(Contains movie spoilers)

When Your Name was released in 2016, it earned over 20 billion yen in Japan and over $330 million when it was released in the U.S. in early 2017. This makes it one of the most successful anime films of all time, competing alongside other highly acclaimed anime films such as Spirited Away and Ponyo. Directed by Makoto Shinkai, Your Name has remained relevant within the anime community and beyond, even five years after its initial release. There are several factors of the film that have made it as widely praised as it is, each of which are unique in their own way.

At a surface level, the plot of Your Name seems very cliche. Two teens in Japan, Mitsuha Miyamizu and Taki Tachibana, become connected to each other via body swapping that occurs in their sleep. Mitsuha, who lives in the Japanese countryside and is part of a family bound by tradition, gets the opportunity to experience Taki’s busy life as a student in Tokyo, a place she has wanted to go in order to escape from being one of her family’s shrine maidens. As the two learn more about each other, they begin to value one another and want to connect with each other face to face, something they haven’t been able to do because of the large distance between them. The plot’s factors of wanting to escape from something and finding someone important aren’t something new to the entertainment industry. However, this is largely where Your Name’s similarities with other films like it ends.

As Mitsuha and Taki find out when their body swapping stops, physical distance isn’t the only thing separating them; time itself is as well. Mitsuha lives three years in the past, and her native town of Itomori was destroyed by a meteorite, tragically ending the lives of herself and those around her. By traveling to what remains of Itomori, Taki is able to connect once more with Mistuha and help save her and the town’s citizens from the meteorite. Because of this, Mitsuha’s timeline which was once cut short now continues to flow and connect with Taki’s. This truly develops one of the film’s major themes, which is the unfailing perseverance of the two main characters to find each other. This is just one of the big themes that Your Name adds a tremendous amount of both realism and fantasy to in order to fully immerse its audience into what the characters are thinking and feeling through a variety of themes that they can resonate with. 

Another big factor that contributes to the success of Your Name is its outstanding animation quality. From the different lightings of the day, to the vast forests and houses of Itomori, to the neverending sprawl of Tokyo skyscrapers, each and every scene in the film is precisely drawn and colored down to the smallest of details. The characters themselves are well drawn, both in their physical appearance as well as their personalities. Having qualities that are relatable to the audience makes the different characters in Your Name feel like actual people, rather than something out of a fantasy.

Like countless other great films, Your Name has a soundtrack that masterfully draws out the emotions of each scene. Accommodating every moment of the film, from the fast paced to the slower and more sentimental, the combination of music and animation seemingly dance together to tell a story that would be incomplete without the other. The soundtrack’s pieces that contain lyrics, such as “Sparkle” and “Dream Lantern”, are composed and performed by the Japanese rock band Radwimps. Although the lyrics are in Japanese, the songs themselves truly help move things along at the pace needed to fit how the film as a whole develops. 

“Your Name is a perfect mix of supernatural with romantic undertones and the audience is kept captivated throughout with its animation and soundtrack,” said junior Tin Nguyen.

Overall, Your Name has several different factors that made it successful upon its release to the world. However, what has kept it relevant is the fact that it took generic components of a movie and factors of a stereotypical plot and made them its own. Your Name is more than just another anime film. It’s an experience that never gets old.