Author’s note: This article contains spoilers for the manga and anime Your Name.
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Kimi no Na wa. (君の名は。) or Your Name. centers on the lives of two high school students, Miyamizu Mitsuha and Tachibana Taki. Mitsuha lives in rural Japan in the mountains, while Taki lives in bustling Tokyo. The two dream of different lives, especially Mitsuha who wishes she lived in the city. They begin to switch bodies sporadically, at first believing their initial experience was simply a lucid dream, but as the story progresses, they become more and more intertwined in one another’s lives.
The third volume is the final volume in the manga adaptation of the film. As I mentioned in my review of the first two volumes, the manga for Your Name. was written after the film was released, which makes reading this comic book sort of like reading a novelization of a movie. The manga follows the story completely; however, there are little bits and pieces in the manga that you won’t see in the movie, perhaps having been left on the cutting room floor.
This last part of the story mostly follows the film completely. The only additional tidbits we seem to get are minor. For instance, at the end of the film, when Taki and Mitsuhua are all grown up, Taki runs into Tesshi and Sayaka in a Starbucks in Tokyo. Taki doesn’t talk to them, but he appears to recognize them, although he can’t put his finger on from where. Before this brief encounter in the manga we’re shown Mitsuha meeting with Tesshi and Sayaka in the same Italian restaurant in which Taki (and Mitsuhua when she was jumping bodies) used to work. The two of the, who are now engaged, tell Mitsuah the food is excellent and ask her how she found the restaurant. Mitsuhua replies that she found it accidentally during her first year of university in Tokyo. I found this to be a nice added touch to the story, showing how Mitsuha’s and Taki’s lives continue to intertwine even after they lost their memories of one another.
But, as I mentioned in my previous review of the first two volumes, you don’t have to read this manga in order to appreciate the film. In fact, if you are only reading the manga and haven’t seen the film, I beg you to go watch it. It is so much more emotionally fulfilling, so much more immersive, so much more beautiful, both the art and the music, than this manga can ever be. I’d almost rather see an artbook or visual guidebook, which there are some available in Japanese, than read this manga, which unfortunately does not do the art from the film justice.
Still, if you are in need of some light reading, Your Name the manga may just fit the bill. It feels a bit like a Sunday afternoon kind of read, the sort of thing you pick up at a bookstore, flip through while sipping some coffee or tea in the bookstore’s cafe, but place back on the shelf after finishing.
Your Name. Vol. 3 is now available in English from Yen Press.
Story: 5 out of 5 stars
Art: 3 out of 5 stars
Overall: 4 out of 5 stars
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[coffee]
