I was listening to Anime News Networks end of the year
podcast tonight, catching up on things, when IT came up again. No I’m not talking about Yuri On Ice (which
may or may not show up here soon). I’m
talking about the other Anime that no one can seem to stop talking about this
season. A simple, two word title simply
known as…Your Name. Almost overnight,
this title came out of nowhere and has taken the Anime world by storm. And this isn’t just Attack on Titan, Yuri On
Ice, Dragon Ball Z levels…this could be something else entirely. Having opened back in August, the accolades
continue to mount, amongst other things.
So for the first T5W, I present to you my Top 5 reasons I need to check
this movie out.
#5-Shinkai’s First
Good Movie?
One of the big things I took away from the ANN Podcast
coverage…Makoto Shinkai’s works are generally not that great. While he might have an artistic hand, his
writing is sort of…not that great. Ive
heard of a couple of his other titles, “The Place Promised in Our Early Days”
and “5 Centimeters Per Second” and both didn’t have a lot of praise about them
from those I know who have seen them. To
hear that he’s managed to not only win but win BIG with Your Name is kind of
shocking. It’s almost like Ridley Scott
not having done a really good movie since 2005’s Kingdom of Heaven (THE
DIRECTORS CUT!!!) and suddenly coming back to form with 2015’s The
Martian. Whatever the magical
circumstances, Shinkai has found a good story to match his animation and the
world loves him for it, some might even call him the next Miyazaki…but that
might be premature. One things for sure,
the pressure will be on him now for his follow up film…I don’t envy that
responsibility.
#4-What is it
about?
I have no honest to God clue about what the hell this
movie is even about…that’s a tough feet to pull. The IMDB summary is pretty cryptic and
Wikipedia has a full blown summary of the movie cause it’s been out for so long
(Naturally I haven’t taken a look). From
what I’ve gleamed from listening to the ANN Podcast, it’s got fantasy elements
via dreams but it also has some ties to the disastrous 2011 Earthquake/Tsunami
that rocked Japan. Naturally, this has
caused the movie to have a heavy “feels” aspect to it. Do these two things connect? If so yeah, it’s going to be a heavy and
emotional ride. But again, it’s not
everyday I head into an Anime with almost ZERO knowledge about the plot…bravo
Your Name, bravo. I haven’t even
glimpsed at a trailer. And you know
what, unless I hear more from a friend, im going to go in with ears closed and
eyes open, the movie might surprise me more that way.
#3-Only Anime to
rival Yuri On Ice this year
If people weren’t talking about one, they were talking
about the other. Yuri On Ice broke the
internet on a weekly basis with it’s amazing animation, heavy emphasis on a
same sex relationship, and plot twists that drove the fans mad. When the news wasn’t about the hot and heavy
developments on the ice, they were about the accolades and continued news of
financial victories Your Name was winning.
It really wouldn’t shock me if fans of Yuri On Ice loved Your Name
equally and vice versa. The Summer
belonged to Your Name and the winter was all Yuri On Ice, but did one really
overtake the other in 2016 or was it an almost even fight? I can only vouch for Yuri on Ice so I’ll have
to get back to you on that.
#2-So much money
There is hardly a week that goes by that I don’t hear
about Your Name shattering one international box office record after
another. Already, it is the fourth
highest grossing film in Japan and continues to climb. It apparently held the #1 spot in the
Japanese box office for over 12 weeks straight.
It was briefly dethroned by Death Note: Light Up the New World before
being knocked off the top spot for good by Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find
Them. That aside, Your Name has opened
everywhere except the US and has broken records in China and Thailand amongst
others. It’s set to make it’s US debut
this month (I think, don’t quote me).
And after all the buzz and money it’s earned so far, God only knows what
it might do here. The last Anime film to
make a sort of splash in a limited release was Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection F
back in 2015. But this film is being
praised as much as DBZ…it could do just as well if not better.
#1-Oscar Worthy?
When I heard this story break, I nearly lost it. Just what is it about this damn movie that
makes it an Oscar contender? It isn’t even
a Ghibli film for crying out loud. Well,
it hasn’t been nominated for the Best Animated Feature Oscar yet. If the film should get the Oscar nod when
everything is announced soon, that will clinch the need to go see this film as
soon as possible. A lot of really good
animated films have come out this year from Zootopia to Finding Dory to
Moana. Betting men would put their bucks
on either Zootopia or Finding Dory to take home the Gold. But if a film as surprisingly successful as
Your Name can swoop in for the win…it will be the second Anime in history to
win the award, after Spirited Away. Yuri
on Ice may have had this in it’s theme song, but maybe this is the Anime that
was “born to make history.”
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