This is the first anime movie I have ever watched, and today, 4 years later, I finally rewatched it and had to write a review. Rewatching it really confirmed that this is, in fact, my favorite movie of all time.
Watching it 4 years ago with basically no experience with anime, and today after so many years of anime and movies are completely different experiences, and I will describe both.
4 YEARS AGO
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Knowing pretty much nothing about anime and Japanese culture, the movie remained puzzling from the beginning to the very end. I made so many assumptions about the story, missed so many details, but I was
...
still somehow on a rollercoaster of emotions and events the movie sped through.
I enjoy watching movies, and at the time, I was consuming unhealthy amounts every single day. Nevertheless, watching Kimi No Na Wa was a completely new experience that simply blew my mind. I had many questions after watching it and continued thinking about it for weeks. During that time I downloaded Sparkle and Nandemonaiya and listened to them on repeat every day on the way to school. I was in high school at the time, and I kept pondering on the thought that I will never find my soulmate, even if they existed.
Even though so many things happen in the movie, I still made some sense of it and found it a beautiful mesh of unknown with breathtaking visuals and soul-stirring music. I had no idea what any of the lyrics meant (I don't think they were translated in the sub at the time), but listening to them, I was able to visualize the scenes when they played and experience the complex emotions all over again.
Bear in mind that I had basically seen no anime at this point (except some shows as a kid, like DBZ, Yu Gi Oh, etc.), so I had nothing to compare it to. I could only compare it to the countless western movies I had seen, and yet it was so far ahead in letting me experience the most profound emotions I never even thought I could feel watching a movie. And I am not talking about misery or bliss; I am talking about all the emotions in between, like merriment and disquiet, purified or mixed together, amplified to the maximum. All the components of the movie contributed to the myriad of emotions and impressions that kept lingering for weeks on end.
TODAY
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Today, a familiar story suddenly became so clear and complete. Having experienced so much anime, being familiar with Japanese culture and folklore, knowing some Japanese, and knowing the soundtracks and their translations by heart, watching Kimi No Na Wa was like watching your own child who is a piano prodigy take the stage and win over the hearts of every single person in the audience, the one with the most trained ears and the one deaf to all the intricacies. I was most certainly deaf watching it 4 years ago.
4 years ago, the story that spoke to the high school me made me cry with content and relief. Today, the college me was able to laugh at all these details that reminded me of the high school me, and how far I came, and how much I grew. The soundtracks spoke to the current and future me and let me experience the heartfelt tears of content once again.
GENERAL
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I love the way the story is told in this movie. It's fast-paced and unclear; it jumps around in chaos that very much resembles the complexity of time and relationships. We don't have an opportunity to meet these two characters thoroughly, and yet we learn so much about them without being explicitly told pretty much anything. But at the end of the day, they are left to our interpretation. They are just two teenagers living two different lives in two completely different places and even different timelines. This movie touches upon so many topics but never in an overbearing way. What does a girl from a small town think about every day? How does a boy from a big city spend his time? How do these teenagers with no experience express love? How do they express any emotion? How do they hide it? In your perfectly routine life, how does a person make an entrance? How many times can we miss an opportunity before it's too late? Is fate really set in stone? Do you really know what you want and what you're looking for?
One scene towards the end of the movie touched me every time because it's so beautifully immature and pure. It's something so simple and expected, but it's so fitting, so apt. That's where the essence of this movie lies.
The characterization and the story are embraced by the visuals and the soundtracks that lightly breeze through this complex spiel and gently tickle soul and mind leaving a true feeling of liberation. The lightness of this movie can never be overbearing and the potency of its rawness is intoxicating. It remains my favorite movie of all time. Not for a groundbreaking, earth-shattering plot, not for superb animation that challenges time and technology, and not for never-before-heard glorious soundtracks and lyrics. It's for all these things that are so well done, and slightly more than that, that this movie surpasses all the others I have ever seen.
Aug 29, 2021
Kimi no Na wa.
(Anime)
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This is the first anime movie I have ever watched, and today, 4 years later, I finally rewatched it and had to write a review. Rewatching it really confirmed that this is, in fact, my favorite movie of all time.
Watching it 4 years ago with basically no experience with anime, and today after so many years of anime and movies are completely different experiences, and I will describe both. 4 YEARS AGO --- Knowing pretty much nothing about anime and Japanese culture, the movie remained puzzling from the beginning to the very end. I made so many assumptions about the story, missed so many details, but I was ... |
