How Body Swaps Bridge Culture in “Your Name”
When you wish upon a star… is familiar to audiences of all ages as the tune that precedes and imbues every Disney film with a sprinkle of magic and the promise of dreams come true. It is also the premise of Kimi no Na Wa — a Japanese film whose title translates to Your Name in English — albeit with a depth of sentimentality and realism foreign to most films bearing the Mickey Mouse logo. Though American tastes for Hollywood cinema have varied throughout the decades — from the melodramas of the 30’s, musicals of the 60’s, and superhero films of the past two decades — the pursuit of dreams has been one theme that has never failed to enamor the nation. In 2017, Your Name opened to United States audiences in the midst of political and social turmoil characterized by racial and gender equality movements as well as tragic disasters. Its success may be attributed in large part to its resonance with an increasingly disillusioned US population as a powerful response to the American Dream. Interwoven with parallels to cultural depth and confrontation with tragedy, Your Name may also present itself as a medium of escapism in tandem with its vigorous appeal to American individualism.
Your Name depicts a struggle between past and present echoed by America’s increasing confrontations with systematic inequality and social disparity during the past decade. Inequality, particularly with respect to race and economic class, shaped the months preceding Your Name’s release. The Women’s March on Washington and the #MeToo movement in 2017 highlight gender inequality, while America’s longstanding rural-urban disparity and redefinition of traditional family structures are societal problems also acknowledged in the film. Mitsuha, a shrine maiden disgruntled with rural life in her town of Itomori, opens the film by declaring “Please make me a handsome Tokyo boy in my next life”! This leads to a series of daily body swaps with Taki, the “handsome Tokyo boy” whose body she used to satisfy her yearning for city life by splurging on strawberry shortcake in a pet-themed Tokyo cafe. Itomori, by contrast, offered a canned-coffee vending machine whose only seating was a grimy bus stop bench. Even their high schools highlighted rural-urban disparity — Taki’s was adorned with skylights, while Mitsuha’s boasted a dirt field. Your Name brings attention to a problem that both America and Japan share: the depopulation of rural areas and the limited offerings they enjoy. The contrast is made even clearer with the juxtaposition of the blue-collar construction laborers of Itomori, and the white-collar salarymen of Tokyo. Country versus city and class struggle are themes that resonate deeply with American roots, responsible in part for events like the Civil War and even Donald Trump’s victory in 2016. At Taki’s part-time job at an Italian restaurant, we are introduced to gender inequality when his coworker, Okudera, has her skirt slashed by a dissatisfied male customer. The indignation that the scene provokes in audiences across borders also reveals mutual systems of prejudice and misogyny that exist in both Japan and America. While not the focus of the film, these unsettling disparities serve as a prelude to more serious scenes that reconcile inequalities by bridging past and present.
Mitsuha and Taki’s body-swapping reveals stark contrasts between their lives and the inequalities they encounter, but it also highlights culture as the connection between them. When Taki is introduced to Mitsuha’s lifestyle as a shrine maiden, he engages in cultural practices absent from his regular Tokyo lifestyle. Braiding traditional kumihimo cords are usually done in preparation for village festivals, but the grandmother explains to him the deeper meaning behind the tradition. “The braided cords…represent the flow of time itself. They twist, tangle, sometimes unravel, break, then connect again.” Every day, without fail, we see Mitsuha tying her hair with the ribbon and Taki wearing one coiled around his wrist. Near the end of the film, Mitsuha casts her kumihimo ribbon to Taki in order to preserve their connection to each other. It becomes the only evidence of the time they spent together after they lose their memories. The kumihimo is a motif symbolizing that time and space are bridged by culture itself. The many racial, gender, and economic inequalities we face today have caused many in recent years to declare the American Dream dead. Through kumihimo, Your Name suggests that the path to reconciliation with our tumultuous history lies in exploring our culture as a uniting force, one inclusive of all our people and traditions. Your Name’s sensitivity to Japan’s cultural roots may inspire a unique nationalism in American audiences too, comforting them in the hope that, perhaps, there is still a way to make the American Dream work.
The optimistic message embodied in the film may be motivated in large part due to disaster and tragedy as transnational experiences. Director Shinkai was inspired by the “lingering trauma of Japan’s 2011 tsunami and earthquake” in the making of Your Name. In the movie, Taki’s body swaps with Mitsuha lead to him trying to save her village — and her — from imminent destruction by a comet that would obliterate Itomori. The devastation depicted harks back to the Tohoku tsunami that wreaked havoc upon Sendai. Taki and Mitsuha’s quest to reach each other across their timelines — Taki in the future and Mitsuha in the past — to evacuate Itomori residents to safety displays a sense of individualism that distinguishes it from contemporary Japanese films. While family is traditionally featured prominently in films and TV series like Totoro, Oshin, and Tokyo Story, Taki’s parents make no noteworthy appearances, and Mitsuha’s few family interactions are limited only to her sister and grandmother. Values of individuality and courage are values that resonate closely with America, where it is generally believed that hard work and an adventurous spirit are key to success. With 9/11 in 2001, the Orlando Nightclub Shooting in 2015, and Hurricane Harvey in 2017, America, too, had its fair share of disaster and turmoil — and searched for heroes, harbingers of justice. The film’s exclusive focus on Taki and Mitsuha, two ordinary teenagers who race to save a town, fit them for that role. Perhaps searching for heroism in the ordinary citizen rather than the already-exceptional is reflective of current struggles in America. This desire to overcome boundaries, in spite of the odds, through individual merit and sacrifice is characteristic of the American Dream. The kinship that both the US and Japan may share in the process of rebuilding and recovery is one that Your Name exploits in Taki and Mitsuha, independent youth who strive to reshape the future.
Many of the messages in the movie, however, are implicit, which may lead some to argue that “Your Name” is more of an epic sci-fi love story than a quest to solve conflicts through the pursuit of empathy. After all, the film centers on two protagonists—male and female—who race across time to save each other. Towards the latter part of the film, we even see Mitsuha open her palm to reveal what Taki wrote on her hand just before their timelines snapped: “I like you.” While love does play a minor role towards the latter portion of the film—especially when Taki pens his feelings on Mitsuha’s palm—it is an extremely insignificant one. A more astute observer would note that love had little role in driving the plot, but rather, was the end result of two individuals seeking a common purpose and achieve synergistic empathy. A more superficial reading of the film, however, probably served audiences in America well as a means of escape amidst contemporary turbulence. Perhaps people wanted to see the destructive comet, the body swaps, and the epic romance to divert their attention into a foreign film both comedic and supernatural. Paradoxically, it may also have been the subconscious acknowledgement of the deeper themes explored in the film that allowed Americans to truly connect to it.
Recent years in America have been shaped by struggles to redefine itself as a nation and as a people in the midst of social unrest. With a 2017 peak interest in anime with the release of Pokemon Go, Yuri On Ice, and My Hero Academia, one might attribute the success of similar Japanese cultural exports as means of escape for Americans’ tumultuous daily lives. The popularity of Your Name, however, seems to defy contemporary trends by confronting superhuman challenges. By focusing on the connection between Taki and Mitsuha and how forces such as culture, empathy, and perseverance serve to strengthen it, Your Name shows that America, too, can create a better future by drawing upon its own values. While the setting and cultural motifs in the movie may be utterly foreign, the quest for objects that bridge our divides rather than those that deepen them is a call to action for both nations. The question is, are we willing to make the sacrifice to do so?
Alt, Matt. “‘Your Name,” the Most Popular Anime of All Time, Comes to America.” The New Yorker, www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/your-name-the-most-popular-anime-of-all-time-comes-to-america.
Shinkai, Makoto, director. Your Name. Toho, 2016.
