Threads of Fate: A Magical Review of “Your Name”

Plot Summary:

Directed by Makoto Shinkai, Your Name is a story that surrounds two high schoolers who swap bodies irregularly and mysteriously. One is located in Tokyo, Japan, and the other in a small, isolated town in the countryside. The movie starts with a falling comet from the sky heading towards a town with a large lake in the center. Both protagonists begin to speak about how they wake up feeling sad and like they are missing out on something important. The story returns back to the past, with the figure of a young high school girl sleeping. The dream is about Mitsuha’s introduction, and the red rope being thrown. The high school girl checks herself out upon waking up and proclaims it is a realistic dream. The younger sister comes to wake her up and announce that breakfast is ready. While undressing, the high school girl screams.  

Flashforward to breakfast, the granny and younger sister are watching the news, where a comet will descend after 1,200 years. The younger sister makes a comment that Mitsuha was acting strangely the day before. Mitsuha gets ready for school and meets up with her friends, Sayaka and Tessie. They both recount that Mitsuha was “possessed.” They all run into her father running in an election. She sees a random message in her notebook asking, “Who are you?” The phenomenon continues with her friends telling her she looked and acted weirdly. The scene switches from her friends talking about their future to Mitsuha threading braided cords with her granny, who states that it is a long-held tradition by the family. They apparently protect the Miyamizu Shrine, where a great fire occurred 200 years prior.  

Mitsuha is shown dancing with her younger sister at the festival in a traditional outfit. They put rice in their mouths, chew it, and then spit it out to make fermented alcohol. This process is called “kuchikamizake.” After getting made fun of by the local girls, she screams out in the middle of the night that she wants to be made into a young high school boy in Tokyo. The next morning, Mitsuha finds herself in the body of a young high school boy in Tokyo. She finds out that the boy’s name is Tsukasa. She marvels at the city, gets dressed, and heads to school. Mitsuha meets Tsukasa’s friends and go to a café after school. She thinks it is a dream. She heads to where he works as a waiter in a fancy restaurant. While in Tsukasa’s body, she fixes her skirt which was torn by the rude customer and embroidered letters on it. After the day is over, she writes down what had happened in his phone diary. 

The real Tsukasa returns to his body and sees the strange writing on his hand as well as the weird phone diary left from the day before. The next couple of scenes in the movie are back and forth between Tsukasa in Mitsuha’s body and vice versa, showing how much, they are messing with each other’s lives. They find out through writing each other that they are actively switching bodies. They set up different rules they must follow by leaving notes on their cellphones. Tsukasa has a bad habit of touching Mitsuha’s body when swapped. Mitsuha’s granny, younger sister, and Tsukasa in her body travel up the mountain. The granny speaks about musubi and the power of tying threads together to connect people. They head inside the bowl-shaped mountains and offer up the kuchikamizake which is “half of Mitsuha.” Mysteriously, the granny knows that the “Mitsuha” with them is not the real Mitsuha, and Tsukasa wakes up. 

Tsukasa goes on a date with Ms. Okudera, who made the arrangement originally with Mitsuha. Ms. Okudera realized that Tsukasa no longer likes her and likes Mitsuha. Mitsuha talked about the comet and festival. She cuts her hair short and meets up with her friends. She witnesses the comet and sees a piece break off before her very eyes. A ringing sound happens, and Mitsuha is silent. Tsukasa alludes to that date being disastrous. After that, Tsukasa lost contact with Mitsuha and stopped changing bodies. He draws pictures of the scenery and looks up on Wikipedia and other sites about the location. Tsukasa, after a while, decides to go on a journey to find Mitsuha and her hometown. He is accompanied by his friend and Ms. Okudera. They travel on a train and a bus and ask passerby about the location through the drawn pictures.  

Finally, at a local ramen shop, the ramen chef recognizes the drawings of being about Itomori. They all realized that Itomori was the place the comet fell and destroyed and killed all of the residents. All of the notes on his phone were disappearing and her existence was being erased even from his memories. He even forgot her name. On his wrist, he wore a red braided rope. He starts to recite what the granny had said about musubi. He walks up the mountain by himself and travels to the site where the granny and the younger sister had taken him in Mitsuha’s body. He goes into the “underworld,” where he drinks Mitsuha’s portion of the kuchikamizake. He witnesses in his mind the comet falling, and the red thread of fate reveals Mitsuha’s life. After hearing the clanging sound, Tsukasa awakens in Mitsuha’s body before the festival. The granny reveals that the strange “dreams” are something that all women in the Miyamizu family experienced. Tsukasa connects these dreams to be part of this exact moment in history.  

Tsukasa in Mitsuha’s body goes around and tells everyone that a comet will fall that night, and everyone will die. Him and her friends devise a plan to hijack the broadcasting system to announce it. Mitsuha’s father does not believe his words when he is trying to warn him. Mitsuha’s father recognizes that the person inside Mitsuha is not her. He feels the wind, and he goes back to the mountains where he meets up with Mitsuha at the world’s edge. It flashbacks to when Mitsuha tried to see Tsukasa in Tokyo two years before the swapping incidents occurred, so he did not know about her then. They meet each other and promise not to forget their names. Mitsuha returns to her body and goes through with the plan to protect her hometown. He did not write his name on her palm to remember but instead the words “I love you.” She was able to convince her father by herself to evacuate everyone. Even though the town itself was destroyed, none of the residents died. Tsukasa finds himself at the mountain but forgets everything.  

The story flashforwards eight years in the future with both Tsukasa and Mitsuha interviewing and working corporate jobs. Even though Tsukasa and Ms. Okudera remembered going on a trip far away, they did not remember what happened at that site. He has a strange feeling that he is searching for someone. Both of Mitsuha’s friends are seen eating together at night at a café, where Tsukasa happens to be. It shows them on a bridge while snowing passing by. Even more time passes, and they see each other through the transparent glass windows of separate trains. They recognize each other instantly and run to find each other. They finally meet up walking up different directions on the staircase. The last question they ask each other before the credits roll is: “Your name is…?” 

Personal Thoughts:

The movie itself is a fresh take on storytelling. Through the widely different perspectives of two high schoolers in separate environments, a lot can be said about how the world is perceived. Your Name focuses on both traditional and modern ideas, as the countryside represents the old, and Tokyo represents the new. By showing how each person switches bodies and experiences a clash of backgrounds, they learn to accept each other.  

One of the more traditional themes related to the “magic” itself which was presented in the form of musubi. The tying threads that link everything and everyone is a very old belief. It is set as the family tradition for Mitsuha’s lineage and is used as the major connection between the two different high schoolers. Without this traditional heritage, this “miracle” could not have occurred. It is very clear that the purpose of this movie was to express how the traditional will always exist, whether directly or indirectly. 

Although not plot-related, the movie’s use of high-quality animation and music serve to further dramatize and emphasize certain scenes. Each climactic scene is almost carried by these two elements in a good way. The story might not have had the same effect on audiences if these two elements were not as refined or paid attention to in so much detail.  

Overall, the movie did a remarkable job of presenting a wonderfully-intriguing and unique story with links clearly to the Japanese traditional past. The modern is not ignored or denounced, but rather since everything and everyone is in a state of connection, it is a natural flow of time and space that exists even amongst modern innovations.