Your Name

Makoto Shinkai's Your Name is an exceptional animated romantic fantasy drama that tells the story of a pair named Taki (voiced by Ryūnosuke Kamiki) and Mitsuha (Mone Kamishiraishi) brought together via body-swapping as an effect of a comet-landing. We see how they work together to deal with this mysterious phenomenon, discover secrets about Mitsuha's town related to the celestial event and finally find each other after it is all over.

The animation here is one of the best the human race has ever produced! Be it hand-drawn or 3D, the quality is terrifying! Mitsuha's town is so alive and real! The fires, the nighttime, ritual performance and the very environment itself are beautifully created! Just by the way the animators have colored the lighting, you could tell what time of the day it is! It's extremely serene and peaceful to watch these gorgeous frames accompanied by top-notch sound design, melodic soundtrack and heartstring-pulling score!

Makoto Shinkai's screenplay is sweet and exciting from start to finish! When the body-swapping stops and it comes to our knowledge thru Tika's travels that the comet has actually crashed and obliterated Mitsuha's town 3 years ago, it's absolutely shocking! It's truly fun to see how they try to prevent this event from happening by evacuating the townspeople on time! Itomori Town's history with comet-crashing and the ability to body-swap or 'bad dream' as grandmother Miyamizu (voiced by Etsuko Ichihara) calls it are instances of detailed groundwork. When the two meet for the first during twilight, it's touching to the core! The tinge of sadness and melancholy as you wonder whether the couple will see each other ever again or otherwise as the years pass by is one of the many fantabulous aspects of Your Name that renders it one of the very best animes of all time!