https://youtu.be/hRfHcp2GjVI
The recent loss of Studio Ghibli’s lead colour designer and animator, Michiyo Yasuda, has left anime fans mourning around the world. Thankfully, there’s Makoto Shinkai’s “Your Name” to comfort us, a film which has just been announced as Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival’s “Best Animated Feature of the Year”. Although not available to the public until November, the film is generating much excitement, with the late Yasuda’s animation collaborator on “Spirited Away”, Masashi Ando, serving as the animation director.
The mastermind behind Japan’s newest fad claims that the premise of the project spanned from the idea of possibilities and that “you never know who you might meet tomorrow”. The importance that young people put on meeting someone who can change their lives is pinnacle to this story.
Focusing on two teenagers, Mitsuha is a girl living unhappily in the countryside and Taki is a Tokyo high school student. The pair is fated to connect and they literally switch bodies in their dreams. A documentation of their struggle ensues, with the unfamiliarity of the situation they have found themselves in and their confusion at yearning for a person they have never met at the source of the story. Visually stimulating, the emphasis on Mitshua’s world of Japanese nature and traditional rural tradition is juxtaposed with the bright lights of Tokyo city – the situation Taki is akin to.
This is a story of boy-meets-girl, but the Japanese way – unusual and very complex.
Still from “Your Name”. Image from dailydot.com
Still from “Your Name”. Image from japanitme.co.jp
Still from “Your Name”. Image from goboiano.com
Still from “Your Name”. Image from asiamedia.lmu.edu