What Begins as a Cute Movie Evolves into Something Much More

Rating: 10/10 (13 April 2017)

Your Name. follows a boy and girl who randomly begin to switch bodies, and how their relationship develops through that.
There's a lot more to this movie than I can say, because around the halfway point everything changes and it becomes much more than a simple feel good movie. And that's what it is for the first third. It's quirky, fun, cute, all that. It's not great, but it's really enjoyable.
The second that aspect of the movie ends the movie begins its quick ascent to one of the best movies I've ever seen. It builds the characters and their relationship well and by this time we're already attached to them well enough, but then something happens. There's a huge plot twist in this movie that, put simply, blew my mind. And moreover, made me tear up a little. From there on it just gets better and better, writing-wise.
The movie doesn't just have a great story though. For starters, the animation is beautiful. And it isn't just pretty paintings and scenery (though there are), the imagery is also unique in some scenes, where what is being shown isn't completely natural but it looks cool anyway. At the same time, it isn't just mindless artsy- fartsy crap, it actually has relevance and symbolism and stuff.
The movie's soundtrack proves to be quite good too. A song plays every once in a while, and all of them are well-suited to the movie and just sound nice. I don't think I'd listen to them outside of the movie, but I like them nonetheless.
Something that really stood out to me was how realistic it could be. Sure, it feeds off of plenty of things that would only happen in an anime world, but it doesn't rely on those. The characters act in realistic ways and say things you'd expect them to say, all without removing the anime charm entirely.
I always think it's cool to see a movie with a few confusing scenes, then see everything come together at the end, making all those scenes make sense. Your Name. has plenty of those. There are scenes that you kind of just forget about but then they come up again later and you realize that this was all thought out well before the movie was made, and it really shows just how much effort was put into the movie in the first place. It's clear that it's trying to be something more. It's trying to be complex, and it actually is. The movie isn't too terribly hard to understand, but it does require you to think at least a little to fully get it.
Overall Your Name. is an anime that excels in every aspect of it. The writing is fantastic, the characters are fun and lovable yet realistic, the soundtrack is well-suited, it's beautiful to look at, and it makes you think just enough that it isn't overly confusing, but enough to still make it complex. In the end this isn't just one of the best anime films, this is one of the best films I've ever seen, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to just about anyone.