Your Name

After all the praise, exaltation to the heavens, I was most likely expecting the impossible, and that's why I ended up completely disappointed after watching it. I was expecting something new, not innovative, but new for Makoto Shinkai. But alas, I got nothing of the sort. Again, it's nicely animated, the sky, the trains; the touching story of a boy and a girl... It's also cheerful and playful. But I don't think it's the miracle that everyone's making it out to be... Of course, if it were the first Shinkai I'd seen, I could understand the fascination; but for me it's just another Shinkai in a series of fairly similar films, so I can't rate it better than 3 stars. (08/07/2017)

Although it may not look like it if you read some of my reviews, I do actually like Makoto Shinkai's work very much. The man can produce a really great, enjoyable, poetic, and deep performance that a lot of people thoroughly enjoy. The only thing I had a bit of a problem with until today, and probably the main reason I could not give some of his works a full rating, was simply the ending. I always expected something that never came with most of them, and the conclusion never worked out as I had imagined. Moreover, the way Makoto usually concluded his work rather disappointed me, which made my feelings of having watched something great go down the drain. Well, now he has finally overcome that problem. Makoto has finally delivered a conclusion that enhanced my experience and therefore simply deserves five stars from me. The animation, soundtrack, and characters are once again excellent, and even the way Makoto plays with time and consciousness makes this a very original and interesting movie. I have nothing to complain about; it was truly beautiful, pleasant, and poetic. 9.5/10. (10/09/2016)

I had almost given up on this artist, because I was convinced he was experiencing a gradual decline in his creative powers and heading inevitably to the bottom of the artistic abyss. If one could explain Makoto's creative failures of the last few years to me, lost in dullness and rumoring, by the fact that he was just saving and gathering his strength for this gem, then I would let him be forgiven for these indiscretions and enthusiastically pat him on the back. What I expected from him, I certainly now got: polished visuals, fluid animation, sunsets and picturesque skies bordering on the kitschy, lots of shots of trains, full of melancholy, and an excellent soundtrack, albeit this time performed by my favorite band Radwimps; but all this now goes hand in hand with an interesting storyline, which, although God knows how far from being original it is, and even if some might call it a mixture of various anime tropes, it is handled exceedingly well. It offers various interpretations of the story, making the movie resonate strongly with the audience even after watching it. It is playful, cute, and funny, but it is not primarily touchy-feely in a stupid way. It is classic Makoto, all of his trademarks are there and in large quantities, but at the same time it is a distinctive and unmistakable work in the context of Makoto's oeuvre. It is an oeuvre that teeters on the thin edge of superficial likability, where you can see both a merely audio visually compelling story, and a multi-layered piece that will not let you rest for a minute and will resonate with you for quite some time – and Mitsuha and Taki have clearly pulled me towards the latter. After a very long time, this is finally one hyped anime that I can relate to and ride the wave of, too. A small insignificant plus for Shinkai for making me buy both a movie on DVD and its soundtrack after nine years. And a minor minus for getting really crushed by the phenomenon and not being able to resist shelling out a disgusting amount of yen to visit a themed café and buy a bunch of crap like notepads, pens and postcards. What a cheeky movie! (Seen at Toho Cinemas Nijo, Kyoto, 11/2016.) (20/10/2018)

I really think it's too bad that Japanese anime hasn't managed to make it to Czech movie theaters yet. I think it has quite a lot of potential, although admittedly it would probably take quite a long time to be commercially successful. It's still a shame, because Your Name is proof that we're missing out on a lot. (22/03/2018)