君の名は Your Name - Book and Movie Review

Your Name is going to be a piece talked about for a while. In the Anime film world, it's going to be one of those movies that will be considered a milestone... "We gotta be the next Your Name." It did phenomenally well domestically in Japan and even with the few hundred theaters in North America, it still made several million dollars here. It was so popular in Austin (where I'm located), that one of our chain theaters (Alamo Drafthouse) had it showing for about 2 months after the initial release. It was only just dropped from their showtime calendars last week, I believe. 

If you go into the movie like myself, unaware what is going to happen or what the story is about, the beginning is a tad confusing. However, they do a great job of guiding you through it very early on. Once you're caught up with what's happening, the rest of the movie flows like a majestic river. It doesn't hold your hand and it expects you to think about it, but it also doesn't make it hard. However, the hard parts are not missing. They exist in the form of gut-wrenching, heart-breaking moments that literally made me want to scream, "What the F**K!?" in a packed theater... Just like that majestic river, there are falls. Huge falls. The emotions evoked during that movie are emotions no movie before has caused me to feel. I genuinely wanted to tear up more than once and I'm not even a crier!

In between the moments of pain and loss, there are many, many very pleasant and hilarious moments. The two main characters are written super well and compliment each other greatly. Some have stated that there's not a lot of character development, but I disagree. While we don't see a lot of them "shaping up" to be who they are at the start of the movie, Taki (the male MC) grows a lot thanks to his interactions with Mitsuha (the female MC). Just the same, Mitsuha's character feels developed already and it doesn't feel like she changes a whole lot, but there are moments where she does seem to be a completely different person, especially nearing the end of the movie.

The book follows the exact same story as the movie, but it alternates between the point of view of each of the main characters. I've seen some reviews of the book stating that "it was hard to follow" or "you don't know which character is speaking most of the time" or "I couldn't tell who's point of view was being told at the time." These people are silly. There are many clear indicators as to when time hops are happening, or when we're switching to the other character's point of view. Time hops have three large font stars between the last and next paragraphs, probably 18-pt sized. Point-of-view swaps just have larger breaks between the paragraphs. It reads very well to me and this is even after more than a decade of not actually reading a novel...

The book was just a fun to read as the movie was to watch. The emotional parts felt just as evocative as the film, but since I knew what would happen I didn't have quite the same level of "feels" going on. I felt that the book is a brilliant supplement to the movie. It's not necessary, but it does provide a unique way to see the same story and let's you see what the characters are thinking - things that are not shown or mentioned during the movie. 

My review scores for the film:
Visuals: 9/10

Music: 10/10

Story Development: 9/10

Character Development: 7.5/10

Voice Actors: 10/10 -- So perfect and believable 100%

Emotion Evocation: 9/10

Re-watchability: 8.5/10

Overall, I would give the movie a strong 9/10.

君の名は (Your Name) is a fantastical story where two teenagers, Taki and Mitsuha, are inexplicably linked through space and time and must live each other's lives on a regular basis. They learn to cope and eventually form extremely strong feelings for one another until a catastrophe causes their body swapping to abruptly stop. Once Taki is able to re-unite with Mitsuha, they work together to prevent the same catastrophe and create a future where they can be together.