Your Name (Japanese: 君の名は。, Hepburn: Kimi no Na wa; lit. 'Your Name is...') is a 2016 Japanese animated romantic fantasy film written and directed by Makoto Shinkai, produced by CoMix Wave Films, and distributed by Toho. The first installment of what critics deem Shinkai's "disaster trilogy"—followed by Weathering with You (2019) and Suzume (2022)—whose three entries share themes inspired by the frequency of natural disasters in Japan, it depicts the story of high school students Taki Tachibana and Mitsuha Miyamizu, who suddenly begin to swap bodies despite never having met, unleashing chaos onto each other's lives.
The film features the voices of Ryunosuke Kamiki and Mone Kamishiraishi as Taki and Mitsuha respectively, with animation direction by Masashi Ando, character design by Masayoshi Tanaka, and its orchestral score and soundtrack composed by the rock band Radwimps. A light novel of the same name, also written by Shinkai, was published a month prior to its release.
Your Name premièred at the 2016 Anime Expo in Los Angeles on July 3, 2016, and was theatrically released in Japan on August 26, 2016; it was released internationally by several distributors in 2017. The film received widespread critical acclaim for its story, animation, music, visuals, and emotional weight. Until it was surpassed by Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train in 2020, Your Name was the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time, grossing US$400 million worldwide following re-release, breaking numerous box office records and dethroning Spirited Away. It received several accolades, including Best Animated Feature at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, the 49th Sitges Film Festival, and the 71st Mainichi Film Awards; it was also nominated for the Japan Academy Film Prize for Animation of the Year.
A live-action remake is in development by Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot.
Plot
Mitsuha Miyamizu is a high school student in Itomori, a rural town in Gifu. Bored with her provincial life, she wishes to be reborn as a boy in Tokyo. Soon, she begins intermittently switching bodies with Taki Tachibana, a high school student and part-time waiter from Tokyo's Shinjuku ward. On certain days, they awaken in each other's bodies and must live the entire day as the other, reverting to their own bodies during sleep. They set rules for sharing their bodies, communicating via writing on paper, their phones, and their skin. In each other's bodies, Mitsuha sets Taki on a date with his coworker Miki Okudera; Taki, meanwhile, increases Mitsuha's popularity at school, and accompanies her grandmother Hitoha and younger sister Yotsuha to a shrine in the Goshintai crater. He offers kuchikamizake fermented with Mitsuha's saliva. Hitoha explains God's sovereignty over both time and the connections between humans. Mitsuha informs Taki that Comet 279P/Tiamat is expected to pass nearest to Earth on the day of the autumn festival. Taki, in his own body, goes on the date with Okudera the next day. While she enjoys it, she deduces Taki's preoccupations with someone else through his unusual behavior. Realizing his feelings for Mitsuha, Taki attempts and fails to call her. The body-switching stops inexplicably.
Taki, Okudera, and his classmate Tsukasa Fujii travel to Hida to search for Mitsuha. Unfamiliar with her town's name, Taki sketches it from memory. A Takayama ramen-shop owner, recognizing Itomori, offers to take them there. They discover its ruins, almost entirely decimated by Tiamat's fragments. Simultaneously, Mitsuha's messages vanish from his phone. The comet having passed in 2013, Taki realizes that Mitsuha has been separated from him by three years, since he lived in 2016. At Hida City Library, the three discover that the Miyamizus and their friends were among its 500 fatalities. Taki begins to lose his memories of Mitsuha. Later, Taki rushes to Goshintai to imbibe Mitsuha's kuchikamizake. Upon doing so, he faints, undergoing a vision chronicling much of her life, realizing that she once came to Tokyo to find him. Although then unaware, she passed her kumihimo braid onto him, which he has worn as a lucky bracelet ever since. He awakens in Mitsuha's body on the morning of the festival. Hitoha undergoes an epiphany upon observing "Mitsuha's" uncharacteristic behavior; speaking directly to Taki, she reveals that the body-switching has been in their family for centuries. Taki enlists Mitsuha's friends Sayaka and Tessie to force an evacuation prior to Tiamat's impact by destroying Itomori's substation and hijacking its emergency broadcast system. He returns to the shrine, where Mitsuha has awakened in his own body. At twilight, their timelines intersect, allowing them to meet in person. Taki returns Mitsuha's braid; as they attempt to write their names on each other's palms, night falls before Mitsuha can write hers.
Returning to Itomori, Mitsuha finds that the mayor, her estranged father Toshiki, had instructed residents to stay put. She persuades him to order an evacuation instead. Beginning to forget Taki, she discovers that he wrote "I love you" on her hand instead of his name. Taki awakens in his own time, without memory of Mitsuha.
Five years later, Taki has graduated from university; with persistent melancholy, he struggles with job searching. He has continuously fixated on the Itomori meteor strike, in which a last-minute evacuation order miraculously saved Itomori's residents. Eventually, on April 8, 2022, he glimpses Mitsuha, now resident in Tokyo, on a parallel metro train; they race to find each other. On the steps of Suga Shrine, Taki calls out to Mitsuha, and they simultaneously ask for each other's names.
Characters
Taki Tachibana (立花 瀧, Tachibana Taki)
Voiced by: Ryunosuke Kamiki (Japanese); Michael Sinterniklaas (English)
A seventeen-year-old student in his second year at Jingu High School in the Tokyo Metropolis; he was born on December 1, 1998 (exactly three years after Mitsuha). He is a talented sketch-artist and aspiring architect, collecting numerous books on the subject. Impulsive, straightforward, and belligerent (when Mitsuha first awakens in his body, his cheek is bandaged, owing to his penchant for quarreling), he is nevertheless well-meaning and considerate, and holds to a rigid system of moral principles. Taki often spends time with Okudera and his best friends Takagi and Tsukasa; the four serve part-time as waiters at Il Giardino delle Parole, an Italian restaurant in Shinjuku. Taki lives with his father, who works in Kasumigaseki; Shinkai stated that he thinks "his mother divorced his father a few years ago".
A running gag throughout the film has Taki awakening then realizing he has swapped bodies with Mitsuha that day. He immediately begins to fondle "his" breasts in amazement, only stopping once Yotsuha sees "her". Mitsuha herself condemns Taki's perversions upon their first physical acquaintance during the twilight hour.
By the end of the film, Taki, who has an architectural degree, searches for employment opportunities, specializing in disaster prevention.
Taki (as an architecture student) would later cameo in Shinkai's next film Weathering with You alongside his paternal grandmother Fumi Tachibana (who does not appear in Your Name) during an Obon rite for the soul of his paternal grandfather (Fumi's late husband).
Mitsuha Miyamizu (宮水 三葉, Miyamizu Mitsuha)
Voiced by: Mone Kamishiraishi (Japanese); Stephanie Sheh (English)
A seventeen-year-old student in her second year at Itomori High School; she was born on December 1, 1995. Chronologically, Mitsuha is exactly three years older than Taki. Interested in fashion, food, drink, "cute things" (such as hedgehogs), and the latest vogue, she feels inhibited by Itomori's rural setting, where she was born and has lived for all her life. Mitsuha tends to elaborately tie her hair through a crimson kumihimo braid she wove (symbolizing the red thread of fate). When switching bodies with Taki, she forbids him from showering, touching, or looking at her body.
Being practitioners of the Shinto religion, Mitsuha and her sister Yotsuha serve as miko at Miyamizu Shrine. Following the death of their mother Futaba (whom she greatly resembles), their father Toshiki, horrified by the event, abandoned the shrine to pursue politics, eventually becoming the town's mayor. Owing to his temperament, the sisters refused to live with him, instead moving in with their maternal grandmother Hitoha.
Demure, affectionate, straightforward, idealistic, and sometimes stubborn, she yearns for a metropolitan life in Tokyo and to avoid inevitably encountering Toshiki. She resents her liturgical role, which notably includes the ancient tradition of creating kuchikamizake. Its production, which has one chew rice then expectorate it for fermentation, attracts much derision from both classmates and other residents. Notably, Mitsuha's speech is marked with a lilting accent and a lighter form of the Mino dialect (as with much of her fellow Itomori residents); while possessing Taki's body, he insists that she speak hyōjungo (Standard Japanese). When Taki possesses her body, he attempts to learn her native tongue.
Her birthday contradicts the film's setting that she is seventeen in the summer of her second year in high school; Shinkai stated: "In their mind, they both kind of assumed that they were both born on December 1."
Mitsuha would later cameo in Shinkai's next film Weathering with You as a jewelry saleswoman at a shop in LUMINE, a mall in Shinjuku.
Katsuhiko "Tessie" Teshigawara (勅使河原 克彦, Teshigawara Katsuhiko)
Voiced by: Ryo Narita (Japanese); Kyle Hebert (English)
Mitsuha's classmate, nicknamed "Tessie" ("Tesshi" in the English dub); as of 2013, he is seventeen (born January 18, 1996). He is infatuated with Mitsuha. The son of the president of the local Teshigawara Construction company, Tessie is a frequent reader of Mu, a monthly periodical devoted to the occult and paranormal. He is interested in mechanics and engineering.
Tessie is deeply ambivalent toward Itomori. In the manga, he says: "It makes me want to destroy it all, leaving only beautiful memories." He initiates measures to improve the town's situation from his own perspective, earning him Taki (in Mitsuha's body)'s sympathy.
In the epilogue, Tessie and Sayaka tease each other over their upcoming marriage. The character is namesaken from Teshigawara, a character in the seventh episode of Shinkai's 2014 novelization of The Garden of Words.
Along with Sayaka, he has a cameo in Weathering with You.
Sayaka Natori (名取 早耶香, Natori Sayaka)
Voiced by: Aoi Yūki (Japanese); Cassandra Lee Morris (English)
Mitsuha's classmate and best friend; as of 2013, she is seventeen (born February 1, 1996). Calm yet volatile, she harbors a crush on Tessie. Sayaka is part of the school's radio broadcasting club: later in the film, she is tasked by Taki (in Mitsuha's body) and Tessie with broadcasting the false emergency evacuation alert. Her elder sister, who works at the town hall, briefly appears in the film.
Like Tessie, Sayaka is named after a character in the seventh episode of Shinkai's 2014 novelization of The Garden of Words.
Along with him, she has a cameo in Weathering with You.
Tsukasa Fujii (藤井 司, Fujii Tsukasa)
Voiced by: Nobunaga Shimazaki (Japanese); Ben Pronsky (English)
Taki's classmate and best friend of both him and Takagi; as of 2016, he is seventeen (born October 1, 1999). Loyal and phlegmatic, he is, like them, interested in architecture and also serves part-time at Il Giardino delle Parole. Tsukasa worries about Taki whenever Mitsuha inhabits his body.
In his last appearance toward the end of the film, he is seen wearing a ring on his left hand. Upon inquiry, Shinkai commented: "It's just a backstory, but I believe Tsukasa is engaged to Okudera."
He would later confirm that Tsukasa and Okudera married by the epilogue; the two have an age gap of seven years.
Shinta Takagi (高木 真太, Takagi Shinta)
Voiced by: Kaito Ishikawa (Japanese); Ray Chase (English)
Taki and Tsukasa's classmate and best friend; as of 2016, he is seventeen (born 1998 or 1999). Crisp and optimistic, he has a well-built figure with an athletic appearance. Like his dear friends, he is an aspiring architect. Along with them, he has a part-time job at Il Giardino delle Parole. He is the most extroverted of the trio.
Miki Okudera (奥寺 ミキ, Okudera Miki)
Voiced by: Masami Nagasawa (Japanese); Laura Post (English)
A student at the University of Tokyo and a close friend and coworker (at Il Giardino delle Parole) of Taki's. As of 2016, she is twenty-four (born January 22, 1992). Before body-switching with Mitsuha, Taki originally had a crush on Okudera. Fashionable, extroverted, and admired for her appearance, she is popular with male waiters. She develops closer feelings for Taki when Mitsuha inhabits his body. Okudera is a smoker: Tsukasa discovers this as they spend a night together while accompanying Taki on his search for Mitsuha. She is commonly referred to as Okudera-senpai ("Miss Okudera" in the English dub) by her colleagues.
Upon her long-awaited reunion with Taki in 2021, she is seen wearing an engagement ring, and informs him of her upcoming wedding. According to Shinkai: "It's just a backstory, but I believe that Tsukasa is engaged to Okudera." In the light novel, Okudera works (as of that point) at the Chiba branch of an apparel manufacturer.
He would later confirm that Tsukasa and Okudera married by the epilogue; the two have an age gap of seven years.
Hitoha Miyamizu (宮水 一葉, Miyamizu Hitoha)
Voiced by: Etsuko Ichihara (Japanese); Glynis Ellis (English)
The abbess and matriarch of Miyamizu Shrine and maternal grandmother to Mitsuha and Yotsuha; as of 2013, she is 82 (born March 4, 1931). Her principal family tradition is kumihimo (thread-weaving). She educates her grandchildren in the history, theology, and traditions of the shrine and the Shinto faith.
Hitoha is still alive as of 2021, according to the manga.
Yotsuha Miyamizu (宮水 四葉, Miyamizu Yotsuha)
Voiced by: Kanon Tani (Japanese); Catie Harvey (English)
Mitsuha's ebullient younger sister; as of 2013, she is nine (born July 2, 2004) and in fourth grade. Yotsuha assists her grandmother and sister in preserving family tradition at Miyamizu Shrine, where the sisters participate in producing kumihimo and kuchikamizake. She finds Mitsuha suspicious and erratic, yet nevertheless supports and loves her unconditionally. At the end of the film, Yotsuha is seen attending high school.
She has a cameo in the film Weathering with You.
Toshiki Miyamizu (né Mizoguchi) (宮水 俊樹; 溝口 俊樹, Miyamizu Toshiki; Mizoguchi Toshiki)
Voiced by: Masaki Terasoma (Japanese); Scott Williams (English)
The estranged father of the sisters Miyamizu and widower of Futaba; as of 2013, he is 53 and campaigning for re-election. A retired folklorist and anthropologist who originally came to Itomori for research (having abated his career and prearranged engagement in order to marry Futaba), he carries a jaded, draconic countenance owing to the loss of his wife. Horrified by how the town's residents regarded her as a mere miko, Toshiki renounced the priesthood following her death, subsequently capitalizing on the prestige of the Miyamizu clan to be elected town mayor two years later.
He was born in Nara in 1959, and formerly lived and worked in Kyoto.
Futaba Miyamizu (宮水 二葉, Miyamizu Futaba)