There is a reason that this film did as good as it did. I don’t wish to gloss over the overwhelmingly beautiful, hand-drawn animation. The plot, pacing and character depth and development are all more than functional. But this is not a film review. I would sum up why this film did so well in two words: LOVE STORY. In a sea of Hollywood clichés and edgy, cynical subversions of clichés which themselves become parodies, we find this gem of naïve sincerity, emotional heft and gut-wrenching, “sinusoidal” suspense. It is simply a breath of fresh air.
Now I voice my first intention for writing this piece. Instead of taking my friends to see Case for Christ, which I am sure is a very convincing biopic of Lee Strobel, with its own moments, I would prefer to let the themes of this simple romance tell the story of Christ. Because at the heart of the Good News is love, not logic. The two often stand in diametric opposition to one another. As well, this piece was started on Good Friday, and there is an Easter play at our church right now, but since you all are writing exams, not much could be done about it.
I was going to simply tell you in person of the revelation I received about a day after viewing this piece with you, but felt that my writing would do my message more justice than my ineloquent speaking.The second intention is to say to everyone else: go watch Your Name. That is, which it comes out on blu-ray, since the theatre release here is only one week.
Now perhaps you might say that I am performing mental gymnastics in coming to my conclusions, and that the director never had any intention of relating to this off-shoot of Judaism. But the saying goes that those who leave everything in God’s hand will see God’s hand in everything. As well, that deep down inside, every man and woman who seeks one of either true love or truth will inevitably imagine or hear the call of God’s unsurpassable love and truth. True love causes even the Shinto religion to yield to the truth of the good news.
“For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities –His eternal power and divine nature –have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
-Romans 1:20
*Spoiler Alert –This is the only warning for those who do not wish to have the movie spoiled.
The film opens with a flashback (or as we know later, a flash-forward) on the fated boy and girl, living mundane lives in Tokyo, separated by distance and anonymity. They share a monologue about a dream that they could not remember, about a stranger they could not forget, a stranger they forever yearn for and strive to find. All this comes before we are greeted with the introduction, with glimpses to the sprawling scenery that fills the movie. It is enough to move the artistic to tears all on its own.
We see a teenage girl lying on her shikibuton (Japanese futon) asleep even in the face of the morning light. She dreams of a boy on a crowded Tokyo train as it stops, “Taki, Taki, don’t you remember me?” she says, as the aggravated crowd pushes the girl outside. She reaches out with a red ribbon. It leaps towards his open hand, and she cries out before she awakens, “Namae wa… Mitsuha!” (My name is … Mitsuha!)
“Remember me, when you come into your kingdom,”
-Luke 23:42
Her little sister hurries her to breakfast. She gets dressed and rushes to the dinner table, joining her grandmother and sister. The grandmother stares nonchalantly at her and says, “You’re normal today,” On the television, the news is centered around the passing of the millennial comet, Tiamat on October 14.
She walks to school and is joined by her two friends, Sayaka and Tessie. Sayaka comments, “Your hair looks alright today”, and Tessie asks if she had been exorcised by her grandmother. Peculiar questions, none is as it seems. They walk past a small rally for the upcoming mayoral election, fronted by the incumbent mayor, a suited man sporting a sash and side part. Opinions are thrown around both from supporters and detractors. Schoolmates present snidely greet the trio, musing, “Looks like even the contractor and mayor’s kids get along,” Everyone knows everyone, we see Mitsuha is living in a small town, with corruption beneath its peaceful veneer. Mitsuha hides her face in embarrassment at the spectacle, but the mayor spots her and shouts sternly, “Mitsuha, stand up straight!” to which some in the crowd praise his integrity. Her schoolmates cruelly mock her. The teenager hangs her head, bemoaning her public humiliation by her father.
In class, Mitsuha eyes a stranger’s handwriting covering a whole page in her notebook: “Who are you?” it reads. The teacher lectures about some throwaway literary concepts that are only used once later on in the movie. She calls out to Mitsuha, who jumps to attention, to which the teacher says, “Ah, so you remember your name today,” Later her friends tell her of her unkempt hair, amnesia and otherworldly behaviour, but they are quick to dismiss it as stress for the upcoming ritual for the Autumn Festival.
Mitsuya laments. She complains about the dreariness of the town, and Sayaka couldn’t help but agree. There are no jobs, no dentists, no bookstores, stores close early, and the mountains makes the daylight hours shorter. Tessie interrupts with a great sigh of frustration, either in agreement with the girls or in annoyance with their ungratefulness, “Let’s go to the café!” he suggests. The girls swoon in excitement. But immediately we the audience share their disappointment as we witness the ironic landing of canned coffee from a vending machine, “You knew there was no café,” remarked Tessie. It was just him and Sayaka.
Mitsuha had gone home to her grandmother and younger sister, Yotsuha to participate in
kumihimo, the weaving of colourful, braided cords. Yotsuha whines about her role in the complicate process, and the grandmother waxes philosophical, and rambles about the history of the Miyamizu family traditions, and how the father had abandoned them and even had the nerve to take up politics. We see in this the tearing fabric of japanese society, the conflict between old shinto values and modernity, it is the dichotomy between the connection to nature and the divine kami, and industrial progression and environmental degradation of latter day purposes. It seems the Miyamizu sisters are Miko, or shrine maidens, who must maintain the family shrine and its rituals for the rest of their lives. It seems pretty out of touch with Christian conception of things, until you consider the Old Testament levitical priesthood who served similar functions.
As Miko, Mitsuha and Yotsuha perform a ritual dance on the shrine stage in front of spectators, and participate in the creation of kuchikamisake. Virgins chew on rice, spit it in a box, and let it ferment into sake. This they take up and offer as an offering to the kami traditionally for good harvest like most other pagan religions. “Do the gods even approve of this sake?” asks Sayaka from a distance, “Of course they do!” replies Tessie with a hint of hesitation. But why? Perhaps because deep down inside, they sense the imperfection of their offering. The bullying schoolmates from the rally before are also present to watch Mitsuha expel her offering, “I could never do that,” they whisper with disgust, but not out of earshot, “Isn’t she embarrassed?”
“What goes into a person’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth,”
-Matthew 15:11
"The multitude of your sacrifices-- what are they to me?" says the LORD. "I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.”
-Isaiah 1:11
"and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags"
-Isaiah 64:6
The ritual complete, the sisters return to their casual wear. They walk down the shrine’s stone stairs in the dark of night. Mitsuha cries out into the horizon, “I hate this town, and I hate this life,” Yet she is resigned to the emptiness of what she was given, “Make me a handsome Tokyo boy in the next life!”
The first few scenes in the movie give us a glimpse of the struggles of Mitsuha’s life, and her burning desire for something more than the mundane small-town life. We often feel like something very important is missing, as though there was some greater meaning and purpose to our lives. Mitsuha will have her wish granted. It is a wonderful escape to see the lives of the protagonists swept into adventure, but what about in our own lives?
“I have come so that they may have life and have it all in its fullness,”
-John 10:10
Mitsuha awakens from sleep, in another person’s room, and another person’s body. She first notices a difference in her voice. She grabs her throat to find a lump. She feels her way down, finding things are missing from her chest and something has been added down there. Yep, she’s in a boy’s body. It’s entertaining to hear the “boy” speaking with a feminine inflection while navigating the room in utter confusion. “What a strange dream,” She says. A sudden text from a stranger startles her. She must go to school now as someone called Taki. Navigating the unknown world around her with her phone, she takes a look up to see that she is in the paradise she longed for her whole life: Tokyo. There are perks to being a “handsome Tokyo boy”, it turns out. Taki’s friends take her to a real café and she enjoy its luxuries at his expense. “I could live for a month on the price of these!” she exclaims. But of course, living the perfect life comes with trouble, when it turns out she has to work as a waiter! She gets orders wrong, and is ruthlessly scolded by staff and customer alike. “When is this dream over?” she asks.
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me,”
-Galatians 2:20
Now Taki awakens as himself, only to find the trouble that Mitsuha had caused while in his body. Mitsuha begins to notice the same, and comedy ensues. The pair begin to leave messages to one another, instructing each other on how to live their respective lives as the other. Over the course of this time, they begin to bond in the most unconventional way. We see a difference in the social standing of Taki and Mitsuha. One is a gifted, urbanite student with ambitions to become an architect, the other a simple country girl with a “dialect” trapped by her lineage responsibilities. But isn’t it true that Christ, who is God and King came down to live as a human being, as one of us? He struggled as we did, being exposed to temptation, sorrow, rejection and all other hardships in life.
“But he emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross,”
Philippians 2:7-8
Isn’t it also true, that although when we choose to live the life of Christ, even though we are promised life everlasting in paradise, among other things, that there will be trouble? In living one another’s lives, we are drawn closer together.
“The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!”
Matthew 10:24
We move to a crucial detail of the plot. At this point, Taki inhabits Mitsuha. In his hand is the kuchikamisake that Mitsuha had made earlier. The grandmother is taking “her” and Yotsuha on a hike to make an offering to the Kami that inhabits the crater nearby. Musubi, the deity is called, and this local guardian god whose power is in connecting people, the flow of time and tying thread, and as such his name is used as an expression for these things in the local dialect. The braided cords of the Miyamizu clan represent the flow of time, which converge, take shape, twist, tangle, unravel and break, yet may connect again. And so knotting is time itself. Anything that connects people is considered musubi. So the consumption of something joins souls, for example, if two people drink one another's drinks. Sound familiar?
No," said Peter, "you shall never wash my feet." Jesus answered, "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me."
-John 13:8
And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you”
Luke 22: 19-20
Taki and the two women walk into the massive crater, covered in vegetation and brimming with streams. A white rock, the size of a house occupies the very center. The meteorite is said to be the body of musubi, and within is the family shrine, where the sisters are to place their kuchikamisake inside. The sake represents half of their being. Before they could pass into the body of the god, they must wade through a ring of water, representing the underworld.
Taki has fallen in love with Mitsuha, even though the two have never met. Mitsuha while inhabiting Taki, had managed to score a date with his crush. She left him a message: “By the time the date is over, the comet will be visible over the sky,” He does not know what she is speaking of. He calls her, but no one responds. So he elects to find her. Taking a week off, he is accompanied by some friends to look for her on nothing but memories of Mitsuha’s town, which is skillfully replicates on paper with his artistic ecumen. Train-ride after train ride and interview after interview lead to no avail, until he happens upon a ramen shop. The owner recognizes the sketching as his hometown. The comet Tiamat had fragmented and coincidentally obliterated the town of Itomori three years prior, taking five-hundred lives. Mitsuha Miyamizu was among the dead. The messages she had left on his phone fade, as do his memories of her. The connection between Taki and Mitsuha was across space and time.
At this point I was mad at my friends. They promised me a movie with a happy ending, from a director who is infamous for making unhappy films. I surmised the rest of the plot had something to do with ghosts, and Taki painfully coming to terms with Mitsuha’s death. Instead, Taki does the unexpected. He takes a ride from the ramen shop owner to the crater. He hikes up the steep slopes against the wind and the pouring rain. He wades through the flooded ring-stream representing the underworld. Throughout the movie, beautiful, falling celestial objects seem to represent death.
"I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,"
He wanders into the cave of the white, solid meteorite, the body of musubi. The inside had been cut perfectly to house the shrine. He takes hold of the kuchikamisake of Mitsuha. He drinks it, asking for a chance to save his beloved. Then he slips and falls on his back, while images of Mitsuha’s life flash before his very eyes.
"I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,"
-Luke 10:18
He wanders into the cave of the white, solid meteorite, the body of musubi. The inside had been cut perfectly to house the shrine. He takes hold of the kuchikamisake of Mitsuha. He drinks it, asking for a chance to save his beloved. Then he slips and falls on his back, while images of Mitsuha’s life flash before his very eyes.
“This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him. When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb, and departed.”
Matthew 27:57-61
"You don't know what you are asking," Jesus said. "Can you drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?"
-Mark 10:38
And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
-Matthew 26:39
Taki is transported back into Mitsuha’s body. He takes notice of the television, seeing that he only has precious few hours to save the entire town. Now the grandmother notices that “Mitsuha” is different, and muses about how she too had dreams of another person’s life in her youth, as did her mother and all the women in their lineage. Taki realizes that all this was preparation for what will happen today.
“and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed,”
-Genesis 22:18
The Miyamizu line is special, because through them the whole town of Itomori will be saved by Taki inhabiting one of its descendents. Just as through Abraham’s line, and then David’s, Christ comes to save the whole world.
Taki springs into action and gathers Mitsuha’s friends, who believe him about the town’s impending doom. They devise a clever plan to save the town, but the plot is foiled by Mitsuha’s father, the mayor. Taki tries to convince him, but fails, and accused of madness that seems inherent in his late wife’s family. It seems eerily similar to the Jewish people's rejection of their own messiah in the gospels. To add atop the trouble, none in the town believe in Taki, including his (Mitsuha's) sister, to his dismay.
"Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son,"
As the gang try to salvage the plan, Taki is called to the edge of the crater. Simultaneously, Mitsuha awakens in Taki’s body, only to find that her town had been destroyed and that she had been dead. She too is called to the edge of the crater. The two meet, and are returned to their own bodies. They share a close moment together. The girl asks the boy how he was able to come back. “I drank your kuchikamisake,” replied Taki, causing Mitsuha to reel back in horror.
It is revealed during this scene that Mitsuha had tried three years prior to visit Taki, before he knew her. The main relevance however, is in something Mitsuha monologues towards Taki, that she wanted to be with the one who was, "inside of her and her inside of him," and it reminds me of this verse.
"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me."
Taki tells Mitsuha about the impending doom of the town, and gives Mitsuha instructions to inform the townsfolk to get to safety, and the rest of the town, that she still has work to do. Sound familiar?
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,"
Their memories begin to fade with the changing of the course of time. Taki suggests to Mitsuha that the two write their names on one another’s hands with a marker.
Taki writes first, but before Mitsuha could barely leave a mark on his hand, she disappears. Taki begins to lose his memory before he could write her name himself, and bellows out in tears and desperation, the heart of the gospel, “Why did I come here? I came here to see her, to save her, I wanted her to be alive. Who was it? Who did I come to see? Someone dear to me,”
"Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son,"
John 3:18
"Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?"
Matthew 13:55
As the gang try to salvage the plan, Taki is called to the edge of the crater. Simultaneously, Mitsuha awakens in Taki’s body, only to find that her town had been destroyed and that she had been dead. She too is called to the edge of the crater. The two meet, and are returned to their own bodies. They share a close moment together. The girl asks the boy how he was able to come back. “I drank your kuchikamisake,” replied Taki, causing Mitsuha to reel back in horror.
It is revealed during this scene that Mitsuha had tried three years prior to visit Taki, before he knew her. The main relevance however, is in something Mitsuha monologues towards Taki, that she wanted to be with the one who was, "inside of her and her inside of him," and it reminds me of this verse.
"Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me."
-John 15:4
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,"
-Matthew 28:19
Their memories begin to fade with the changing of the course of time. Taki suggests to Mitsuha that the two write their names on one another’s hands with a marker.
"But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.' Can a mother forget the baby at her breast, and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;"
-Isaiah 49: 14-16
Taki writes first, but before Mitsuha could barely leave a mark on his hand, she disappears. Taki begins to lose his memory before he could write her name himself, and bellows out in tears and desperation, the heart of the gospel, “Why did I come here? I came here to see her, to save her, I wanted her to be alive. Who was it? Who did I come to see? Someone dear to me,”
Mitsuha too, begins to lose her memory of Taki. As she ran towards town to finish the work of saving her town, but convincing her father, she trips and falls in a particularly heart-breaking scene as she mourns the loss of her love’s memory. She peels open her bruised hand to see his name. Only instead she sees the words, “I love you,” And that there was the moment I couldn’t handle myself. I know I am not alone in this. From these words, Mitsuha finds the strength to stand and complete her mission. The townspeople are evacuated from the impact zone and are saved.
Yet we are not happy. We are not happy because we desperately want for Taki and Mitsuha to be reunited. They go through the motions of life, looking for jobs, relationships, fulfillment. On many occasions they pass one another, and we groan in frustration when they fail to recognize each other. When finally they see each other on passing trainings, their eyes widen and they dash across the city just to find one another. At long last, they appear in front of each other, at the opposite ends of a staircase. They walk towards each other, then they pass, and for a short moment we are held in suspense, as the two hesitate to acknowledge one another. Finally, Taki musters up the courage to say, “Haven’t we met before?” Mitsuha agrees tearfully. They say to each other in unison, “kimi no namae wa?” “What is your name?”
"Let us rejoice and exult and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure"
"Let us rejoice and exult and give him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure"
-Revelation 19: 6-9
We groan in frustration when a love ends badly like in Lalaland, we rejoice when it ends happily after like in this movie. It is because the romantic marriage, captured according to God’s plan in marriage is an imperfect reflection of the love between Christ and his Church (and Christ will be reunited with his Church one day). Neither is the love story in this movie a perfect reflection of Christ’s love. Mitsuha did not reject Taki to his face, Taki did not take the meteorite to the face, Taki did not rise from the dead and save the whole world. But this story is satisfactory enough to capture the emotions necessary to translate the two-thousand-year-old gospel to millennials.
A friend of mine shared with me that on many occasions, he should have died, but something intervened. He said that he has begun to become agnostic, that someone is out there watching out for him. Many of us spend the rest of our lives looking for someone, knowing that someone is out there. Even when we see God face to face, we hesitate to acknowledge that it is really Him. We are so close to making the same mistake the couple almost made in that final scene by the staircase, and let the chance go by.
Hopeless romantics are all in utter awe of the love that transcends time, that is willing to make any sacrifice to save the object of his love. They strive for it, yearn for it, but it seems that in our own disappointing relationships that could never measure up, we can only the only place we could find it is in an escapist fantasy like in Your Name. Yet it is never in the realm of the impossible, if only in a dream we could not forget, of a person we do not know. And I’m not telling you it is not real, because it is. And it exists exceedingly and abundantly above what we ask for. If only we turn around to the one who loves us, who saved us even though we don’t know Him and say these words, “kimi no namae wa?” “What is your name?”
"Why do you ask my name? It is beyond understanding."
-Judges 13:18
Jacob said, "Please tell me your name." But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there.
-Genesis 32:29
God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: 'I AM has sent me to you.'"
-Exodus 3:14
"Very truly I tell you," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am!"
-John 8:58