Your Name, and the Reconciliation of Identity Crisis in Japan. 2 of ? Political Theory in Anime Series

Musubi is the old way of calling the local guardian god. This word has profound meaning. Typing thread is Musubi. Connecting people is Musubi. The flow of time is Musubi. These are all the god’s power. So the braided cords that we make are the god’s art and represent the flow of time itself. They converge and take shape. They twist, tangle, sometimes unravel, break, and then connect again. Musubi - knotting. That’s time.

- Hitoha Miyamizu

If you’re an anime fan, you definitely heard of Your Name (Kimi no Na wa). Both critically acclaimed and commercially successful, even its creator, Makoto Shinkai, is surprised by how well this anime was received. You have also probably been swept by the hype, and rethought its greatness when the tide settled down. Was it overrated? Was it really that great? Why is it so affective?

In terms of Shinkai’s specific filmography and his success to each of his work, Your Name is the first time he was fully able to accomplish a satisfying combination of superlative animation and deep emotional resonance. As someone who’ve watched everything he created, I always found his work to be lacking the second part. Most of his work are too conceptual, his dialogues too measured (something he shares with Mamoru Hosoda), that they take away the emotional pull we always seek in stories. He almost did it in 5 Centimeter Per Second and The Garden of Words, but ultimately both lacked that organic emotional pull, the right dosage of melodrama, to ground his characters as ordinarily human.

It’s also his least original work. I think part of its commercial success is that Shinkai finally did try to make it “radio friendly,” playing at romantic cliche with no sense of irony, or a critical gaze.

I love it.

More than the romantic storyline, more than two people defying time to be together, to prove the the red string of faith exists, Your Name embodies that continuing conflict in Japanese society which I find to be recurring in different anime shows: traditionalism vs. modernity. However, unlike in his previous works, Shinkai finally reconciled these two images of Japan, and so we are left with that happy ending. This is unique in a country that manifests a crisis common in post-colonial societies, particularly since Japan is not what you will consider a colonized country. Yet, I argue that Your Name is a philosophical answer to this question that many colonized nations engage with: how to decolonize our culture, how to bring back what has been forgotten and lost because of the specter of colonialism? Here, Shinkai, came up with a rather simple answer, one that is rooted in the very essence of romance itself.

From The Eccentric Family where characters are based on Japanese folklore and mythology living in modern-day Kyoto, to the anime Bleach with samurai-like Shinigamis (which, as their own, are part of Japanese religion and culture) who use phones and other modern-day technology to do their business, to the ending of Naruto where ninjas from the Hidden Leaf village are finally seen using touchscreen phones (as a nod to how well the village is modernizing under Naruto’s leadership, of how he is a trailblazer), they always allude to the two images of Japan as a nation with deep, ancient culture, and the face of technological wonder and modernity in most of the anime shows I’ve watched. (I mean travel-wise, you can go to Kyoto to see “traditional” Japan, and pay a visit to Tokyo to have a taste of what it’s like to live in a futuristic cyberpunk anime.)

Mitsuha and Taki both represent these two conflicting images of Japan. Mitsuha, obviously enough, represents the “old” Japan (thus, why she’s 3 years older than Taki) – from the mythology, to the tradition, to the old way of life uncorrupted by modernity and late capitalism. She is the buzzing quietness of the boring countryside, where there is no cafe, no modern hospital, where everything seems slow and dying under the spectre of modernity. It makes sense that Mitsuha, both literally and metaphorically, died in the story. In part, she wished for it. She hated her world. Hungry for the Tokyo life, she wanted to be reincarnated (not just simply to go to Tokyo, but to be another person entirely) as a Tokyo boy. It’s only appropriate to say that she is ashamed of where she came from, of who she is. In a world where she has to remember her tradition, she wants to let go, she wants to forget that part of herself, of who she is.

It’s only natural that Taki, the actual Tokyo boy, has to remember. I’m actually quite baffled when some of the criticism against Your Name is how the time travel didn’t make sense, scientifically speaking. This is not a sci-fi, and as part of remembering what Mitsuha wants to forget, and thus to save “old” Japan from the imposing spectre of modernity, the only logical way for Shinkai to deliver this with deep sincerity is to ground their switching in terms of the Miyamizu lore and tradition.

Although both of them forget, the movie spent most of its time showing Taki struggling to remember, aiming to remember. Taki made Itomori come to life, he’s the one who was given lesson about Musubi, he’s the one who drank Mitsuha’s kuchikamizake (which, interestingly enough, he refers to as his). In this entire sequence of Taki remembering Mitsuha and everything that surrounds her is this simple message: it’s the action of the Japanese people from the modern time who can save their traditions. It’s not so say that they have to go back and do the actual customs and rituals, but to remember the value of their culture, how to re-actualize and to live up with these values as they traverse their life in this modern world. In Your Name, true to the teachings of Musubi and of Japanese culture, it’s about how we are all connected, no matter where we are, no matter what time. We are a collective, that our life is ultimately bound with someone else. In a modern life where everything moves fast, where there’s always something lacking, something missing, where we become separated from one another despite all the technology that makes us connected, this sense of spiritual connection, this thread that will always tie my life to you, is ultimately what Taki learns.

Taiaiake Alfred, in his 1999 book Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto, calls for a similar form of remembering. For the Aboriginals in North America, true self-determination can only be achieved if they finally let go of materialism and consumerism, and remember the values of their traditions. He criticizes leaders of the First Nations who entered the political structure of Western societies, adopting and endorsing the Western culture and economic system, who ended up believing that the Indigenous people can truly be decolonized by following the Western script of modernization. He calls for his people to remember their traditions, the values that buoy these traditions, and to realize that these values should be the ground for their nation-building, since they’re not inferior to Western thoughts, since the true spirit of decolonization is to destroy white supremacy and its dominion over Indigenous culture.

Keep in mind that a critical juncture in Japan’s history is the abolition of the Tokugawa Shogun and the era of Meiji Restoration in the 19th century. It marks the shift in Japanese society from feudalism to (limited) parliamentary system, where samurai scholars are sent abroad to learn about Western science and technology, and to incorporate them to strengthen Japan, all to protect the nation from Western imperialism. The 19th century also marks the transition from isolation to relative openness of Japanese society (i.e. finally trading with the Americans). More foreigners were able to enter the country, and were not subjected to Japanese laws. The defeat of the shogun’s army and their traditional weaponry (who are angry about the presence of foreigners in the country) against the samurai (who used American weapons) also resulted into further belief that Western technology is superior at that time. Japan, during this period, also entered their Industrialization period. So even though not necessarily colonized, Japan has also fully felt the Western influence in the 19th century onwards.

Of course, resistance to full Western assimilation existed at that time. Since then and now, as Japan keeps modernizing, the fight to continue remembering their traditions and customs also becomes a persistent presence in their society. Your Name is but another articulation of this identity crisis in Japan. Who are they? What is Japan? Who are you, exactly? As the story revolves around remembering the name, of who you are exactly, and what are you specifically, the nation also tries to find that reckoning.

When Taki wrote “I love You” rather than his name for Mitsuha to remember him, that was Shinkai’s answer to Japan’s dilemma. As long the Japanese people continue to love where they came from, their traditions, their culture, they will remember it, they will keep it alive. The moment Mitsuha found out that she is loved, with everything she has to offer, her story of musubi, her kuchikamizake, her quiet Itomori with no cafe, she stood up and fought for her life. She fought for her village, for her people. She wanted to keep it alive. In the end, even with the physical destruction of the countryside, of the shrine, even when Mitsuha is now living in Tokyo, the tradition still lives on. They will still see each other again, to fill each other, to love each other. Not only Shinkai is saying that Japanese people should remember, but that, no matter what, they will always remember. They will always keep each other alive. As long as we love, as long as we embody this unique human emotion, we will be fine.

Because, in this case, love is Musubi. It’s what binds us all together.