In a span of six months from its premier release at Anime Expo, Los Angeles on 3 July 2016, Makoto Shinkai’s anime feature film ‘Your Name’ has broken box-office records on an international scale. The fantasy drama film has become the highest grossing anime worldwide with a total box office collection of over $331.6 million.
Regarded as the ‘The new Miyazaki’, Shinkai’s movie is based on his novel of the same name which was released in 2016. The feature film hit the theatres in Japan on 26 August, 2016 and then after, it has galloped ahead globally, leaving the great Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar winning ‘Spirited Away’ at the second place in the highest grossing anime films worldwide. In the domestic market however, with the box-office earnings of 23.23 billion yen (US$ 200.26 million), Your Name stands second in the anime genre and fourth overall after Spirited Away (30.4 billion yen), James Cameron’s Titanic (26.2 billion yen) and Disney’s Frozen (25.48 billion yen).
Your Name follows the life of two teenagers, Mitsuha and Taki, who mysteriously swap bodies one night. Although they’re total strangers, their lives immediately become intertwined. As their connection to each other grows, they eventually try to meet up with one another.
The film topped the box office for nine consecutive weeks in Japan before it was tumbled by Death Note: Light Up The New World. The film has already won an award at the Tokyo International Film Festival and is awarded the Best Animated Film by the 2016 Los Angeles Film Critics Association. So far, it has been a hit in China, South Korea, Taiwan, UK, Ireland and Thailand and is set to release in North America on 7 April, 2017.
IMDb has rated the anime feature at 8.7 and it is trending at 97 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes. The critics at Rotten Tomatoes say, “As beautifully animated as it is emotionally satisfying, Your Name adds another outstanding chapter to writer-director Makoto Shinkai’s filmography.”
The Japanese animation studio – CoMix Wave Films has worked on the movie while Funimation has picked up the distribution rights. Coming from a man whose favourite anime is by Hayao Miyazaki, Shinkai has a lot riding on his shoulders as from becoming a domestic name, he is now known to the world.
Makoto Shinkai is a director, writer, producer, animator, voice actor, manga artist and former graphic designer. Shinkai’s works include feature films, shorts, commercials, video games and manga. Though he is regarded as the new Miyazaki, there’s not much similarity in their work apart from the fact that they both belong to the animation industry.
Your Name is in race with Disney’s ‘Zootopia‘ and Pixar’s ‘Finding Dory‘ for the Oscar. We don’t know if it will make it or not, but with its unique storyline, it is bound to break more box-office records in various other countries as well!