All of which is to suggest that Your Name resonated with Japanese viewers deeply, and it appears set to become the defining film of the decade, not just financially but also in a more meaningful cultural sense. Your Name is a coming-of-age story—a common variety of Japanese cinema, give or take the switching-bodies-while-dreaming part—but woven into this familiar genre are issues weighing on the nation in the 2010s. Among other themes, Makoto touches on vanishing rural communities, trauma following the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake and tsunami, and the ever-present unease around natural disasters that has followed.

Given Japan’s rapidly graying population and a lack of full-time employment, Your Name arrived at a time when prospects for the future look bleak for many in the country, especially those entering adulthood. And yet a youthful optimism has been reflected in some of the most popular cultural products of the past few years, ranging from viral songs to TV shows with huge ratings such as Nigeru wa Haji da ga Yaku ni Tatsu. Your Name might be the most hopeful creation yet; Makoto himself has frequently said he made the movie for younger audiences, so that “they can believe in their future.”

The director, who has made animated features since 2004 (though never on a level close to Your Name), has been tagged by many as “the next Miyazaki,” referring to the Studio Ghibli co-founder and mind behind beloved films such as My Neighbor Totoro and Ponyo. Though both weave traditional Japanese folklore into their work, comparisons of this sort may feed unfair expectations; they’re also somewhat inaccurate. Makoto’s work barely resembles Miyazaki’s fantastical, whimsical works, instead feeling closer to a seishun eiga, or “youth film.”

Though this genre has existed for quite some time, it really blossomed the decade following World War II thanks to so-called “sun tribe” youth movies (these featured teens interested in violence and sex, similar to America’s Rebel Without A Cause). In the decades since, seishun eiga have generally focused on the ups and downs of adolescence, particularly high schoolers. “Seishun eiga offer the sort of clear window into Japan’s national culture, society and psyche that other, more internationally popular, genres don’t. Most Japanese survived high school; relatively few joined yakuza gangs,” the Japan Times film critic Mark Schilling has written. Since these movies can be loaded with cliches and melodrama, the laziest iterations of this style are often deeply formulaic.

Your Name follows the basic beats of seishun eiga, as did pre-release advertising for it. The story centers on the relationship between two teens separated by great distances, and the hurdles they face to reach one another. The intimate details of high-school life likely appealed to many young viewers, and the film’s music comes from the rock band Radwimps, a teen-favorite outfit that gelled perfectly with the story. On top of these conventions, Makoto also adds in some magical realism; as the writer Eimi Ozawa noted in a special edition of the magazine EyesCream last October, Makoto was inspired by the author Haruki Murakami, whose work tends to explore the connections that happen in dreams.