Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
mothcub
The popularity of this truly baffles me. In almost every respect it is so poor - the characters have zero personality and the central relationship is not built up at all, the entire film is ugly and taking constant cost-saving measures, and the plot is thin and drawn out. It is bafflingly lacking in every creative and narrative aspect and then on top of that, it casually has our male protagonist sexually assault our female protagonist every single day.
We even have a scene at the end of the movie where, now reunited, the couple hop cutely from "why are you sexually assualting me?" to "do you like my ribbon?" as if her anger and upset (very clearly expressed) about the former literally do not matter at all. Okay. I guess it's unsurprising that the producer of this movie is literally a conv…
Read at the source051819
Kimi no Na wa is a mawkishly sentimental romance story that essentially does with both its first and secondary premises, in addition to both of them feeling like two films in one. It may look stunning, but there are more factors that contribute to engagement aside from being visually appealing. There’s more to a film than art direction, such as the setting, the plot, the characters, and whatever else actually gives the film substance beyond a collection of visually stimulating imagery. In spite of the film attempting to be subversive with the “starborn lovers” motif—which largely exists as a plot device anyway—the underlying narrative couldn’t be any blander. The characters are essentially cardboard cutouts, the plot has no clear line of development, and as a result: the film drags.
The f…
Read at the sourceGunsl1ng3rGIRL
This is just The Lake House but animated, and instead of a mailbox, they body-swap. If you can watch this without thinking it's a 1-1 facelift of The Lake House, congratulations, you're delusional. There are way too many similarities, practically all of them, to believe that Shinkai had not seen The Lake House before making this atrocity. They even have a train scene where he tries to meet her. Ironically, the only part I enjoyed- the body-swapping- is the only part that is different. Well, aside from the sudden amnesia subplot in the last half-hour, because Shinkai felt he needed further justification for the title, which he didn't, that puts the last nails of the plot into the coffin.
Your Name also marks the first time Shinkai officially sold out to teen consumer culture by departing f…
Read at the source23feltrind
Expectation: 9.5
Reality: 5
After seeing many Makoto Shinkai works, this one didn't hit as hard. Character lacked depth and thr story felt bland. Of course animation was amazing, as you would expect, but the film was underwhelming at best.
The plot was pretty predictable and due to the nature of the phenomenom in the film, the romance was not as good as his other works. For the hype this had built up by the time I watched it, it really disappointed me to see the same-old plotline we've seen in every other one of his films. The ending was done well I must admit and combined with a good score, it pulled the right strings at the right time. However, this wasn't enough to carry the rest of the film.
Garden of words has much better character writing and challenges Your Name for animation qu…
Read at the sourcetaibles
I know what you're thinking... you're angry that I gave your favorite movie a score that wasn't a 10 but before you go to my profile and write an angry comment saying I have a shit taste in anime please read what I have to say then feel free to say whatever you want. This is my first review on MAL so please bare with me for a few minutes as im not really that good at making things seem professional.
When I was going into Kimi No Na Wa I was thinking that it was going to be the second coming of christ, (considering it portrayed that way) but oh god I was wrong. And instead of coming out of the movie instead of being emotionally touched, I was actually infuriated that I had wasted my time with this piece of garbage.
Story - 2/10
All I can really say is that they tried.. they tried really h…
Read at the sourceCodeBlazeFate
*You’ve probably already seen this movie but regardless, mild spoilers for the premise that truly reveals itself whole past the synopsis and maybe a few specific spoilers along the way*
When most people think of Kimi no Na wa, they think of a simple emotionally gripping, beautifully animated masterpiece that touched them at their very core. When I think of Kimi no Na wa, I think of a tedious, convoluted, contrived, and ultimately misguided emotion-based time travel story blessed with wonderful visuals and cursed by its confusingly bad time travel narrative and equally hard to stomach main leads.
I know, I’m a buzzkill.
So, why my cynicism? Before you try to answer, let me take two of them out for you. It has little to do with it being in the top 10 on every anime aggregation website, o…
Read at the sourceDeAeD
Having Watched Garden of Words, 5 Centimeters a Second, I could kind of guess that Kimi No Na Wa would be a film of similar caliber. By similar caliber, I mean astounding visuals but lacking in plot and character. Kimi no Na Wa follows this trend, but flops completely when it comes to story and character.
Story 1/10
To be honest, I would give the story less than 1 if I could. Its not unexpected however, If you've watched similar movies such as Garden of Words and 5 Centimeters. However, Kimi no na Wa does exceptionally bad at the story.
Although a general slice of life, romantic comedy is acceptable, Kimi no Na Wa attempted to try to become something it was not. Most notable is the beginning of the story, in which the characters swap bodies and affect each others lives. Although this…
Read at the sourceyukise
The low-rating reviewers need to round this up for you guys. Kimi no Na wa is a poorly written piece of work that struggle to understand its own themes.
STORY
3 main flaws to be pointed out. 1) lack of direction. It's an issue before knowing what it wants to be, because it doesn't know it's supposed to be anything. Sit me down and make me take notes through a rewatch and I'd still have no idea what this film is about. Probably the intent is some contrived story about star-crossed lovers, an elaborate or posh love boundary, but you can apply "a love story, a mythological story, a the-universe-is-bigger-than-us story, a coming of youth story, a complex society story" at any point of the film and still stand to be accurate. Which is fine per se, except there's no clear lead in any one of the…
Read at the sourcealexonxanax
When I saw the reviews and the rating that this anime has got, I was so intrigued. It's been rated much better than FMA:B or Gintama or HxH. Well, I was obviously hyped and unfortunately, this movie did NOT live up to its expectations.
Read on, but mild SPOILERS ahead:
---start of spoilers---
what irked me the most were the obvious GLARING mistakes in the plot. Both these kids exchange each others bodies and live as each other and go to each others school. Now, I dunno about you, but I remember writing dates in my notes EVERYDAY, along with the YEAR. I also always notice the year in my phone, not just the time and date of the month.
Besides, a friggin' meteor falling on a town and killing hundreds is NEWS that's gonna last friggin months along with the devastating video/photos, which is…
Read at the sourceShrabster
Makoto Shinkai never fails to frustrate me. His works have tremendous potential, yet they all inevitably end up as shallow exercises in romantic drama that are pretty to look at and not much else. With the release of Kimi no Na wa. I was very skeptical if any of that had changed. It released to the top of multiple anime lists seemingly over night and I figured it would be 5 Centimeters Per Second 2.0, but maybe, just maybe, Shinkai would break away from his old patterns and surprise me.
Spoilers, he didn't.
Kimi no Na Wa. tells the story of a girl and boy who mysteriously switch bodies and have to learn how to deal with being each other… or not.
If anyone is expecting Kimi no Na wa. to stray away from Shinkai’s typical formula they will be sorely disappointed. All of his usual angst…
Read at the sourcebmoore07
Ever since I was a child, I wanted to be an author. I’d write for days on end, using every ounce of my imagination, and then stored my works away in some secret drawer when I finished. Frightened to death of sneers and condescending laughter, I rarely shared my writings with anyone, only submitting them to a contest or two over the years. A couple of months ago, I heard that there was going to be a prestigious writer’s conference, known as Books Alive, in my town, where literary agents would search high and low for the next great author. Despite having a small amount of time to prepare, I pushed aside my fears and toiled furiously on a brief sample for a murder mystery that I was planning to write (you can read it at the end of my review). On the day of the conference, I approached one of…
Read at the sourcerobiu013
Plot:
The story starts fair enough. Our main character suffers from "Disney princess syndrome"; she's not satisfied with the surroundings she was born in and wants to see the world, that is so much bigger than what she knows. Luckily for her, magical realism is a thing in her world as well. Out of nowhere she gets the chance to live out her dreams by switching bodies with a boy from Tokyo every now and then. The boy, turns out to be the other main character. This sounds like the basic story, in which our lead learns, that "every place is beautiful, but home is still best" or that everybody has troubles in their life, no matter where they come from. The set up definetly has some potential, since the main characters parallel each other in an interesting way and they're pretty well characteri…
Read at the sourceZerathus
*Review contains spoilers*
Kimi no Na wa is the new movie from acclaimed director Makoto Shinkai who’s behind 5 Centimeters per second, Hoshi no Koe and The Place Promised in Our Early Days.
His new movie tells a story about a high school student Taki and a high school student Mitsuha suddenly swapping bodies but forgetting what they did during their swap after it ends, so they begin to communicate via diaries and messages left behind by the other person.
The story of Kimi no Na Wa is simple. There are some themes but they are light. The movie however suffers from several plot holes and plot conveniences. They do not destroy the overall enjoyment of the movie since to me, it was never about some hard smart writing and complex ideas. It was about this interesting scenario of body swapp…
Read at the sourceThisIsCaptain
Kimi no Na wa
Story: 9
Art: 10
Sound: 9
Character: 8
Enjoyment: 9
Overall: 9-9.5
Story: Going into this without knowing anything about the movie; not even the trailer, I was kind of confused from the first 10-20 minutes until it became clear what was going on with their bodies. Both the MC’s come from different backgrounds, girl from a village/ small town and boy from the big city of Tokyo. Without spoiling the movie entirely, the film takes a huge turn somewhere around the middle where it becomes more than just an animated Freaky Friday.
Art: Even while watching this on medium-low quality I was amazed by how immersive the art-style is. The amount of great overhead shots of the busy city of Tokyo to the large crater-esque shrine was gorgeous sight to behold. There is one scene in parti…
Read at the sourceJex
Makoto Shinkai's latest work goes even further to support the theory that he's fantastic at directing a visually brilliant movie, but lacks the writing ability to tell a good story.
Plot:
An absolute mess. Without spoiling it, this movie fails to get into the main plot until roughly halfway through. Before that point, it views like a teenage slice of life; nothing to be disappointed by. After the halfway mark, the plot becomes incredibly contrived with no logic, reason, or thought put into its creation. There were at least 4 separate climaxes (which is inexcusable for any movie which is not Return of the King) and an overly drawn out epilogue sequence. The main climax happens off screen, which negates the entire build up to it, because Shinkai wanted to have a reveal with little weight. T…
Read at the sourcexthorgoldx
Makoto Shinkai is a name that, to many, equates with “feels.” Whether it’s Voices from a Distant Star, the Children Who Chase Lost Voices, or the classic 5 Centimeters per Second, Shinkai’s films carry the guarantee of beautiful animation and emotional depth rarely seen in anime. Kimi no Na Wa, “Your Name,” is no exception to the trend. If anything, Your Name is the end product of years of experimentation with storytelling and filmmaking – the story that Shinkai has always wanted, and tried, to tell, finally made real, and done so in a satisfying, entertaining, and heart-wrenching way.
Your Name is the story of two people: Mitsuha Miyamizu, a shrine maiden in the rural Japanese countryside, and Taki Tachibana, a stock standard highschool student in Tokyo. Their irregular body-swapping isn…
Read at the sourceTheKillerAngel
“Kimi no Na wa.” (Your Name) opens with a radiant comet traversing over the night sky, splitting apart into various meteors that illuminate and streak the heavens. Stars and celestial imagery often feature in Makoto Shinkai’s films, and the brilliance of the opening set piece could be dismissed as eye-candy. However, its significance is not fully understood until much later.
To speak of names, one does not invoke Makoto Shinkai in conjunction with the phrase “happy ending.” To say that he has made his fame off producing romance anime is only half the story, as his work’s exploration of themes such as distance and unrequited love often impart a wistful and bittersweet aftertaste. “Byousoku 5 Centimeter” (5 Centimeters per Second), his most famous title to date, is both loved and reviled fo…
Read at the sourceRavarathTV
Story: 7
Art: 10
Sound: 9
Character: 7
Enjoyment: 10
Overall: 9
I watched this film at Anime Expo 2016 Los Angeles. I'll try to keep my review as spoiler-less as possible.
TL;DR: The film holds true to all the expectations of a Makoto Shinkai production, from heartfelt smiles to crying the 5th time within the last 30 minutes. His signature metaphorical use of trains, the idea of a hopeless and distant love, and beautiful scenery really dive you emotionally into the story, even for how generic and simple it may seem.
Story: 7
The story is fairly straightforward; It's very easy to guess where the story will head, but that doesn't mean to say I didn't enjoy it. It warrants a 7 simply because I felt a lack of emotional depth from the characters. This lacking depth makes me constantly quest…
Read at the sourcemanofmanymanga
Review of "Your Name."
Directed, Written, and Created by Makoto Shinkai
"Your Name." is, in a word, a journey. A journey into what will surely be the future of cinematography, as well as a journey on a grand emotional roller coaster.
Technically speaking, labeling this film a "masterpiece" is an insult by omission. Given that Shinkai is a master, anything he makes is obviously going to be a "masterpiece," but among silt there is gold, and among gold there may be diamonds. This movie is a diamond, easily the prettiest feature length film I've ever seen; more so than even fetishistic attempts to be just that such as Samsara.
Feats of the cinematography include impossibly vibrant and dynamic crowds, animation that is outstanding even among his other works-nay-ESPECIALLY among his other wor…
Read at the sourceBuilder_K
An absolutely stunning masterpiece by Makoto Shinkai.
Story: 10
Art: 10
Sound: 9
Character: 8
Enjoyment: 10
Overall: 10
Edit: I watched this at the World Premier in Los Angeles on July 3rd. It was released in Japanese theaters on August 26th. It is set to be streamed online (for north america) via funimation, hopefully within the next month or so. The good:
Spectacular animation. There is one particular scene near the beginning which has a sort of "3D camera rotation" that looks so real that I thought it was rendered; but at the last second, the character turned their head, and I was able to tell that it had been entirely hand-drawn. There are scenes where basic physics are completely altered, yet they managed to make it 100% smooth, dragging me along through the character's experience.…
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