Review of Your Name. (2016) by Aisha S — 26 Jan 2017

Few years ago I tried to watch 5 Centimeters Per Second but couldn't last five minutes for it was so, so cheesy. Few days ago, I started watching Kimi No Na Wa, but the first thirty minutes was so, so boring that I fell asleep. But because everyone said it was so good it deserved an Oscar, I continued watching, albeit having to split it into three parts, for I couldn't bear the overly sentimental scenes and banal songs with corny lyrics. I kept watching partly because I expected to see some Japanese wabi-sabi or tranquility, or even to evoke a feeling of fondness I have for Japan. But also partly because I just want to be able to say it's a bad film, for my opinion wouldn't be valid if I hadn't watched the whole film.

And boy, did it pissed me off.

The plain dumbness of the characters in this film is stunning. Like how come you're living in someone else's body so frequently without knowing the most basic information about the identity of the person you're living in, such as their name or where they live. Instead of investigating how it came to happen in the first place, they're busy making dates and touching each other's private parts and other gimmicky things. And the guy's cluelessness is simply baffling, like dude do you even read newspaper or at least open your Facebook timeline at all? And the girl, ugh, how she kept shouting "Taki-kun Taki-kun" (more like Tacky-kun) and how she managed to find time to cry in the middle of evacuating her townspeople is ridiculous. The so-called romantic scenes in the film is sooooooo painfully cheesy, so torturing, that even if I had watched it in the theater I wouldn't be able to enjoy the animation anyway. If I wanted to reminisce Japan I would go watch Koreeda or Miyazaki or any Japanese films without sappy love stories.