Just last year, Makoto Shinkai’s sci-fi romance Your Name became the highest grossing anime film of all-time and one of Japan’s most successful movies across the board. It also earned rave reviews from audiences and critics to boot. Now, there’s a live-action remake of Your Name in the works, with J.J. Abrams attached as a producer.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Arrival screenwriter Eric Heisserer has been hired by Paramount Pictures to write the new Your Name adaptation. In the original anime, the story follows a teenager in Tokyo named Taki Tachibana who finds himself mysteriously (and sporadically) swapping bodies with Mitsuha Miyamizu, a girl who lives in the rural town of Itomori. Taki and Mitsuha eventually find ways to communicate with each other between swaps, all the while forming a deeper connection.
Shinkai himself chimed in on the developing adaptation, remarking with encouragement that “we may see new possibilities that we had been completely unaware of.” Though we admire his optimism, we can’t help but worry about the history of American live-action adaptations of anime movies repeating itself. In other words, seeing the story transplanted into an American setting with characters who only slightly resemble the originals. If this year’s Ghost in the Shell and Death Note are any indication, it would be something of a minor miracle if even one of the two leading roles is filled by an Asian performer. Even more so if the film retains its Japanese settings.
To be clear, many of the themes in Your Name are universal, and it has a particularly strong take on millennial relationships. That said, viewers from around the world have embraced the story as it already exists in the film. This is a story that deserves to retain the identity that made it so strong and special in the first place.
How do you feel about a live-action Your Name? And should the film remain set in Japan? Share your thoughts below!
Images: Toho Co.
Want more in the world of anime?
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