50 Fun Facts About Your Name

Who wrote and directed Your Name?

Critics call it the first of his 'disaster trilogy', all three films shaped by Japan's natural disasters.

What is the film's Japanese title?

It literally means 'Your Name is...'; two of the distractors were among the discarded working titles and later Shinkai films.

What is the name of Mitsuha's rural hometown?

The town is fictional, but Hida city and its library provided real backdrops.

In which prefecture is Mitsuha's hometown?

Mitsuha speaks with a lilting Mino-dialect accent that Taki has to learn when he is in her body.

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

She gets a version of it: Taki is a Tokyo boy who works part-time as a waiter.

In which Tokyo ward does Taki live and work?

The Italian restaurant where he waits tables is called Il Giardino delle Parole, an Italian nod to an earlier Shinkai title.

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

They also write rules: Mitsuha forbids Taki from showering, touching or looking at her body.

Whom does Mitsuha, in Taki's body, set him up on a date with?

Okudera senses on the date that Taki is preoccupied with someone else.

What is kuchikamizake?

Mitsuha resents making it as a shrine maiden and is teased for it; Taki later drinks hers to reach her.

What is the name of the comet?

Comet 279P/Tiamat is due to pass closest on the day of the autumn festival, and a fragment 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?

The comet fell in 2013; Taki is in 2016. Both, Shinkai says, assumed they were born on the same day, December 1.

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

At Hida City Library, Taki finds the Miyamizus and their friends among the names.

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

She had given it to him on a trip to Tokyo three years earlier; he returns it to her 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?

Sayaka is in the broadcasting club, and Tessie's father runs the construction company with the explosives.

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

Night fell during their twilight meeting before she could write hers on his.

Who finally orders the town's evacuation?

Toshiki had told residents to stay put until his estranged daughter persuaded him otherwise.

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

They spot each other from parallel JR East trains on April 8, 2022, and race to find one another.

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?

The English dub pairs her with Stephanie Sheh, while Michael Sinterniklaas voices Taki.

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

She teaches the class the word 'kataware-doki', the twilight hour when the two finally meet.

What is the name of Mitsuha's younger sister?

The Miyamizu women's names count upward: Hitoha (one), Futaba (two), Mitsuha (three), and then four.

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?

It comes from a waka attributed to Ono no Komachi; 'Your Connection' and 'You Are Half of This World' came next.

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

Others were Inside Mari, the Heian tale Torikaebaya Monogatari and Greg Egan's story The Safe-Deposit Box.

Which Christopher Nolan film did Shinkai cite as an influence?

Its time-slipped lovers and messages across years echo through the film's second half.

Which band wrote and performed the film's music?

Frontman Yojiro Noda composed the score so it would supplement the characters' dialogue and monologues.

Which song, whose title means 'Past-Past-Past Life', was runner-up for Best Theme Song at the Newtype Awards?

All four songs were recorded in Japanese and English versions.

Where did Your Name have its world premiere?

July 3, 2016, seven weeks before its Japanese release; it later played one 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?

Your Name had itself dethroned Spirited Away and finished on about $400 million worldwide.

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

Its ¥25.17 billion made it 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, a record?

Nine straight, then a break for Death Note: Light Up the New World, then three more before Fantastic Beasts.

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

It took $81.3 million there and is still the biggest traditionally animated film in China.

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

Both are Aamir Khan productions; Your Name held the mark until May 2017.

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

It grossed about $5 million in the U.S. and Canada, a small slice of a $400 million worldwide total.

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

Your Name drew 3.81 million admissions there and held the anime record until 2023.

Who wrote the light novel of Your Name, published a month before the film?

It sold more than a million copies by September 2016; a companion novel, Another Side: Earthbound, tells the story from the friends' viewpoints.

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

Paramount and Bad Robot's version would swap a Native American woman and a young man from Chicago.

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

Marc Webb and Minari's Lee Isaac Chung had both signed on and left before him.

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

Taki, Mitsuha, Tessie, Sayaka and the little sister all cameo in the second of them.

What was Taki's TV-terrestrial debut rating in Japan when TV Asahi first aired the film in January 2018?

Wowow had shown it first, on satellite, in November 2017.

Who voices Mitsuha in the English dub of Your Name?

Michael Sinterniklaas voices Taki opposite her, while Ryo Narita's Tessie becomes 'Tesshi' in the dub.

Mitsuha's friend Tessie is a frequent reader of Mu, a monthly magazine devoted to what?

His hobbyist knowledge of explosives and engineering comes in handy when the trio tries to force Itomori's evacuation.

Which member of Radwimps composed the score of Your Name?

Shinkai asked the band's frontman to write incidental music that would supplement the characters' dialogue and monologues.

In how many countries was Your Name released?

It also had a one-week Los Angeles run in December 2016 purely to qualify for the Academy Awards.

In 2016, which two Hollywood films ranked between Spirited Away and Your Name in Japan?

Its ¥25.17 billion haul made it the first anime not directed by Hayao Miyazaki to pass ¥10 billion; Demon Slayer: Mugen Train later topped them all.

Shinkai's original working title for the film came from a waka poem attributed to which poet?

Later working titles included Kimi no Musubime (Your Connection) and Kimi wa Kono Sekai no Hanbun (You Are Half of This World).