Reviewing this movie, without spoiling it is hard, because of the mix of elements it has. So there is no way around.  Read only if you don’t mind SPOILERS.

Your name. The title doesn’t evocate much, but beneath it, there is one of the best time travel stories I’ve seen in many years. It is also an alternate history story, but one that works on the departure point rather than the future consequences of that. All thanks to the powers of a comet and a Shinto deity. It is also a story about changing fate for love (to your special one, to your friends, to your estranged family) and what connects people. But you learn all of that halfway through the movie in such heart-wrenching way that makes you cry.

The first half of the movie is an anime take on body swapping. A provincial girl, Mitsuha, who is a Shinto maiden, yearns to get away from her small village and her politician father. she finds out that every other day she trades bodies with a boy from Tokyo, Taki, who works as a waiter, is in love with the restaurant hostess -a nice person by the way- and dreams of becoming an architect. Only the Mitsuha’s grandma and sister realize what’s happening. Most movies would dwell in the hijinks of the trade, but not this one. Here, both characters soon realize what is happening and create plans so a to don’t disrupt their lives, leaving notes and journal entries in each other’s phones and basically trying to help each other through their weird experience and also improve each other’s lives. Soon they start to grow fond of each other, to the point they become in love and just when they realize it, an overbearing sense of sadness overcomes them and soon the exchanges stop happening. Taki, helped by best friend and his former romantic interest, the hostess, goes on a quest to find the town and the girl that has conquered his heart and they find it…

… obliterated by a comet’s fragment that crashed in the town three years before, killing everybody. This is where the story goes straight into alternate history and fantasy. Even if it feels a bit Deux ex Machina (there is a subtle but logical divine intervention for the rest of the plot to work), the story is cohesive. Soon everybody starts forgetting about the girl, but Taki fights back and with the help of the Shinto god of the temple where Mitsuha’s worked, a god of time and connection, travels back to her body in an attempt to convince the town to evacuate before they are killed by the natural phenomenon. Even if that leads Mitsuha’s friends to commit criminal acts and her father to dismiss her as crazy. During the golden hour, both souls exchange bodies again and see each other, finally meeting in person. But before they can exchange names (hence the title of the movie) she disappears. The town is still destroyed and Taki forgets about her. It is devastating. But you are treated with a ‘what happened after’ and you find if Taki’s efforts saved the town. You get a happy ending, but you have to work for it.

There is no way my brief description does justice to the movie. It is something you have to experience fo yourself. The message is clear, you can fight destiny, moreover if time is not as linear as we think it is, but you need a good reason to do so. Love and the desire to save others are powerful motivations. The closest referent I have for those that are not anime fans, in terms of similar feelings is “Somewhere in Time”, but with a happier ending. Hearts will find each other in time, against any obstacle, being an erased memory or a cataclysmic event.

Music wise, the main theme is beautiful, one of the best I’ve heard in years, and the animation is flawless, combining 3D rendered landscapes with traditional animation in a way I have not seen before. And the sequence following the broken comet’s fall is breathtaking.

The movie, I dare to say, is perfect. I can’t recommend it enough. You have to see it to believe it.

Watch it if: you enjoy good slice of life stories, character driven stories, romantic plots and Japanese mythology.

Don’t watch it if: if you don’t like anime or time travel stories where there is no science behind.

Grade: 6 out of 5.

Desirability: I will put it this way, since we watched it, my wife and I have been looking for the blu-ray. I loved it, my wife doesn’t have words for how much she enjoyed it.