Your name 25-26 1/19

Characters

    Both MCs in YN have alliterating names (Miyamizu Mitsuha, Tachibana Taki)
    MIYAmizu and nishiMIYA (koe) share a character
    Taki is similar to Takaki (5CS, prev film)
    Mizuha looks a bit like asuka from senran kagura (due to thick & short ponytail). Miyumizu Mitsuha is easy to write in kanji. Here's a mnemonic. Hat+ro, water, 3, grass header+se(kai)+tree
    Tessa sounds like a girl's name
    I wonder if Tsubasa has a crush on Taki

The OP shows a red thread of fate, which is a thing in japan, look it up if you're unfamiliar. I don't like the rock songs featured in this film, but I do acknowledge their energy/mood fit the moment. The OP ends with a shot of her house. Looks like "garden of words".

Since Mitsuha in Taki's body is inexperienced with being a waiter, I thought he would smash a plate or 2 with the very hectic kitchen. After the scamming customers get their free meal confirmed, there's a shot of a craft knife. Why's that? We find out shortly after that the floor manager's skirt has a cut. "Take your skirt off! Oh, I'll turn around (just realized i'm a boy now)". Taki mends it with girly patterns. We see she has some proficiency as shown by the thread weaving last night. Would it be considered unrealistic to have threads/cotton stored at Taki's workplace? Taki would definitely not have any in his pocket just because Mitsuha is driving his body.

During the rice ceremony, when I see Mitsuha eating rice, I thought "cool, at this ceremony you get to eat", but then I get slightly disappointed as she spits it out. I looked up kuchikamisake, and got led to wikipedia. This is actually a (historical) thing, and the science is solid. Spit enzymes break up the rice & ferment it to alcohol. It's not necessary to chew it, I think you can just spit in rice & that'll do. In fact, you can just leave rice & it'll go bad. All chewing does is increase the surface area & hence it ferments faster.

Mitsuha looks nice when she's a miko, and so does the other girl, which I only find out later that it's her younger sis. Well, her sis looks quite older when she's dressed up. When they're back in casual clothing ready to leave, I imagine it must be quite late as I can't see anyone else, so I assume they have left. She shouts she wants to have a city life if she's ever reborn. Well, be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it, with unintended consequences (& she does). This is also true of Doraemon.

It's a very long way to the crater granary, which is why it's a good thing Mitsuha (Taki) is carrying granny along, otherwise granny might get tired. The rocky mountain which surrounds the 'granary' it reminds me of 'arashi no yoru ni' in some places due to the tan & rocky ground (arashi had quite a few of these). NB: i'm calling it a granary since rice (sake) is technically a grain.

It is lucky when Mitsuha goes mountain climbing to deposit the miko-sake (kuchikamisake), it is actually Taki experiencing it (we get several confirmations), so that he vaguely knows where to go & what to do. When grandma says that the sake is an offering to the gods, I thought that that means that some other person will take it & consume it after some time, just like the idea of a western santa, you (as a child) set cookies on the dinner table (in belief that santa is real) and then your parents eat it (to replicate the effect of a real santa). It didn't turn out with exactly the same sentiment, but actually, both takes on this idea can be somewhat true, if you interpretat Taki is a person who drinks her sake, but is also a god in the sense he saves her (world). Also, it is kinda spooky but also a relief (there is hope)/magical (for lack of a better way of expressing this) that Mitsuha's sake remains in the granary.

Wouldn't you be distraught if someone you knew suddenly disappeared in a freak accident? The phone diary corrupting & disappearing before his eyes seems a bit suspect. Also, wouldn't they know after a while of phone-snooping there's actually a 3-year difference? Since ito-mori is basically a bunch of craters, (&there's a further impact), could it be that ito-mori is actually a comet magnet? Before watching this movie, I didn't really know what to expect. I wasn't really expecting a tragedy that Taki (&/ Mitsuha) should prevent. And I wasn't really expecting the comet to be a bad thing since it looked so cool in the promo art. After Taki's discovery of the tragedy, the whole movie turns sorta lame.

There's not much explanation about the time-travelling thing. The only thing that's vaguely helpful is that threads represent the flow, and they intertwine, as said by Mitsuha's granny. And twilight is 'magic hour', which was conveniently focused on in the first class we see.I can almost swear that I read somewhere that soul-swapping with miyamizu females is a way of getting to know lovers, but can't find it now.

You drank and touched my what??

It took me a while for me to realize what was going on during the crater rim scene. They're in the same (spatial) place, but separated by 3 years ( temporally). Taki has woken up from his 'dream' after drinking Mitsuha's sake. Mitsuha, initially after being controlled by Taki's soul to save ito-mori town, realizes that Taki's at the granary & rushes to the crater rim to see Taki. Thanks to twilight magic brings them together temporarily. They part without actually exchanging names. I don't know why they keep on forgetting each others names (is this a forced plot device?), and i'm not sure at which point mizuha regains control of her own body.

Tessa & sayaka have some very risky tasks, and indeed, they get temporarily apprehended. Meanwhile, all Mitsuha has is her reputation to lose. After Mitsuha confronts his dad again, shinkai adopts a show, not tell approach as we see some nice panning shots of the comet coming down & hitting the ground, and we're left wondering for a short while what happened to ito-mori & its residents.

It then switches to "5 centimeters/sec" mode where there are 2 people searching for each other in a populous city. We hear a bell ring as a grown-up Mitsuha walks past Taki. They both hesitate, then continue. I assume that's an actual bell ornament in her hair. If you actually wore that, that would be so annoying after a short while. After all that they've been through, you would think their eventual meet in the same place & time would be dramatic, but it just isn't, and they're almost not wanting to meet.