49 Fun Facts About Your Name

Who wrote and directed Your Name?

Makoto Shinkai wrote and directed Your Name, released in Japan in August 2016; critics call it the first of his 'disaster trilogy', each film shaped by Japan's natural disasters.

What is the film's Japanese title?

Kimi no Na wa literally means 'Your Name is...'. Two of the wrong answers are titles of later Shinkai films.

What is the name of Mitsuha's rural hometown?

Itomori is fictional; Shinkai modelled its crater lake on Lake Suwa and used the library and station of Hida city as real backdrops.

In which prefecture is Mitsuha's hometown?

Itomori lies in the Hida region of Gifu Prefecture; Taki's search takes him to the real Hida-Furukawa station and library, both in Gifu.

What does Mitsuha wish for, just before the swapping begins?

Mitsuha shouts that she wants to be reborn as a handsome Tokyo boy in her next life; the next morning she wakes up in Taki's body in Tokyo.

In which Tokyo ward does Taki live and work?

Taki lives in the Yotsuya area of Shinjuku ward; the Italian restaurant where he waits tables is modelled on a real cafe beside Shinjuku Gyoen park.

How do the two communicate while living each other's days?

They leave notes on paper, in a diary app on their phones and in marker on each other's skin; Mitsuha also sets rules such as no showering, touching or looking at her body.

In Your Name, while living in Taki's body, Mitsuha sets him up on a date with whom?

Miki Okudera, his co-worker, senses on the date that Taki is preoccupied with someone else.

What is kuchikamizake?

Kuchikamizake is sake made from rice chewed and spat out to ferment, an ancient tradition Mitsuha resents; Taki later drinks hers to reach her.

What is the name of the comet?

Comet Tiamat, on a 1,200-year orbit, passes closest on the night of Itomori's autumn festival; a fragment splits off and destroys the town.

Who recognises Taki's sketch of the town and offers to drive him there?

Taki cannot remember the town's name and has to draw it from memory.

How many years apart are Taki and Mitsuha living?

Three years: the comet struck Mitsuha's town on 4 October 2013, while Taki's side of the story takes place in 2016; the two were born on the same date, December 1, three years apart.

Roughly how many people died when the comet fragment hit the town?

About 500 people, a third of Itomori's population, died when the fragment struck; at Hida City Library Taki finds the Miyamizus and their friends among the names in the victims' lists.

What has Taki been wearing as a lucky bracelet without knowing where it came from?

The bracelet is Mitsuha's kumihimo braid, which she gave him on a Tokyo train three years earlier when he did not yet know her; he ties it back on her wrist at twilight.

What does Hitoha reveal when she realises Taki is inside Mitsuha?

Hitoha, 82, is the shrine's matriarch and keeper of the kumihimo tradition.

How do Taki, Tessie and Sayaka try to force an evacuation?

Blowing up the substation and hijacking the emergency broadcast uses their skills: Sayaka is in the broadcasting club and Tessie's father runs the construction firm with the explosives.

What does Mitsuha find written on her hand instead of Taki's name?

Instead of his name Taki had written 'I love you' (suki da) on her palm; night fell during their twilight meeting before she could write hers on his hand.

Who finally orders the town's evacuation?

Mayor Toshiki Miyamizu, Mitsuha's estranged father, had told residents to stay put; after she confronts him he orders the evacuation that saves the town.

Where do Taki and Mitsuha finally meet in the last scene?

The staircase is at Suga Shrine in Yotsuya, Tokyo; in the 2022 epilogue they glimpse each other from parallel trains, get off, and find each other on those steps.

Who voices Taki in the Japanese version?

Kamiki also voiced characters in Spirited Away and other Ghibli films as a child.

Who voices Mitsuha in the Japanese version?

Mone Kamishiraishi, a singer-actress then 18, voices Mitsuha; Masami Nagasawa voices Miki Okudera and Aoi Yuki voices Sayaka.

Which earlier Shinkai film does Mitsuha's teacher Yukari Yukino come from?

Yukari Yukino was the heroine of Shinkai's 2013 film The Garden of Words, voiced by Kana Hanazawa in both; here she teaches the class the word 'kataware-doki', the twilight hour.

What is the name of Mitsuha's younger sister?

The Miyamizu women's names count upward: Hitoha (one), Futaba (two), Mitsuha (three) and Yotsuha (four), the sharp-tongued little sister who wakes Mitsuha each morning.

What real event inspired Shinkai to conceive the film?

Visiting the flattened village of Yuriage, he thought 'this could have been my town' and imagined swapping residents with viewers.

What was the film's original working title when Shinkai pitched it to Toho in 2014?

Yume to Shiriseba, 'If I Knew It Were a Dream', was the title on Shinkai's 2014 proposal, taken from a classical waka; Kimi no Musubime and Kimi wa Kono Sekai no Hanbun followed before Kimi no Na wa.

Which Rumiko Takahashi manga was among the plot's inspirations?

Shinkai cited Ranma ½, Rumiko Takahashi's gender-swapping martial-arts comedy, alongside the Heian tale Torikaebaya Monogatari, the manga Inside Mari and Greg Egan's story The Safe-Deposit Box.

Which Christopher Nolan film did Shinkai cite as an influence?

Shinkai cited Interstellar (2014) as an influence: its time dilation and Cooper's messages sent back across the years to his daughter echo through the film's second half.

Which band wrote and performed the film's music?

Radwimps wrote and performed the score and the four vocal songs; Shinkai asked the band for music that would supplement the characters' dialogue and monologues.

Where did Your Name have its world premiere?

Your Name premiered at Anime Expo in Los Angeles on July 3, 2016, seven weeks before its Japanese release on August 26; it later ran a week in LA to qualify for the Oscars.

Which company distributed the film in Japan?

Toho will also handle Japanese distribution of the planned Hollywood remake.

Which studio produced the film?

It has been Shinkai's home studio since The Place Promised in Our Early Days.

Which film finally overtook Your Name as the highest-grossing Japanese film ever?

Demon Slayer: Mugen Train passed Your Name's roughly $400 million worldwide in late 2020; Your Name had itself dethroned Spirited Away as the top-grossing Japanese film worldwide.

Roughly what share of Japan's entire 2016 box office did Your Name take?

About 10 percent: Your Name's 2016 takings of roughly ¥23 billion came from a record national box office of about ¥235 billion, and it was the first anime not directed by Hayao Miyazaki to pass ¥10 billion.

How many non-consecutive weekends did the film top the Japanese box office?

Twelve: nine straight weekends from its August opening, a one-week break for Death Note: Light Up the New World, then three more before Fantastic Beasts took over.

Your Name became the highest-grossing Japanese film ever in which huge market in December 2016?

China: Your Name took about 576 million yuan ($81 million) after its December 2016 release, passing Stand by Me Doraemon as the top Japanese film there; Suzume beat that mark in 2023.

Which two Indian films later beat its record as China's top non-Hollywood foreign film?

Dangal in May 2017 and then Secret Superstar in January 2018, both Aamir Khan productions, each out-grossed Your Name in China; Your Name held the non-Hollywood mark until Dangal.

Which distributor released the film in North American cinemas in April 2017?

Funimation released the film in North American cinemas on April 7, 2017; it grossed about $5 million in the U.S. and Canada, a small slice of a worldwide total near $400 million.

Which anime was the last Japanese film to open at number one in South Korea before Your Name?

Howl's Moving Castle topped the South Korean box office in 2004; Your Name was the next Japanese film to do so, drawing 3.81 million admissions and holding the anime record there until 2023.

Who wrote the Your Name light novel, published by Kadokawa in June 2016 before the film?

Makoto Shinkai himself wrote the novel, released by Kadokawa on June 18, 2016; it sold more than a million copies by that September, while Arata Kanoh wrote the companion Another Side: Earthbound.

Which producer announced a Hollywood live-action remake in 2017?

J. J. Abrams and his Bad Robot company announced the Paramount remake in September 2017 with Eric Heisserer writing; later drafts were said to swap a Native American woman and a young man from Chicago.

Which director was announced for the Hollywood remake in October 2022?

Carlos López Estrada, director of Blindspotting and Raya and the Last Dragon, was announced in October 2022 after Marc Webb and then Lee Isaac Chung had each signed on and left.

Which two later Shinkai films complete the so-called 'disaster trilogy'?

Weathering with You and Suzume followed in 2019 and 2022, and Taki, Mitsuha, Tessie and Sayaka all cameo in the second film of the three.

What audience rating did the film draw when TV Asahi first aired it in January 2018?

17.4 percent in the Kanto region for the TV Asahi broadcast on January 3, 2018; the satellite channel Wowow had shown it first in November 2017.

Who voices Mitsuha in the English dub of Your Name?

Stephanie Sheh voices Mitsuha in the Funimation dub, which Michael Sinterniklaas directed while voicing Taki opposite her.

In Your Name, Mitsuha's friend Tessie reads Mu, a monthly Japanese magazine devoted to what?

Mu covers the occult and paranormal; Tessie's hobbyist interest in mechanics and engineering comes in handy when the trio tries to force Itomori's evacuation.

What is Taki's surname?

Taki Tachibana is the Tokyo high-schooler; his friends are Tsukasa Fujii and Shinta Takagi, while Tessie's full name is Katsuhiko Teshigawara.

Which film beat Your Name to Animation of the Year at the 40th Japan Academy Prize?

In This Corner of the World, Sunao Katabuchi's wartime Hiroshima drama, took Animation of the Year in March 2017, while Your Name won Screenplay of the Year for Shinkai.

When Your Name became Japan's fourth-biggest film ever in 2016, which two Hollywood films ranked above it, behind Spirited Away?

Titanic and Frozen stood between them. Your Name's ¥25.17 billion haul made it the first anime not directed by Hayao Miyazaki to pass ¥10 billion.

What does Hitoha call the world beyond the stream surrounding the shrine's goshintai?

Hitoha tells the girls that crossing the stream to the goshintai means entering kakuriyo, the hidden world of the dead, and that to return they must leave something precious: the kuchikamizake.