was eager to see Makoto Shinkai's next film: Weathering with You. Prior to the film's release, my expectations were tempered by "harsh realities" such as how Game of Thrones: Season 8 ultimately turned out, or the "ties" that Life is Strange 2 shares with Life is Strange (or lack thereof). Thus, I approached Weathering with You as it's own film, and not the sequel to Your Name. I was fortunate to see the film (with English subs) on September 1, 2019 in an IMAX theater (no less), but I intentionally held off from publishing this post until after having watched the English dub of the film. The dubbed version finally was released to certain online platforms on August 5, 2020 - almost a year since I first saw the film.

When asked by Gamespot at the 2019 San Diego Comic-Con what makes a Life is Strange game, the game's co-director Raoul Barbet responded by saying:

...it'll be the artistic direction, it will be that we want to create, first, believable characters and a good story, and that tackles some actual subjects of society's problems and that kind of stuff, and puts the player in some interesting situations. And in the end, you've got the supernatural element...

Hmm. Believable characters? Society's problems? Interesting situations? Supernatural elements? A good story? It appears that Weathering with You satisfies all those requirements, perhaps more so than Your Name. Heck, the film's basic setup reads like a story pitch for a new entry in the Life is Strange series. A teenage girl in Tokyo named Hina Amano has acquired the power to stop the rain, becoming the so called Sunshine Girl. She eventually gets to meet up with this runaway kid named Hodaka Morishima, who goes into business with her by making use of this newfound power. Little do they know, that their actions would have unforeseen consequences.

Yeah. It's Life is Strange in all but name at this point. Source.

Now before continuing on to the rest of the post, I'll be talking a bit on the film's visuals. Compared to Your Name., Weathering with You has more detail in some scenes, but the cinematography isn't as vibrant. With the film being a showcase of rainy days in Tokyo, this was to be a given. Drab grey skies aren't exactly full of color. Then there was an awkward 3D scene of a fireworks display that somehow looked worse than the one from A Silent Voice. The water in the film looks excellent, albeit a bit too good in the sense that it looked too clean. Which would be fine, if not for the fact that some of that ought to be depicting flood water, and not clean fresh water.

An Inconvenient Truth

In my impressions post for Your Name, I wrote that the film lacked social commentary. While its absence is not a complaint I have with Your Name (since it had different priorities), it became the cornerstone for Weathering with You. An interview from a Japanese women's magazine reveals the film's genesis:

The inspiration for Weathering With You came in the summer of 2016, when, exhausted from all the promotion he was doing for your name., Shinkai looked up at the sky and saw a cumulonimbus cloud. When the skies cleared, he felt healed, which gave him the idea that the weather and the human spirit are connected.

When the time came to start working on his next film in earnest, Shinkai's thoughts turned to climate change. "People say that humans are destroying nature for the sake of their own conveniences, and I agree with that," he said. "And yet I'm the kind of person who doesn't hesitate to turn on the air conditioning in my room when it's hot. Climate change is a large-scale phenomenon with an unimaginable scope, but there's not much a person can do about it on an individual level. Even so, my actions as a single person have a definite effect on the environment. It may feel like something that's out of your realm of responsibility, but it absolutely isn't. I made the film while thinking about how to deal with that problem through the framework of entertainment."

With that, Shinkai crafted a story that had to convey this message. Weathering with You shares one of the key themes of one of my favorite all time films, Jurassic Park: man vs. nature. The struggle of man to tame the elements to his whims, and the natural world pushing back against our efforts to upset the established order of things was a compelling idea the film aimed to deliver. Some reviewers managed to hit the nail right off the bat. Take for example what Cinema Escapist had to say:

A central plot element in Weathering With You is the rainstorm in Tokyo—and how weather affects, and can be affected by humans....

Various Tokyo residents seek Hina’s help to pray for sunshine at key events in their lives—be it farmers markets or weddings—because sunshine improves people’s moods. While this mood effect is rooted in scientific fact, the aversion that Tokyo residents have towards rain may well be a reference to the pain and suffering that come from climate change’s aggressive weather impacts.

Hina’s ability to affect the weather also parallels to how humanity has an opportunity to avert the worst-case outcomes of climate change. Throughout the film, Shinkai makes it obvious that Hina has the ability to prevent an ecological disaster for Tokyo by casting away the rain storm. 

Unfortunately, Hina struggles with her powers much in the same way that contemporary society struggles with addressing climate change.  While Hina has the ability to solve the environmental [catastrophe] facing Tokyo, she has to sacrifice significant parts of her relationship with Hokada in order to save the city—a sacrifice that Hokada is unwilling to allow Hina to undertake.... [T]he tension between doing what’s best for society, versus doing what’s best for the couple more [selfishly], is a major point of tension throughout the plot of the film. Most movie-goers will see this tension as part of a broader romantic drama, but we see it as part of an allegory for how society must choose between short-term selfishness and long-term selflessness in order to address climate change.

The Jakarta Post shared similar sentiments:

We learn that the rain never stops to the point when people could not even have wedding ceremonies, marathon competitions, or even firework festivals. Through this, we learn that people rely so much on the weather. We learn that through these sequences, humans are selfish individuals who think only of their needs and not of others. This is what Shinkai tried to portray.

Weathering with You might look like an adventure/coming of age/comedy film about two teenagers trying to survive in Tokyo by controlling the weather. But upon dissecting the movie carefully, a more profound argument lies within. It’s about how the world has changed and how we choose not to care. Shinkai still cleverly crafted Japanese spiritual values as a detrimental element in the film. While in Your Name he played with how the Japanese perceived time, in Weathering with You Shinkai portrays the mystery of sky, Earth and a maiden who connects them both to create a balance. A legend stated that the maiden who connects both the Earth and the sky should sacrifice herself. In other words, Hina’s ability to control the weather had ramifications we know nothing about until the last part of the film's second act.

That statement triggered a lot of questions. First, why Hina? The beginning of the film said it all. Hina was the only person who realized that there was a sunny day on a magical shrine. She was the only one who was willing to get out of a building, leaving her mother in the ICU to walk in the rain looking for the source of the light on an abandoned building and actually praying in the shrine. With that, Shinkai managed to portray our careless society. Our society often takes the weather for granted so we do not recognize a weather anomaly. In the film, praying at the sacred shrine earns you control over the weather and restores the balance. That person happened to be Hina.

But Hina had a bigger purpose than just clearing the sky at someone's request. As I said, there were ramifications. Her ultimate job was to restore balance. The weather would be back to normal if she sacrificed herself. That narrative lingered in my heart. Are we so careless toward Mother Nature that the only way we relate to her was by sacrificing a human being to restore the balance of nature?

And so the third act of the film explores that question. Would it be okay to sacrifice an innocent teenage girl who was just trying to survive in Tokyo for a clear sky? Or would it be OK to accept the fact that the rain would never stop pouring even though it’s summer? 

Compared to Your Name, Weathering with You has a stronger sense of urgency. It may not be as romantic as Your Name, but Shinkai brought something else to the table: an extremely important topic to be discussed. It was presented so subtly that we may not realize what this film tried to argue in the first place.

Reviews such as these helped a lot in appreciating what the film tried to convey after my first viewing. The film raises the question: what is the cost we are willing to pay to save the world? Do we have to sacrifice human lives in the process? In one interview with Shinkai, The Japan Times provides some insight on the film's moral dilemma:

Perhaps the question Shinkai is most interested in exploring in Weathering With You is [if] the needs of society should always be put ahead of the needs of the individual.

It’s a question he’s allowed to explore, he says, precisely because it’s packaged in the form of entertainment.

“To say the person right in front of me is more important than society … (is something) politicians and those in power definitely aren’t allowed to say, right?” he says. “You can’t write it in newspapers or textbooks either.”

However, he says, “in entertainment, you’re free to yell it at the top of your lungs.” 

“And when you do, it makes viewers think about things,” he says. “Some people will agree, others will strongly oppose it. At the very least, it should help people understand what kind of society we are living in.”

In some ways, it almost sounds as if Shinkai considers Weathering With You to be a massive social experiment.

“How will Japan react to the film?” he asks. “Will it be accepted, rejected or ignored? The reaction will help me see the form of our society, to figure out how people are really thinking right now.”

But it wasn't just about climate change that was a key theme of the film.

Hope is a weapon. Survival is victory.

In a piece that talked about why Your Name is better than Weathering with You, the article's first comment caught my attention. Besides being surprisingly long, it had an insightful take on the film's ending:

The film really looks at change and the human ability to persevere and ultimately adapt to what is new (and often frightening) by drawing on even the smallest pieces of hope. We are introduced to this first as Hodaka leaves his more rural ‘forest island’ home (literally implied in his name) and travels to Tokyo. Everything there is scary and overwhelming. The “Tokyo is scary” lines that are repeated are used to mirror in viewers how often and easy it is for us as human beings to feel afraid and overwhelmed when faced with the unknown/ uncertain/ hostile. For Hodaka, that takes the form of moving to a city he’s not been to before that is vastly different from rural/ islands in Japan. However, to the viewers, it gets one contemplating how we individually process the enormity of thinking about the unknown, uncertain, and potentially hostile future and growing up and moving into a space where we know that immense challenges (environmentally, economically, socially, etc.) lay ahead of us. 

At the end of the film, as we see Tokyo engulfed in water – a genuinely unsettling sight however, the anxiety that surrounds the realities facing all the characters are contrasted with the easy in which boats have replaced the highly complex train system – things still run, humans still persevere and hope is never abandoned. There are also the subtle comments of passers by… on the bridge one girl says to another “you’re so optimistic” and one also comments saying: “I’m really looking forward to the picnic” – despite the rain, we see that humans still find small pockets of joy and reasons to keep moving forward. Even [Kei] says “don’t worry, it’s gonna work out” after Hodaka visits him in his new office. There are myriad reasons for Hodaka and Hina to lose hope in the world (just as there are many reasons we see lots of individuals, young and old feeling overwhelmed, afraid and hopeless when thinking of the future), there are reasons for them to blame themselves for their contributions to the state of the world (as is the case with us as viewers, who arguably in some capacity contribute to what many view as a rapidly bleak/ unsettling global future be it through social/economic/environmental/political, etc. contributions or lack of actions. Hodaka and Hina could even to blame the world and people around them for indulging in selfish acts (requests from the sunshine girl) and for the people who took for granted the convenience of fulfilling their needs and failed to consider if there was a true cost to their selfish desires to manipulate the weather… which ultimately lead to the unending rain and the bleak reality they and the rest of the world now face. Likewise it’s easy for us (viewers) to look at the state of the world and blame person x, or country y, government z, etc. for how we’ve basically reached a tipping point in being unable to maintain the world as it was (at least environmentally/ economically/ technologically etc.)… our desire for convenience made us blind to the costs and now we are faced with a scary, bleak future.

But the ending show us that Hodaka takes ownership of how they have all come to exist in the world they now live in and states that they “made a choice”. Their choice is what they live with now, and because of these small pockets of hope and the human ability to find love and support and moments of joy/ wonder/ contentment/ etc. in any situation they will be alright. The world and humans will be alright as long as we find these moments, that keep us moving forward. Moments that we largely find and draw support from through our connections to others. 

Hodaka lacks a back story because the themes the movie explores are bigger than him. Hodaka isn’t simply supposed to be [a] romance movie lead. Neither is Hina (we learn some things about her, but she is still a significantly vague individual who reflects our desire to connect with others and find purpose/ personal fulfillment, despite the costs to ourselves and others.

Hodaka and Hina are us. Hodaka’s fear and uncertainty shows the journey of how humans come to persevere. Hina’s sacrifice shows the ease at which humans can be overwhelmed and consumed by the immensity of the pressures a scary/bleak future weigh on us. All characters in the movie in some capacity show that we as humans are selfish but that that’s okay. That we will be alright, so long as we have small bits of hope to cling to. Hope that blossoms in the presence of others.

The movie is a message of hope to the viewer. A commentary on where we’ve been, where we are, where we’re headed and how we will, as a species continue to move forward no matter the odds… because we are humans, who can hope and who have the power to “change the shape of the world” both physically and metaphorically. 

If you saw this as just a straight up romance film, Shinkai completely hoodwinked you. It’s not the same formula, but as a human you search for that familiarity – because humans are subconsciously drawn to find and cling to what is “safe” and “normal” and “familiar”. You missed a huge theme when it comes to humans: their ability to change and adapt unless forced. Your mind didn’t look deeper into the film and you felt like [Weathering With You] didn’t “live up” to [Your Name] because of this. You missed the masterpiece before you because you were fixated on a “standard” on your expectations of the norm.

This film is about tackling the idea of change… of what makes us uncomfortable, put-off, scared, uncertain and how people cope with change… especially when looking towards the future (one riddled with these feelings). The use of very rapid, visual changes though depicting weather and environment is something Shinkai again uses to comment on how easy it is for people to take things as normal… for granted. Just as you have with assuming this film was a simple romance movie. Clinging too closely to something you know, take pleasure in, and are comfortable and familiar with (aka Kimi no na wa’s mass appeal plot). In doing so, you miss something greater.

You miss understanding the psychology of the self and the world around you. You fail to look introspectively at what this film says about humans. Shinkai is targeting those who when faced with change that makes them uncomfortable or that seems “off” are immediately adverse to it and would crumble under the realities of very really and rapid future changes in our own world. He’s urging you to embrace something different, even if it isn’t what you expect or desire, because that will rapidly be a real world reality for many (as I mentioned… environmentally, socially, economically, etc.)

But that’s again, why the so-called “happy” ending is there… to give us hope. To tell you it’s okay that even if you failed to realize the bigger, deeper, more complex and introspective/critical picture (in this film, and in life), that as long as there are others there who are willing to share in this human experience with you, to support those who fail to comprehend change or who struggle to accept it and cling to the past… As long as you have the “love” of others to support you, there is hope and you (and humans) will grow, persevere and become better for it… Even when faced with unsettling change.

Hmm... the overall point of this comment sounds oddly familiar: "In the long history of humankind... those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed." Now despite the theme of "hope in the face of adversity", the decisions shown in the film that lead up to the ending will cause some concern. As Kotaku commented:

While the characters are sympathetic, some of the decisions made later in the movie are downright selfish, with little thought given to the larger ramifications of their actions. They’re teenagers, so I guess that makes sense, but once they’re confronted with the results of those decisions, there doesn’t seem to be much reflection or thought given to them.

One viewer wrote down:

The message that the romance at the end of the film sends is very dangerous. Again, any details would be spoilers, so I'll use this quote from another show I watched that I fully agree with after watching the ending:

"The kind of thinking that as long you and your own are happy then you don't care about other people is...horrifying...it was like the movie was jam-packed with people's egoism."

The characters are a model of the good old "as long as we are in love the world can go to hell" trope towards the end to an extreme level. And if people feel "inspired" by the message in the end, I think we are doomed as a society.

And since we are talking about that ending...

Sacrificing Arcadia Bay... take two

If you asked me before I got to actually watch Weathering with You and give one notable similarity with Life is Strange, I would've instantly reminded you of the fact that Hina can stop the rain. What I didn't bet on at the time was that the film shares a far larger parallel than a female teenage protagonist with a supernatural power. It was so unexpected, that my jaw dropped when I saw this parallel unfold for the first time on an IMAX screen. Of course, I'm talking about Hodaka's decision to Sacrifice Tokyo in order to Save Hina. Just when I hoped I finally put to rest all the emotions I felt with the game's ending, Weathering with You had to remind me once again of the Bae vs. Bay debate....

Surprisingly, not everyone who finished the game hated the execution of the endings. One fan on Reddit wrote this:

The sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending may seem like it was rushed, lazy even, but it was done so brilliantly.

In that ending, the book hasn't been closed, it starts anew. A blank slate for us, the players, to continue the story.

We don't hear anything except music because it's us who has to fill in the blanks. We get to write the next chapters of their story; what they're feeling, what they're thinking, where they're going, if anyone survived, etc.

I like that Dontnod didn't make anything official in [Sacrifice Bay] ending. It's up to us now to continue the story....

If this fan thought the Bae ending "was done so brilliantly", then by that standard I'd say Weathering with You's ending is beyond brilliant to the Nth Degree.

At first glance, one might assume that Weathering with You simply borrowed the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending. But upon closer inspection, there are notable differences... most of them I feel are major improvements. In my post on Your Name, I commented that the "Saving Itomori" sequence gave me the impression it could have been written by someone who disliked the mutually exclusive choices Life is Strange forced upon the player and the lack of a third option to save a heroine along with the town. In the spirit of that mindset, Weathering with You's ending could have been from a Life is Strange fan who wanted better closure to the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending.

Based on how "Sacrificing Tokyo" was portrayed in the film, if Shinkai was in charge of crafting the Bae ending, it had to meet all of the following conditions:

1. The protagonist needed to be someone who felt that society stacked against his/her favor, causing him to feel apathetic to society in general, and had a clear rationale why he/she would pick his/her significant other over society. Plus, the protagonist had to be morally flexible, and not necessarily a nice, compassionate individual to most people.
2. There was no other way to save "the sacrificial female character" other than allowing a natural disaster to devastate an inhabited area.
3. The place affected by the Storm was an artificial construct that upset the natural balance. In the film's case, it was the fact that parts of Tokyo were reclaimed land from the sea.
4. The Storm didn't doom virtually everyone in its path to certain death.
5. We get a definitive answer as to who survived among the main cast.
6. There needs to be a bit of closure with at least some of the secondary characters.
7. The place affected by the Storm is not left uninhabited, and that some of its inhabitants have rebuilt their livelihoods & adapted to their new reality.
8. The audience gets to see the protagonist facing some external consequence for their action, one that is not caused by what they feel about the situation. For Weathering with You, this was depicted by Hodaka's eventual arrest by the police, and his exile from Tokyo for the next three years.

In the context of all five episodes of Life is Strange, none of the aforementioned points are directly addressed. This fact only highlights the game's lack of closure, driving fans to speculate on questions such as who lived or died. Among these points, "number three" provides a little known parallel between Life is Strange and Weathering with You. As some Life is Strange fans are aware, the setting of Arcadia Bay was based on the real world location of Tillamook Bay in Oregon.

Sorry, but only a few buildings stand where a sprawling town ought to be.

Whoever gets to make a live action film set in the Life is Strange universe will hopefully find the means to construct a bigger lighthouse here.

What is lesser known among Life is Strange fans however, is the fact that Tillamook Bay is the site of a settlement that was reclaimed by nature: a town called Bayocean, aka "the town that fell into the sea."

The Guardian has an interesting article on the lost town. Here are a few pertinent excerpts:

...there’s one lost Oregon town that gives us a tightly focused image of the future. There are no remains of Bayocean for the visitor to see – they’ve long since been claimed by the waters of Tillamook Bay. Though the wild weather of the Oregon coast administered the coup de grace to the town in the 1950s, in truth, the residents themselves destroyed it by misunderstanding and carelessly tampering with the natural systems that allowed it to exist....

The only means of transport for visitors to get to Bayocean was [a] yacht, also called Bayocean, which sailed back and forth from Portland once a week. This trip was occasionally terrifying: passengers had to cross the infamously treacherous Columbia river bar and the mouth of Tillamook Bay, which was also frightening in rough weather.

The residents demanded a protective jetty to smooth this journey. The US army corps of engineers took one look at the bay and said they’d need two. The residents... would have to shell out over a million dollars, so they settled for one.

This is the way they ended up paying for the destruction of their own property, and the city. The jetty changed the current, which began steadily wearing away the sand on which the whole town rested.... As early as 1928... the seaward side of the spit had been significantly eroded. It didn’t stop.

Every bit of rough weather now posed an existential threat to Bayocean. In 1932, a massive storm destroyed [the town's public swimming pool]. By 1938, 59 homes had disappeared, and residents had long since begun fleeing in earnest....

In 1952, the spit became an island, when heavy seas smashed through the barrier, altering the ecological balance of the bay and the estuary that fed into it. In 1953, the post office closed and all residents were evacuated. In 1960, the last house fell into the ocean.

In the context of the game sadly, there is no definitive proof that Arcadia Bay was intended to be a fictional Bayocean, an artificial construct that upset the balance of nature. That could have really been the case if the Pan Estates and Native American mysticism subplots in the game were fully fleshed out. I guess Dontnod didn't want their messed up final decision to be made any easier by insinuating the idea that Arcadia Bay was on borrowed time, doomed to be destroyed regardless.

I feel that it's worth mentioning one key difference between Tokyo's submergence and the destruction of Itomori in Your Name. Namely, the body count. In Your Name., it's made clear to the audience that over 500 people were killed when the comet struck the town. There's even a book containing the names of those who died in the tragedy, which included virtually all the characters that lived in the town. Weathering with You however treats the aftermath of the disaster very differently. While it's made clear that most of Tokyo has gone underwater, there is no depiction or mention of anyone getting killed as a result of Hodaka's decision. No radio broadcast, no news or web article, no news reel, no dead bodies. Nothing. As if to reaffirm this point, Taki's grandmother and Mr. Kei both reassure Hodaka that Tokyo's fate wasn't his fault, that it was simply nature reclaiming what was once ocean.

Now on top of all the aforementioned eight points, there's one more additional point that made the ending for Weathering with You a different experience. What is it? The personality of the main female lead who needed to be saved. Since Life is Strange's release in 2015, there has been tons of discussions regarding whether or not Chloe was worth saving. For (at least) some players, she was way too unbearable and simply not a good friend, let alone a worthy love interest. As one comment said, Chloe "acts recklessly, gets people hurt, is selfish and judgmental, and a danger to others and herself". For anyone needing a summary on the "Chloe is the worst best friend" perspective, here's a video on the matter:

In contrast to Life is Strange, Weathering with You makes it clear that Hina's personality was far more accepting to general audiences. While Hina wasn't perfect, she was not "impulsive, egocentric, melodramatic, [and an] extrovert with [a] borderline personality disorder." While one can make the case that Hodaka was "simping" for Hina, at the very least their dynamic didn't feel like "a quintessential toxic and borderline abusive relationship. Complete with gaslighting and guilt trips!" Whether by design or (most likely) by accident, it would seem that Shinkai addressed the "Chloe problem" of Life is Strange by simply changing the role and personality of the girl who gets sacrificed, as well made adjustments for the hero who saves the girl. (Now come to think about it, from a certain point of view, it would seem that if Weathering with You was created by someone who played Life is Strange, it was a story told from the point of view of Chloe. Except Chloe is a guy this time around and that Max is the one who gets sacrificed.)

So, with all those eight conditions addressed, does this mean that Weathering with You provides Life is Strange fans a glimpse of the Bae ending the game deserved? Well, not quite. A viewer shared these thoughts:

...the film's depiction of disaster strikes me as frankly irresponsible. Like, the entire city of Tokyo is flooded. We never see a single person die or even get injured. That just isn't how large-scale disasters work. It feels like Shinkai is trying to excuse Hodaka's decision at the end and make us hate him less by not showing us what the ACTUAL consequences of letting the city sink would be, i.e. probably hundreds (thousands?) dead and thousands (millions?) more displaced, not to mention the property damage, etc.

It's one thing to choose to be selfish when taking the selfless action isn't certain to succeed, or the selfless action isn't necessarily clear, it's another to literally just say "fuck you" to all of Tokyo because you've got yours. That's not impressive or interesting to me, it just makes me want to browbeat Hodaka into doing the right thing. He comes off as nothing more or less than a dumb kid making dumb kid decisions, but the music swells and we're supposed to be happy that a child has ruined the lives of countless people so he could be with a person he knew for like a couple months. And this isn't even really me reading into it, the literal text of the end of the film is Hodaka saying "Nah, this isn't just how it was gonna turn out, I chose this on purpose and could have chosen differently. Sweet!" Two thumbs down from me.

Besides feeling that society was devastated by a lovestruck, selfish brat, some felt the film's ending was abrupt. As one viewer wrote:

At the end of the film, I walked out with a lot of questions, and the only answer that I could come up with is that Shinkai never really cared about resolving the side plots, as long as the main plot could have an ending then there would be no reason to complain. But that is not, or should not be the case, and as a result this heavily compromised the characters too...

Another viewer wrote:

The ending just... happened. There was no mystery to solve, plot twist to surprise or trope to subvert. Some plot threads such as the bad guys of the movie, the backstories of the two main characters and the whole weathering powers in general were not expanded upon very much. I feel like if those plot threads were explored more then Weathering With You would have had a less indecisive moral of the story and there would be a point to anything happening. But nope. The main character gets the girl he wants and that's it: end of the movie!

At least one viewer really felt aggravated enough that he/she had to express the following:

The destruction of HALF of Tokyo, Japan’s most economically viable area, was economic genocide perpetrated by a horny 16 year old. Sure, saving your “Girlfriend” is cool, but did you take into account the SEVERE economic recession caused by crumbling Aggregate Demand (AD) in the financial and political nexus of Japan? I don’t think so!!!! The billions of damaged infrastructure caused by [Hodaka's] headass refusal to consider the crippling debt the Japanese government owes (>200%) and beleaguered Aggregate Supply caused by an aging workforce caused the Japanese economy to go into a DEEP recession. When investment is crippled when [marginal efficiency of investment] is lackluster and consumption crumpled because of decreasing nominal income rates and the lack of availability of credit, YOU HAVE A FUCKING HIGH ASS RECESSION. [Hodaka's] action has only 1 upside: MAKING SPACE FOR AT LEAST 6 SEAWORLDS. Guys! They abuse animals! Not fucking cool. This should come across as a lesson for all horny teenagers trying to run away from home: IF YOU MEET A GIRL WHO GETS FUCKED BY THE CLIMATE, THINK OF THE POTENTIAL ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES. Nice going, dipshit!

By now, I'm genuinely curious to know if Shinkai has played Life is Strange, or is at least aware of the game's problems. Because if he hasn't prior to Weathering with You's release, I'll really be surprised as he seems to display an acute understanding as to why the game's endings were so unsatisfying.

Flying Spaghetti Monsters

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was Karl Shuker's The Unexplained: An Illustrated Guide To The World's Natural and Paranormal Mysteries. One entry in the book was about this theory of creatures that live exclusively in the Earth's atmosphere, termed by some as Atmospheric Beasts, aka "fauna of the atmosphere".  And I was surprised that Weathering with You weaved these cryptids into its plot. But what are these things exactly? Here's an excerpt from one Mysterious Universe article:

[In his book The Cosmic Pulse of Life, UFO author Trevor James Constable concluded] that some UFOs are not nuts-and-bolts craft from distant worlds, but living creatures that inhabit the higher levels of the Earth’s atmosphere. While many UFO investigators scoffed at Constable’s undeniably unique ideas, none could deny that his theory was well thought out. Constable believed the creatures to be unicellular and amoeba-like, but having metallic-like outer-shells, which gave them their flying saucer-style appearances. He also believed they varied in size from extremely small to lengths approaching half a mile – which, admittedly accords with what UFO witnesses tell us: the assumed alien craft that people have reported do indeed vary from a few feet to massive “mother-ships.” 

If the skies of our planet are constantly populated by an untold number of airborne critters, then why don’t we see them for what they really are – and on a regular basis? It’s not a case they are here one minute and gone the next. For Constable, that was only how it appears. They’re always here, in massive numbers; we’re just not physically able to see them in their natural state. Constable also concluded that this theory explained why some UFO witnesses had photographed UFOs, but had not seen anything out of the ordinary when they took the picture. In other words, when it comes to Constable’s sky-critters, the camera may see what the human eye cannot.

Another article on the same site further adds to Constable's theory:

Constable further proposed that these atmospheric monsters spent most of their time in a virtually invisible low-density state, but when they increased their density (possibly while in search of sustenance) these odd life-forms became visible. He also believed that the use of radar devices in the 20th Century somehow disturbed these sky beasts, forcing them from their usually concealed state into a more perceptible one.

All of that sounds fascinating, right? Alas, the film treats these sky creatures as window dressing at best. And it begs the question as to why were they in the film in the first place? Was it because Shinkai just wanted to raise public awareness on this niche entry in cryptozoology? Honestly, the sky beasts and the whole ecosystem in the clouds in the film felt inconsequential and didn't add anything of substance to the plot. Now I know what some are thinking: that it was to provide a backdrop where Hodaka can save Hina. But the film could have sent Hina to some uninhabited location in another dimension only accessible through the magical shrine on the rooftop instead, and the resulting story beats from the "Save Hina" subplot would have remained the same.

The New Kids in Town

One of the key factors why Your Name ended up being so successful was the emotional roller coaster audiences experienced alongside Taki and Mitsuha, even though "they weren't explored enough to feel a strong sense of emotional attachment." Thus, when it came to Weathering with You, I had hoped that some of my nitpicks about Your Name's characters were a thing of the past. Turns out I was wrong. In fact, it might be the most disappointing aspect of the film. One viewer wrote down sentiments that was similar to mine:

The characters were simply generic and uninteresting. This is a usual in Shinkai films, but usually the characters are more relatable, making them more likable. But in this case, since the story was so supernatural and also dealt with aspects of life that most people have never gone through, it made the characters not just boring but also unlikable, and by the end of the movie I really did not care about any of them.

We have the light and cheerful girl with no personality beyond that. The young, awkward boy who wants to do something with his life. The slightly older girl that's simply there to look pretty. The dude in a mid life crisis. The sibling that's just kind of there. And a bunch of other side characters that are plot devices. Characters are so important in a slice of life, and the failure to have likable, relatable characters really brought down the enjoyment of the show for me.

To compound the lack of "relatable characters", a good deal of their motivations felt vague and shallow. Another viewer made this interesting list of observations:

To be blunt, I liked [Weathering with You] because of its frankness but I can't help but be disappointed since there are a lot of questions that had unsatisfying and lacking answers. 

For what reason/s did Hodaka run away from home? Because he felt suffocated. Why did he feel suffocated? Because. 

What exactly is [Kei] sad about regarding his late wife and his daughter? Because his late wife died and the grandmother took custody of his daughter. Why did that happen? Because. 

Did [Kei] become an alcoholic and a smoker because of that? Yes. He stopped smoking because his daughter had asthma and because he wanted to meet her. Why did he smoke again after a while? Because. 

Why did [Kei] side with Hodaka in the end when the police were apprehending him? Because it was revealed at the start of the movie that [Kei] reminded Hodoka of him when he was young. Is that enough to convince him to help Hodaka? Yes. Is it because of a single similarity between them? Yes. 

Why did Hina and Nagi live alone in a house? Because their mother died and the father was not even introduced. Maybe the father left? Maybe he died? Who knows? 

What about their relatives? They probably don't have any relatives to take them in, which is a bit questionable since a family tree doesn't start with a mother and father and end with their kids.

For the film, Shinkai wanted to do something differently for Hodaka to distinguish him from Taki. Another article from The Japan News shared this little tidbit:

Hodaka tends to cause trouble and commotions through his selfish and naive behavior. Shinkai gave him a controversial personality because, “I thought people actually want to see such a boy.”

Indeed, Weathering With You is a story of a boy who breaks away from society.

“I think that a human learns to walk straight while struggling to adjust to society and running into a wall. But it’s not that everyone is walking straight. I have a feeling that I’ve been helplessly deviating [from the straight path] myself, so I feel connected to such people,” he said.

An article from My Anime List gives some thematic insight into Hodaka's mindset:

...linking the film with [The Catcher in the Rye] helps contextualise the themes and messages of [Weathering with You] even further. Even though it was published in 1951, The Catcher in the Rye is still regarded as relevant, as an honest reflection of the insecurities countless young people feel in the modern world.

The central theme of The Catcher in the Rye is the protection of innocence, as the main character (Holden Caulfield) struggles against the adult world and its "phoniness." Hodaka himself, who is actually the same age as Holden, says to the police blocking his path, "You all know nothing. You just pretend you don't." By the end of the book, Holden comes to understand that children should be able to "grab for the gold ring" and take their own risks, which is exemplified in Hodaka's choice to rescue Hina and let the rain continue to fall on Tokyo. As they fall through the sky together, Hodaka says "Pray for yourself, Hina," telling her (and the audience) to follow her own destiny and reject the expectations placed upon her by others.

As nice as all that sounds, I feel that the film didn't adequately explore Hodaka well enough so I could really care and understand his struggle to go against society's norms. That could have been somewhat mitigated had the film shown a decent backstory that would give Hodaka clear motivation to compel him being a homeless runaway instead of staying in his hometown. Did he live with abusive parents? Was his school life a living hell? Was his family experiencing financial or medical trouble? Was there a disaster that derailed his normal life? Was his father killed in a car crash? Did his childhood best friend move to the big city? Did his newest best friend disappeared without a trace? Did he accidentally killed a police officer with telekinesis? The film never even bothers to allude to any such problems. The best we got was a vague line from him where he claims his old life was "suffocating". What?! I personally found the film's ambiguity on such questions frustrating at times because it squandered a golden opportunity for better character development. Show me Hodaka's problems so I can empathize with his desire to chase after the sunlight all the way to Tokyo! At least with Taki I was able to figure out he's an aspiring architect who was secretly competent at basketball and woodworking. Other than having some vague interest with Catcher in the Rye, I don't even know what are Hodaka's preferred hobbies! In fact, the male protagonist for one of Shinkai's earlier films, The Garden of Words, had better established character motivations in a 45 minute film! One viewer shared this observation:

So the thing with [Hodaka] is that he ran away from his town because of his parents, but we were never told the reason why his parents were so hard to deal with. He keeps insisting on not wanting to go back no matter what but it is all just empty words as we do not see justification in his actions, he just comes off as a spoiled brat going through a rebellious phase. He is also really impulsive in his other actions in the entirety of the movie, never giving them any second thoughts. Here are some examples: He finds a gun spilled out from a trash can, which he decides to keep despite being y'know....a minor with no license whatsoever. The reason he provides us is that he thinks that its a toy gun, which doesn't even matter, he can still get in trouble for possessing such a thing if he gets caught. Next, he later uses the 'toy gun' in self-defense quite hastily in a fit of rage....surprise surprise, it was real and he nearly killed someone with it.... moving forward in the movie he gets arrested for being in possession of a gun and for being a runaway, he was gonna be interrogated but he runs away from the fucking (incompetent) police and gets fucking chased all for a gamble at the chance to save Hina.

Now some viewers have said that to understand Hodaka's backstory, all you need to do is simply copy and paste Mitsuha's own backstory as revealed in Your Name. On the surface, that seems like reasonable suggestion. However, if you look at the specifics of Mitsuha's situation, cracks begin to show. For starters, we know clearly that Mitsuha had (at least) two good friends who cared about her, not to mention her younger sister and grandma. Conversely, Hodaka seems to be a loner with no strong emotional ties to anyone at the start of the film. When he's using the web, we see him interacting with random users online, as opposed to people he knows personally. The film gives this impression that he had no close friends or family to count on. If so, this further explains why he had little hesitation with allowing Tokyo to go underwater. Also recall that Mitsuha (supposedly) hated her hometown and the "first world problems" she faced in her life that she couldn't help but shout it out loud in public. This apparent hatred however was not strong enough that she didn't even bother to argue with Taki when it came to saving her town. As one comment said, you can say that Mitsuha is "a girl who was a bit of a brat, but a lovable brat, who happens to be from a rough background and is going through some tough stuff and lashes out, but has a heart of gold under there." With all that in mind, it is apparent Mitsuha is a more selfless person when compared to Hodaka, and to claim that her backstory works as an explanation to Hodaka's motivations can feel like a disservice to her character.

I got even more flashbacks to a somewhat similar scene in Life is Strange.

With Hodaka having an air of mystery that didn't help with his characterization, surely Hina fared better? On the surface, this might seem the case. Hina is depicted as upbeat and selfless. Despite being 15 years old, she is surprisingly self sufficient despite being introduced as a McDonalds employee and is presumably still in school. And somehow she can provide for her younger brother as well. That is very commendable, although beyond that, there isn't much to her. As mentioned in Polygon's review of the film:

Where Weathering With You most falters is in Shinkai’s failure to make Hina much more than an idealized fantasy figure. She’s a polestar for Hodaka’s world, and a gift to Tokyo’s residents, but she isn’t much of a personality in her own right. The way she bears most of the story’s pain and pressure, while the focus is still on Hodaka’s yearning for her, can feel uncomfortably unbalanced.

If you keep in mind Hina's apparent selflessness, it's rather unusual that the film did not do more in showing her qualms with Hodaka's final decision. Sure, it's a given that she would be forever grateful being saved, but I feel that the film could have showed more of her being conflicted that her rescue unintentionally ruined some people's livelihoods. I feel that the film had a missed opportunity by not exploring further Hina's relationship with her mother, considering that she got her powers in the first place because she wished for "Mom wake up and let us walk under clear skies together" at the start of the film.

The other characters I feel played their parts, with Hodaka's boss Mr. Kei being the one who had the most detailed background among them all. This is no surprise after reading that Japan Times interview with Shinkai, where he reveals that "he’s about my age and he has a young child — just like me." 

One viewer had this to say about the film's characters in general:

...the film packed so much into the characters but yet completely fail to flesh them out. Much of the backstories were nothing more than a single sentence, the rationale behind each character's actions depends so much on a shallow motive that makes it very hard to empathize with them. A lot of the character's difficulties turned out to be not much of one at all since the convenience factor kicks in, and the characters never really seemed to be bothered by their many limitations, very little of their actions were done to circumvent them.

If the new characters didn't grow on you that much, there were a few familiar faces to fall back on. With two very welcome appearances for Your Name. fans in this film:

In a behind-the-scenes interview, Shinkai comments that "I think you're a kind of an otaku" if you noticed these characters, considering "their names weren't mentioned." But that didn't stop there, as the film had two "you blink, you'll miss it" cameos:

Remember Tessie and Sayaka, Mitsuha's best friends?

Yotsuha - Mitsuha's younger sister - was perhaps the easiest one to miss. 

Seeing the appearances of these characters in Weathering with You was just the icing on the cake. As someone who noticed all these cameos, despite Shinkai's remarks, I don't think I still qualify being a full fledged otaku yet considering my preference for English dubs over subs, and lack of weird merchandise such as body pillows.

Coincidentally, for the final episode of Life is Strange 2, Dontnod decided to mimic the successful cameo appearance tactic, albeit not as faithful as Shinkai was to his own characters:

Rena Ryūgū and Mion Sonozaki Max and Chloe cameo in Life is Strange 2

Whereas Hodaka managed to interact with both Taki and Mitsuha in Weathering with You, players won't get that same privilege with Max and Chloe in Life is Strange 2... at all. That picture from Life is Strange 2 is the best you'll get from the game. Since neither Max and Chloe don't physically appear in the "sequel", one fan had to make do with their own work:

While a part of me was very happy to see them again, a part of me can't let go of this notion that bringing them into the game was an act of desperation, as a surefire way that fans won't question Life is Strange 2 does indeed take place in the exact same universe as the first game in the series. That it was a calculated, cynical move that Dontnod did not really wanted to, namely bring back in some form the two most popular characters in the series when they claimed beforehand in several interviews they had no intention to do anything with them moving forward. And this happened in a game where one character proclaimed "What is sure is... that's the past. But you can't look back now..." when talking about Arcadia Bay. Now Weathering with You, despite it being Hodaka and Hina's story, did not at any point decided to break the fourth wall with some odd line that Taki and Mitsuha are yesterday's news. Instead, Shinkai decided to clearly showcase that his new protagonists peacefully coexisted with the old ones, with no jabs or snarky remarks that could have alienated a key demographic for his film's audience.

Peaceful co-existence indeed. Source.

Songs for someone else

Another aspect of the film that fell short for me was the soundtrack. Despite Your Name's soundtrack being a bit redundant with some of its instrumental tracks (Itomori High School & Visit to Hida, along with Date, Theme of Mitsuha & Date 2), at least none of them didn't clearly reused instrumental covers of the songs (and no, Katawaredoki doesn't count). One reviewer had this to say:

While the movie does have a couple of great songs, it fails to have a great instrumental OST (original soundtrack). A good deal of the non-vocal music in the show was just the piano cover of some of the main songs.

For anyone who isn't aware of it yet, the track "First Visit to K&A" sounds like a poorly disguised remix of the "Itomori High School" track from Your Name! One other nitpick I have with the soundtrack was the placement of the movie edit for Is There Still Anything That Love Can Do? and Grand Escape. The former should have swapped places with the track called "Running with Hina" (and played when Hodaka was running on the train tracks), while the latter ought to have been heard during the fireworks sequence (the song sounds too cheerful given the implication that Hodaka's decision to save Hina will inevitably doom Tokyo to literally go underwater). In fact, I feel that both songs were used more effectively in the film's trailer.

Now don't get me wrong: I've enjoyed Weathering with You's soundtrack. I'd say that it's still light years ahead of the music used in Marvel's Infinity Saga movies. Grand Escape and Is There Still Anything That Love Can Do? still sends some chills down my spine (in a good way). Its just that the film's music somewhat lacked the emotional resonance set by Your Name's score.

What I find unusual about the songs is that when compared to what was actually depicted on screen, I strongly feel that the lyrics did a better job in conveying to viewers the feelings of our two lead characters. The narrative told through the songs, once you got to understand the lyrics, was much stronger than the narrative that was shown through the animation. In Your Name., the songs were the icing on an already excellent cake. Whereas in Weathering with You, the songs did far more heavy lifting than in Shinkai's last film. So it was really enlightening when watching the film's behind-the-scenes, as they indicated that there appeared to be a closer collaboration between Shinkai and Radwimps.

The songs seem to fare better within a Life is Strange context. A Life is Strange story would be missing a good deal if it had lacked excellent songs from artists that do not appear on Billboard's Social 50 top songs chart?

Grand Escape:

While the song was intended to be an entrancing, ear catching interpretation of Hodaka and Hina's break out from the clouds (or from the society that wants to keep them apart), the lyrics are inclusive enough that I'd say it fits well with the aftermath of the Sacrifice Arcadia Bay ending. Since the song doesn't have an official English version, For this post, I'll be using lyrics from cover artist Mewsic.

And as the summer fades and leaves fly everywhere
I can't forget your face, the times when you were there

I find it peculiar that Radwimps decided to use autumn as the song's backdrop, the exact same season when the events of Life is Strange took place (October 2013). Then of course, the moment Max sees Chloe Price for the first time in five years in the girls' bathroom, she won't be able to forget the blue haired girl who turns out to be her partner in time.

Is it pathetic or could this really be love?
I still don't know, but I know I'm not waiting now!

These lines are eerily similar to the very last entry that Max wrote down in her journal: "Chloe is more than my best friend...  I hated watching Chloe being so cruel in the nightmare, calling me names and flirting with all those people... I was surprised that it was like a physical pain in my heart. Is that the power of friendship... or love? I believe you're about to find out, Max Caulfield." What better way to poetically describe the final question that Max poses in her diary?

Today's a once-in-a-lifetime, gravity has fallen asleep
Let's hide where the sun cannot find us and fly away to a new world
When they wake up, we'll be gone beyond, we'll run somewhere so far that we can't come back
"Ready, set go!", and we'll fly off the Earth into a brand new journey, a new land

[WARNING: Incoming rant not directly related to Weathering With You]

In the final episode of Life is Strange 2, players are treated with a cameo of David Madsen, Chloe's stepfather. In one of game's the most pivotal conversations, David tells us how he felt upon finding out that Max and Chloe seemingly just leave after the destruction of Arcadia Bay: "I used to hate them for running away. They hit the road straight away, never to look back, while I was trying to rebuild." Now while this statement was slightly clarified when David later said "Took me a while to acknowledge the past was the past and move on, like they did", reflecting upon his words as a history fan leaves some room for negative interpretation. At best, those lines from David are a poor way of saying "Don't cry over spilled milk" or "build on what’s come before while learning to evolve too." At worst, they tell us that Max and Chloe took to heart Kylo Ren's most infamous line from Star Wars: The Last Jedi: "Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to." Besides killing the past, what better way to let it die than to run away from it whilst stubbornly refusing to look back regardless of any upsides? I honestly hope it ain't the latter as that will really piss me off, because it will only reinforce this disturbing notion that Max and Chloe were little more than self centered a**holes. Why else would David initially hate them when he is told of the pair's whereabouts? It simply doesn't fit with the characterization that the game has built up for Max especially. The one silver lining I see in this situation is the fact that Dontnod didn't confirm outright that Pricefield is a reality post game either. So if those die-hard shippers believe that their only true pairing is a reality post-game, I'll go out on a limb and make it my headcannon that Max and Chloe didn't just simply ran off like cowards. At the very least, it was Max that called for emergency responders to help save the survivors.

[End Rant]

Thankfully, Radwimps are far more adept at wordsmithing than Dontnod (despite not being native English speakers as well). Through the song, they frame two individuals who simply want to start anew in a different place. The lyrics they've composed are so much better than a blunt and selfish "they literally ran away and never looked back."

Let's go!
One more step and we're past our destiny
One more step and we're past our destiny
One more step and we're past our destiny
One more step and… 

Within context of the film, the "destiny" mentioned here likely pertains to the fate of the sunshine girl, who has to be sacrificed to have a clear sky once again. In Life is Strange, the game gives this impression that the universe is trying pull off a Final Destination plot against Chloe: it's her destiny to die in the bathroom at Nathan Prescott's hands. With that in mind, its obvious that saving her would be seen as moving "past destiny."

We built our sails with our hopes and dreams
Sailing through night to the brightest day and our tomorrow
All of our hopes are enough to go
"It will all work out somehow" as long as we're together now

This talks about being together.

And though we're scared, there's no way we can give up now
There'll be storms and roadblocks ahead, it's something that we just can't avoid 
The voice in my head, the voice in our hearts, our voices yell out  

"It's time to go!"

One translator had this to say about the song's ending: "This last stanza is uplifting, as the singer(s) cheer on about their weaknesses. They are with fear, and they will have to take detours. But they have accepted them, as they are unavoidable. Because in the end, they want to “go” as their love calls out to them. If failure comes their way, they will deal with it at that time and try to triumph over them." Hmm... why does this sound familiar? "Someday we will foresee obstacles Through the blizzard, through the blizzard.... Live together, live together." If the stanza doesn't beautifully sum up the song Obstacles, I don't know what will.

Because of this, the song sugarcoats the choice made by the protagonist to save a love one and while others have to suffer in her place.

Closing Thoughts

Your Name's unprecedented success meant that whatever the next film Shinkai would make had an insurmountable uphill battle to climb. The Japan Times' interview with Shinkai recounts a less than savory time in the aftermath of Your Name's release, which impacted how Weathering with You came to be:

Despite its popularity, the success of Your Name. inspired a backlash, something Shinkai partially attributes to the length of time it remained in theaters and, as a result, the public consciousness. 

As its theatrical run continued, [one Japanese director] wrote in 2016 that the film was “packed with the elements of a hit film … maybe too packed.... I think it’s about time films moved on from the ‘time-traveling high school girl’ trope”... 

[One] manga artist... said the film was, “from the viewpoint of a professional, not the least bit interesting,” while Mobile Suit Gundam's creator... had “serious doubts whether anyone will be watching it in five years.”

Shinkai says the scrutiny at the time was overwhelming.

“I’d be out at a bar or something and someone next to me would be criticizing the film,” Shinkai says. “Or I’d be at home eating with my family, we’d turn on the TV and some famous person would be insulting it. I started to feel like I was really hated.”

He says the criticism ultimately affected the production of Weathering With You. 

“I asked myself, ‘Should I make a film my critics will like,” he recalls, “or should I make one they’ll hate even more?’”

He decided on the latter.

“I felt like I needed to make a movie that would make my critics feel even more strongly about me,” he says. “The hate surrounding Your Name. actually helped me realize what I wanted to do as a creator.”

In retrospect, the idea that Shinkai set out to create a film that critics would hate more than Your Name feels kinda of baffling. Which critics was he trying to deal with, exactly? The ones that didn't want Shinkai to inject some social commentary into his films? Naysayers who didn't want a glimpse into the divide between old and young? Those who hate supernatural elements? Detractors who didn't like the fact Taki managed to save both Mitsuha and Itomori's inhabitants? This kind of reminds me of the idea that Life is Strange 2 was made the way it was partly because the one complaint Dontnod wanted to address was amount the reused locations and characters in the first game. As to how this actually impacted the film's overall quality, well, one can speculate.

Anyway, so how does the film stand up? Overall, my caution before I got to saw this film wasn't exactly unjustified. Weathering with You didn't overcome that figurative uphill climb that Your Name presented. On the one hand, the film has a strong thematic foundation consisting topics such as man vs. nature, individualism vs. collectivism, and "hope in the face of adversity." On the other hand though, a few shortcomings hindered Weathering with You from being on par with its esteem precursor... and lacked whatever magic spark that enabled Your Name's critical and commercial success.

One of the film's shortcomings was, in the words of one viewer:

The part that was the most disappointing was the lack of great scenes. Shinkai's other works have stories and plots equally as bad, but a number of great scenes or moments make up for it. This movie felt like a buildup for the majority of the time, making the movie extremely boring to watch. Then the climax is visually incredible and pairs really well with the song that plays, but is a very generic anime scene that I've seen since the early Studio Ghibli films with nothing particularly interesting or special going on. 

The lack of things tying back to other parts of the story was also extremely disappointing. There was very little foreshadowing or even little occurrences that would be mentioned later to make a scene more emotional. For all the plot setup this movie had, it should have been able to include more details during that time so that some of the more grand, emotional scenes would feel... well, emotional and grand.

Weathering with You's flaws prevent it from being on par - let alone better - than Your Name. It ain't the elusive masterpiece that would prove to skeptics that Shinkai is indeed "the new Miyazaki." As three different viewers wrote:

I, however do encourage you to lower your expectations. Not that the film isn't good, it is. Great even and really enjoyable for me. It's just not [Your Name] 2, which I feel many people will be expecting going in and be disappointed. This is a different type of story and film...

Should you watch it? Yes, absolutely. Bring your whole family, your new date, your children along. It's fantastically friendly for all situations and ages, and a complete film if you don't mind the details. But if you really think about the film in a more in depth level, you will be bugged by it's many shortcomings.

...[Weathering with You] is an imperfect film and is absolutely not a total masterpiece due to plotholes, unexplained aspects and situations, certain bland parts, the reuse of formulas, and many more, but it is still an enjoyable anime film to watch... It may not be counted as one of the top anime films for me, but nevertheless, still a decent to good 1 hour and 54 minute film that contains the signature "Shinkai magic" in it.

In any case, the quality/enjoyment gap between Weathering with You and Your Name is thankfully far smaller than the one separating Life is Strange and Life is Strange 2. In an article for Gamereactor, Jean-Luc Cano, one of the co-writers for Life is Strange and it's "sequel", spoke of the fundamentals of the Life is Strange series:

"We first asked ourselves, what is Life is Strange?" says Cano of the process of coming up with the concept for the second game. "What is the real DNA of the game? Is it about Max and Chloe? Is it about Arcadia Bay? Is it about teenagehood? And we talked a lot about it and we figured out that the Life is Strange franchise is about relatable characters, everyday characters, facing social themes and everyday issues and with a little bit of supernatural stuff."

With that in mind, I'd consider Your Name. and Weathering with You as spiritual entries in the Life is Strange series. And despite its weaknesses, Weathering with You merely reinforced my belief that Shinkai has a far better understanding of what made Life is Strange great in the first place when compared to the series' own creators (notwithstanding whether he has even played the game at all).

Before moving on, I want to give a friendly reminder to any Life is Strange fan what one of the game's co-directors has said on record regarding 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... We still don't think we'd change anything, even if players would have loved to see more outcomes based on their choice.

In his 2019 book The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company, Bob Iger shared this simple word of advice:

Take responsibility when you screw up. In work, in life, you’ll be more respected and trusted by the people around you if you own up to your mistakes. It’s impossible to avoid them; but it is possible to acknowledge them, learn from them, and set an example that it’s okay to get things wrong sometimes.

As of now, I've yet to come across a single interview where Dontnod has at least admitted they could have better handled the first game's ending. If someone has found that elusive article, I'd really much appreciate a link, be it English or French! Makes me wonder if someone influential at Dontnod hates history so much that they refuse to look back at the past no matter what. Yes, the past is past and one shouldn't cry over spilled milk. But that shouldn't be an excuse to not look back and learn from past events so that mistakes won't be repeated again. As philosopher George Santayana famously said, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it." While Dontnod has acted frustratingly unrepentant and seemingly ran away from the mistakes they've committed in the ending of their most successful game, Shinkai made the following statement during an interview with Polygon dated October 1, 2019:

Yeah, I’m happy that we were able to create something that the audience wanted to see. But then, while I was watching [Weathering with You] with the audience... I just kept noticing this stuff that we could have done better. I just had lots of little regrets as I watched. I mean everyone did laugh at the points that I was hoping they would, but then I saw a lot of things that I could maybe change. So now I’m just really wanting to make the next film so that I could just fix all of those issues.

Despite the commercial and critical success he's earned, it's admirable Shinkai hasn't yet succumbed to the apparent arrogance that has afflicted Dontnod since finishing Episode 5 of Life is Strange. The fact he hasn't used "artistic integrity" nor Weathering with You's commercial and critical success as an excuse to pretend as if there was nothing to change anything in the film is commendable in my book. Whereas Dontnod officially declared that Max and Chloe's story is over despite the popularity of the characters, Shinkai was sensitive enough to acknowledge fan reactions towards Taki and Mitsuha. An article from IndieWire reveals that:

Understanding his audience is important to Shinkai and he’s devoted to his fans. He sneaks into screenings and observes their reactions, and is learning to expand the generational reach of his characters to make them more relatable. When Your Name became a huge hit in Korea, during a promotional tour he promised to give Taki and Mitsuha cameos in his next movie, which he did. “But I really wanted to show what they do in their normal, daily lives outside of their film,” he added.

The snippets I got from Polygon and IndieWire feel like a reaffirmation of one sentiment I wrote down in my Your Name impressions: it's a real tragedy that Max Caulfield didn't had a creator as levelheaded as Shinkai was, a creator who wasn't afraid to publicly admit there were mistakes made in the past, mistakes that could have been improved upon and avoided in the future.

If there was to be a film set in the Life is Strange universe (an adaptation of a well made Max and Chloe fanfic, perhaps?), Makoto Shinkai has made a strong case that he's probably the most prominent director in the industry to do such a film justice. While his previous works illustrate his effectiveness of delivering an "emotional roller coaster ride," Weathering with You demonstrated his willingness to explore topics affecting society at large.

I never thought I would have said this a few years ago, but a Life is Strange anime series in the right hands... dew it! Source. 

At the 2019 Animation Is Film Festival, Shinkai hinted at two social issues that could play a role in his next film. As per IndieWire:

...after recently watching Joker, [Shinkai] took note of its blockbuster success in capturing the zeitgeist of incel violence. “To have so many people have an interest in such a dark hero, dark movie, I felt that maybe there was a lot of stress that the audience feels,” Shinkai said. “... But having suppressed people being the heroes of movies really says something about society right now. Everyone feels that kind of stress and suppression.”

And this has Shinkai thinking about his next movie and how he might incorporate both stress and social media. “I want to do something that has communication as a theme,” he said. “When you talk about social media, we’re connected all the time with people, but maybe we’re too connected, so the way we’re [dependent] on social media might be something I want to work on.”

What really has me excited though was his desire to ensure that all of Weathering with You's shortcomings would be fixed in his next film. Fingers crossed that he'll succeed in that task. If the social commentary and themes of Weathering with You can be effectively mixed with the emotional resonance of Your Name without being hamstrung by each film's weaknesses, perhaps we can finally get to experience the film that would be hailed as Shinkai's magnum opus. And I'll be waiting patiently for that day when it arrives....

"We're gonna be alright". Source for the bottom image.

Your Name: Impressions from a Life is Strange fan (MAJOR SPOILERS)

EDIT (05/20/2019): I originally published this post back on May 4, 2019, but thanks to a technical screw up, the original somehow got wiped out and I had to re-write the whole thing from scratch.


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.

It's time to be an Everyday Hero...

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):

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?

For a moment, I got a little bit excited. Then I remembered the reason why I was skeptical about the new issues, which was the summary for the upcoming story arc:

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....

Not Taki: "Excuse me! Haven't we.... Have I... met you somewhere?"
Max: "I thought so too!"
Both: "Could I ask you... your name?"

The current state of the comic series along with the lackluster marketing and seemingly aimless direction of Life is Strange 2 is slowly killing off my hopes for future of the franchise. It was after watching Your Name that I was once again reminded of what a Life is Strange story should feel like if it had a clear, generally consistent and good direction. At first glance Your Name has more in common with the Star Trek: The Original Series episode Turnabout Intruder (a body swapping episode) than Life is Strange, but upon closer scrutiny the film shares some notable similarities with the game. Supernatural occurrences? A high school backdrop? Likable and endearing main characters? An intriguing mystery? Simple but well done camera work and lighting? A memorable soundtrack with great songs? A doomsday event that threatens a fictional town in the middle of nowhere? Concepts that Christopher Nolan loves using such as dreams and time? All of that is in 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.

The meeting that never happens in the game.

One evening, Mitsuha performs a well choreographed dance at the Miyamizu Shrine along with Yotsuha that ends with them making kuchikami sake in the traditional manner. According to some fans, the dance foreshadows a comet's impending arrival. After the performance, Mitsuha expresses her frustrations by yelling "I hate this town! I hate this life too! Please make me a handsome Tokyo boy in my next life!" And here come's my first nitpick with the film. While I totally understand why Mitsuha would want to leave for the big city, the notion that her life was so bad that she was willing to be a boy if reincarnated feels overblown. Why? Because we never got to see anything concrete to show that Mitsuha was facing problems just as bad if not worse than what Chloe had to suffer through after the death of her father William... and once Max left for Seattle. Itomori ain't paradise for sure, but it's a far cry from being a desolate, lawless wasteland like Tatooine or Jakku.

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.

Yeah, this is a real place. Unlike Arcadia Bay...

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:

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:

[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:

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:

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.

"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:

Where should I start? How should I explain?
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

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."

I wonder if we can push our way through
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

I'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.

Back in the Zenzenzense 'til this day
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

The 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!"

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 disappear
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

The 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."

Words like "tomorrow" or "future" or "fate"
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

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."

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"
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

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.

Now, just a little more
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

The 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.

Even if you're not around in this wide world
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

These lines perfectly sums up how I believe Max would feel after Chloe's death.

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 happy
Smiling even when I'm feeling lonely
It's because the heart of mine
Has made it here before my body

If 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..."

If only "The High Seas" band in the Life is Strange comics were likable as them...

When I read the songs' lyrics for the first time, the one thought that stuck in my head was this notion that the directive or inspiration behind them was "to make songs based on Max Caulfield's feelings and time travel antics." If so, Radwimps succeeded with flying colors. I bet that if you were to show the songs' lyrics to someone who hasn't watched Your Name but played Life is Strange, there's a good chance they'll come to the conclusion that the words were inspired by the game. They would be at home in Life is Strange. For me, Your Name's songs are an accidental but fitting love letter to Max Caulfield. The 18 months that Radwimps spent to make the film's soundtrack proved to be beneficial in the end.

"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.

"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:

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.

Mitsuha: "Taki... I'll always be with you."
Taki: "Forever..."

Author Robert McKee wrote the following in his book Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting:

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:

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 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.

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.

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.

Life is Strange: Your Name - Issue #1 cover concept (remember Dust #1?)

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:

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.

Life is Strange 2's "road trip" concept would have worked better if we followed this group for all five episodes.

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