Your Name premiered 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. It features the voices of Ryunosuke Kamiki and Mone Kamishiraishi, with animation direction by Masashi Ando, character design by Masayoshi Tanaka, and its orchestral score and soundtrack composed by Radwimps. A light novel of the same name, also written by Shinkai, was published a month prior to the film's premiere.
The film received widespread critical acclaim, with praise for its story, animation, music, visuals, and emotional weight. Grossing over US$382 million worldwide, it became the third highest-grossing Japanese film of all time, breaking numerous box office records, unadjusted for inflation. It received several accolades, including the 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 Prize for Animation of the Year. A live-action remake is in development at Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot.
Mitsuha Miyamizu is a high school student in the rural town of Itomori, Japan. Bored of the town, she wishes to be a Tokyo boy in her next life. Soon, she begins to intermittently switch bodies with Taki Tachibana, a boy from Tokyo. On certain days, Taki and Mitsuha wake up in each other's bodies and must live the entire day as the other, reverting when they go to sleep at night. The two set up ground rules for sharing their bodies, communicating via messages on paper, their phones, and their skin. Mitsuha (in Taki's body) sets Taki up on a date with his coworker, Miki Okudera, while Taki (in Mitsuha's body) helps Mitsuha become more popular at school. While in Mitsuha's body, Taki accompanies Mitsuha's grandmother Hitoha and younger sister Yotsuha to the Shinto shrine on a mountain near Itomori, leaving an offering of kuchikamizake made with Mitsuha's saliva. Hitoha explains that god is the ruler over both time and the connections between humans. Mitsuha tells Taki that the comet Tiamat is expected to pass nearest to Earth on the day of the autumn festival. The next day, Taki goes on a date with Miki in his own body; Miki enjoys the date but says she can tell Taki is preoccupied with someone else. Realizing he is falling for Mitsuha, Taki attempts to call her on the phone but cannot reach her. The body-switching stops as inexplicably as it started.
Taki, Miki, and their friend Tsukasa travel to Hida to search for Mitsuha. Taki does not know the name of Mitsuha's village, so he sketches the landscape from memory; a restaurant owner in Takayama recognizes the town as Itomori and offers to take Taki and his friends. When they arrive, they find the town almost entirely decimated by fragments that fell from Tiamat. Since the comet passed three years earlier, Taki realizes that he and Mitsuha were separated by three years, her living in 2013 and he in 2016. He finds Mitsuha's name among the 500 people killed by the comet's impact. Taki begins to lose his memories of Mitsuha, seeing her messages disappear from his phone. In a panic, he races to the shrine and drinks the kuchikamizake. He has a vision and recalls that Mitsuha once came to Tokyo to find him; though he did not recognize her, she gave him a red kumihimo ribbon he has worn ever since. Taki awakens in Mitsuha's body on the morning of the festival, where Hitoha speaks directly to him, explaining that the body-switching phenomenon has always been in their family. Realizing he has a chance to save Mitsuha and the entire town, Taki convinces Mitsuha's friends to help him broadcast an emergency signal, evacuating Itomori before the meteor fragments strike. He then heads to the shrine, where Mitsuha has just woken up in Taki's body. As twilight falls;[note 1] their timelines cross, allowing them to meet in person for the first time. Taki returns Mitsuha's ribbon, and they attempt to write their names on each other's palms, but twilight ends before Mitsuha can write hers.
She returns to the village to see that the evacuation plan failed but convinces her father, the mayor, to order an evacuation. 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 with no memory. Five years later, Taki is a university graduate struggling to find a job. He is obsessed with the impact of Tiamat, when the villagers of Itomori were miraculously saved by a fortuitous evacuation drill, but cannot remember why. One day, he glimpses Mitsuha, who has moved to Tokyo; they race to find each other. As they pass the stairs of a shrine, Taki calls out to Mitsuha, and the two simultaneously ask each other for their name.
The idea for this story came to Shinkai after he visited Yuriage, Natori, Miyagi Prefecture in July 2011, after the Great East Japan Earthquake occurred. He said, "This could have been my town". He said that he wanted to make a movie in which the positions of the people in Yuriage would be swapped with the viewers. The sketches that Shinkai drew during this visit have been shown in exhibitions.[15]
While the town of Itomori, one of the film's settings, is fictional, the film drew inspirations from real-life locations that provided a backdrop for the town. Such locations include the city of Hida in Gifu Prefecture and its library, Hida City Library.[21]
Yojiro Noda, the lead vocalist of the Japanese rock band Radwimps, composed the theme music of Your Name. Director Makoto Shinkai requested him to compose its music "in a way that the music will (supplement) the dialogue or monologue of the characters".[22] Your Name features the following songs performed by Radwimps:
The soundtrack of the film was well received by both audiences and critics alike and is acknowledged as being one of the factors behind its success at the box office.[22] The film's soundtrack was the runner-up in the "Best Soundtrack" category at the 2016 Newtype Anime Awards, and the song "Zenzenzense" was the runner-up in the "Best Theme Song Category".[24]
In Southeast Asian countries, this movie was screened as well. Purple Plan streamed an English and Chinese subtitled trailer for the film and premiered the film in Singapore on November 3,[28] and in Malaysia on November 8, with daily screenings onwards.[29] In India, PVR released Your Name as the opening film of the "Makoto Shinkai Film Festival" on May 19, 2023.[30] M Pictures released it[31] on November 10 in Thailand, and earned 22,996,714 baht (about US$649,056) in four days. Indonesian film distributor Encore Films announced that it would premiere the film in Indonesia on December 7. Cinema chain CGV Blitz also revealed that it would screen the film.[32] Pioneer Films screened the film in the Philippines on December 14 and it immediately became the country's highest-grossing animated movie for the year.[33] In Hong Kong, the film opened on November 11, and earned HK$6,149,917 (about US$792,806) in three days. The film premiered in Taiwan on October 21 and earned NT$64 million (about US$2 million) in its first week while staying in the first position in the box office earnings ranking. As of October 31, it has earned NT$52,909,581 (about US$1.666 million) in Taipei alone.[34] It was released in Chinese theatres by Huaxia Film Distribution on December 2, 2016.[35]
The film was released in Australian cinemas on limited release on November 24, 2016, by Madman Entertainment in both its original Japanese and an English dub.[36] Madman also released the film in New Zealand on December 1, 2016.[37] The film was screened in France on December 28.[38] The film was also released in the United Kingdom on November 18, 2016, distributed by Anime Limited.[39] The film was released in North American theaters on April 7, 2017, distributed by Funimation.[40] In Germany the film was screened in over 150 cinemas in January 2018, with the first day being completely sold out.[41] It reached the Top 10 movies that weekend.[42] Due to the high demand, additional screening days were arranged.[43][44]
Your Name was released in 4K UHD Blu-ray, Blu-ray, and DVD on July 26, 2017, in Japan by Toho Pictures. The release was offered in Regular, Special, and Collector's editions.[45] Funimation announced on July 1 at Anime Expo 2017 that the film would be released on Blu-ray and DVD by the end of 2017 but did not specify a date.[46] At Otakon 2017, they announced they are releasing the movie in both Standard and Limited Edition Blu-Ray and DVD Combo Packs on November 7, 2017.[47][48] In its first week, the Blu-ray standard edition sold 202,370 units, the collector's edition sold 125,982 units and the special edition sold 94,079 units.[49] The DVD Standard Edition placed first, selling 215,963.[50] Your Name is the first anime to place three Blu-ray Disc releases in the top 10 of Oricon's overall Blu-ray Disc chart for 2 straight weeks.[51] In 2017, the film generated 6,532,421,094 ($58,238,797) in media revenue from physical home video, soundtrack and book sales in Japan.[52]
Overseas, the film grossed over $10.5 million from DVD and Blu-ray sales in the United States as of April 2022[update].[53] In the United Kingdom, it was 2017's second best-selling foreign language film on home video (below Operation Chromite)[54] and again 2018's second best-selling foreign language film (below My Neighbor Totoro).[55]
The Japanese television broadcast of Your Name was premiered on November 4, 2017, through satellite television broadcaster Wowow. In addition, a special program dedicated to Makoto Shinkai as well as his previous works were also broadcast on the same channel.[56] It also received a Japanese terrestrial television premiere on January 3, 2018, via TV Asahi and the initial broadcast received a 17.4% audience rating.[57]
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