Beautifully animated, touching, and funny in all the right places

Rating: 9/10 (21 June 2017)

Your Name is an anime film written and directed by Makoto Shinkai (5 Centimeters per Second, Children Who Chase Lost Voices, and The Garden of Words). Based on Shinkai's novel of the same name, this film once again showcases the writer/director's ingenuity for telling a poignant story while also featuring gorgeous art and animation.
In the rural Japanese town of Itomori, high school girl Mitsuha dreams of a better life, in particular, that of a young successful Tokyo boy. One day, Mitsuha wakes up in the body of Taki, a high school boy living in Tokyo. Initially treating the experience like a dream, Mitsuha (in Taki's body) lives the life she has always wished for, at least until the day is over. However, Mitsuha soon discovers that she actually can periodically switch bodies with Taki, and that everything she does as him happens in real life but just like with dreams, her memories of these events quickly fade away with time.
Beautifully animated, touching, and funny in all the right places, Your Name is another fine entry into acclaimed anime writer/director Makoto Shinkai's expanding filmography. Only somebody Japanese could tell such a carefully intertwining story in such emotional detail. The film is very reminiscent of other body-swapping movies such as Freaky Friday and Face/Off, but with a unique eastern influence untouched by the hands of Hollywood. The Japanese voice acting is great and everybody delivers their lines with just the right amount of feeling without seeming too sentimental or sappy. I have yet to see the English dubbed version, but I plan to do so in the not-too-distant future.
I rate it 8.5/10