Your Name Ending Explained (In Detail)

The ending of Your Name explained the end of the beautiful and emotional story, but it also seemed somewhat confusing due to its time travel storyline. In Your Name, Taki and Mitsuha are two high school students who seem to have a strong bond even though they do not know each other. The way Your Name explained its narrative is not exactly linear. Still, despite its complex time travel plot, Your Name charmed audiences with a heartwarming story about a connection so strong that it could travel time and space.

Your Name earned $382 million worldwide at the box office (via Box Office Mojo), which ranks alongside films like one of the best Studio Ghibli movies Spirited Away. With a story spanning from 2013 to 2021, Your Name explained from the start that Taki and Mitsuha are somehow switching bodies, but the reasons why and how are only revealed towards the end of the movie. More than the body-switching, the key to understanding the Your Name ending is to better comprehend its two timelines.

Why Taki Didn’t Recognize Mitsuha In Tokyo

Mitsuha Only Experienced Taki’s Future

Time travel can make any story tricky, and that is not different for Your Name. After realizing she had feelings for Taki, even though they still hadn’t met, Mitsuha decided to go to Tokyo and introduced herself to the person she had been switching bodies with for weeks now. Your Name explained that Mitsuha failed to realize that whenever she would wake up in Taki’s body, it was 2016, not 2013, meaning that the fragment of Taki’s life she was experiencing was happening three years in her future.

Your Name explained that Taki and Mitsuha were not only switching bodies, but their consciences were also traveling through time. While the movie presents Taki and Mitsuha’s days in each other’s bodies, Taki himself would only experience the switch three years after Mitsuha. That is why Taki does not recognize Mitsuha in Tokyo, as it would still take three years before he started experiencing the body switch seen in the 2D animated movie.

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When Did Mitsuha Die?

Mitsuha Passed Away In 2013

Your Name explained that Mitsuha died in 2013 after the Comet Tiamat split while entering Earth’s atmosphere and hit the town of Itomori. From Mitsuha’s point of view, the comet would only hit Itomori after she switched places with Taki several times and tried to visit him in Tokyo. From Taki’s point of view, the destruction of Itomori by the comet happened three years before he switched bodies with Mitsuha.

That is why Taki does not take any interest in the news of the comet at first and why he is so shocked to realize Mitsuha had been dead for the past three years in the Your Name ending.

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How Did Taki Restart The Switch (After Mitsuha’s Death)?

Mitsuha’s Grandma’s Teachings Are Key

The destruction of Itomori and the death of Mitsuha in the Your Name ending, a moment in which Your Name‘s soundtrack turns into silence, meant the end of her and Taki’s body-switching. Once time “caught up” with Taki, Your Name explained that the messages from Mitsuha disappeared from his phone as if they never existed. After Taki comprehended that Mitsuha and all of Itomori’s citizens had died, the character found one last hope by remembering what Mitsuha’s grandma had taught her about the flow of time.

Although Taki was not sure that his plan would work in the Your Name ending, he still went to the cave in which Mitsuha’ kuchikamizake had been kept for all those years. By drinking it, Your Name explained that his special connection with Mitsuha, represented by the red string and its many forms, was reactivated — and thus Taki managed to once again wake up in Mitsuha’s body. In a sci-fi time-travel movie twist, he had returned to 2013, after Mitsuha had cut her hair short, but before the comet hit Itomori.

Why Didn’t Taki Write His Name On Mitsuha’s Hand?

The Anime’s Body-Swapping Came With Caveats

As strong as the bond between Taki and Mitsuha was, Your Name explained that neither of them would be able to hold the memories of the body-switching days for long. That seemed to be a consequence of the body-switching process, as Mitsuha’s grandmother, who also had strange dreams about another life, could not remember her own experiences. Taki was aware he and Mitsuha were going to forget each other after the “magic hour,” and he suggested they both write their names on each other’s hands.

However, Taki decided to write, “I love you,” instead, which turned out to be the right decision in the Your Name ending and the perfect symbolism for one of the best romance anime stories. Even if Taki had written his name on Mitsuha’s hand, she would have quickly forgotten the context of it. By writing, “I love you,” in Mitsuha’s hand, Your Name explained that Taki made sure that she could at least know that he was in love before she lost all of her memories from their time together.

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How The Town Was Saved In Your Name

Knowing About The Fate Of Itmori Allowed Taki To Act

Taki wakes up in Mitsuha’s body the day the comet will hit the town and tries to warn everybody of what is going to happen but without success. Still, Your Name explains he kicks off a plan with Sayaka and Katsuhiko to evacuate as many people as possible. After the magic hour, Mitsuha returns to her body, and as in some of the best time travel movies, she knows what is going to happen. In the Your Name ending, she completes Taki’s plan by convincing her father, the mayor, to evacuate Itomori.

Did Taki And Mitsuha End Up Together?

The Pair Find Eachother Despite The Memory Loss

In the Your Name ending, Mitsuha and everyone else in Itomori are saved, but neither Taki nor Mitsuha can remember each other. Eight years after the comet fell, Mitsuha lives in Tokyo — which has been a dream of hers since the beginning. For Taki, five years have passed since he visited Itomori for a reason he could no longer remember. Fate had been one of the central themes of Your Name, and, as such, Taki and Mitsuha ran into each other in Tokyo.

Your Name explained their emotional connection as the two stopped dead while passing one another, immediately drawn to the other. Neither Taki nor Mitsuha could remember each other, but they could still feel that the other person was special for some reason, similar to The Adam’s Project‘s Adam and Laura story. That is why Taki and Mitsuha introduced themselves at the stairs as if they had been looking for each other for the last few years.

It was a highly emotional scene, as audiences expected the two to never see one another again. However, this moment provided hope that their love story would continue. Even if they never remember their experiences, the Your Name ending suggests that Taki and Mitsuha started a new history together right at that moment.

The Real Meaning Of The Your Name Ending

The 2016 Movie Explores Fate And Human Connection

The Your Name ending is incredibly satisfying, and not just because it wraps up the narrative on a simultaneously somber and hopeful note. A key reason director Makoto Shinkai’s 2016 movie was so beloved by critics and viewers is that the story has an incredible amount of thematic depth. The meaning of the Your Name ending is multi-layered, with the climax of the story deftly conveying several messages and ideas at once.

Firstly, Your Name is a commentary and exploration on ideas like fate, destiny, and how much control an individual truly has in determining their own future. From the moment their bodies swap, Taki and Mitsuha’s lives are inseparably linked. While this serves as the foundation for the romance plotline of Your Name, it’s also at the center of its exploration of whether the future is truly set in stone, and if a person can change an outcome that seems to be a forgone conclusion.

This idea of being able to change fate is most clearly demonstrated in Taki saving the people of Itomori. In Taki’s present, the people of Itomori were wiped out when the comet collided with the town. The tragedy had already happened, and Mitsuha’s fate was predetermined from Taki’s perspective. However, Taki manages to alter history, saving Mitsuha and the rest of her community. Taki essentially manages to cheat destiny, and it’s in his doing so that the Your Name ending conveys a clear message that, despite how much of a certainty a future tragedy seems, action can always be taken to change it.

Of course,Your Name doesn’t reject ideas like fate and destiny completely. Taki and Mitsuha passing one-another in Tokyo years after their body-swapping adventures is clear evidence of this. The meaning of the ending of Your Name isn’t that the universe is chaotic, random, and determined exclusively by the actions of human beings. Rather, it’s a reflection on how set in stone one’s fate truly is, and a reminder that individuals have more control over their futures than they often realize.

The other key element of the Your Name ending is that of human connection. This is also shown most clearly through Taki and Mitsuha’s meeting in Tokyo. Despite having lost more-or-less all of their memories of one-another, they yet again cross paths. This idea of how intertwined the lives of human beings are is present throughout the entirety of Your Name, but it’s in the ending that the message is truly crystallized. Even when they’re strangers to each other and their body switching is long behind them, Taki and Mitsuha are still thrown together. They’re linked, even though they don’t realize it. With their chance encounter, the ending of Your Name is conveying a message reminding viewers just how connected to one-another they truly are, even though they may be complete strangers.

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Your Name is a 2016 animated film directed by Makoto Shinkai. The story centers around two high school students, Taki and Mitsuha, who inexplicably begin to swap bodies. Set in both Tokyo and a rural town, the film explores themes of identity and connection as the characters navigate their intertwined lives. Through its rich animation and poignant narrative, Your Name captivates audiences with its exploration of fate and self-discovery.

Release Date

August 26, 2016

Runtime

106 minutes

Cast

Ryunosuke Kamiki (Taki Tachibana voice)
, Mone Kamishiraishi (Mitsuha Miyamizu voice)
, Ryo Narita (Katsuhiko Teshigawara voice)
, Aoi Yuki (Sayaka Natori voice)
, Nobunaga Shimazaki (Tsukasa Fujii voice)
, Kaito Ishikawa (Shinta Takagi voice)
, Kanon Tani (Yotsuha Miyamizu voice)
, Masaki Terasoma (Toshiki Miyamizu voice)
, Sayaka Ohara (Futaha Miyamizu voice)

Director

Makoto Shinkai

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