News

Makoto Shinkai's Kimi no Na wa./your name. Film Casts Masami Nagasawa, Etsuko Ichihara

The staff of Makoto Shinkai's new Kimi no Na wa. (your name.) anime film announced on Tuesday that the film has cast Masami Nagasawa (Detroit Metal City's Yuri, From Up On Poppy Hill's Umi) and Etsuko Ichihara (Horus, Prince of the Sun's Hilda, Miyori no Mori's Granny) for the film. This will be the first time the two work together on a project, though their characters will have no scenes together.

Nagasawa will play Miki (top on picture right), an older schoolmate whom the male protagonist Taki admires. Ichihara will play Hitoha (bottom), the female protagonist Mitsuha's grandmother.

The film's official website also revealed five additional cast members on Wednesday.

(Bottom row, from left to right in image above) Ryō Narita and Aoi Yūki will play Mitsuha's classmates Katsuhiko Teshigawara and Sayaka natori, respectively. Nobunaga Shimazaki and Kaito Ishikawa will play Taki's classmates Tsukasa Fujii and Shinta Takagi, respectively. Child actor Kanon Tani will play Mitsuha's younger sister Yotsuba Miyamizu.

They will join the film's lead cast, which includes Ryunosuke Kamiki (Summer Wars' Kenji, Howl's Moving Castle's Markl, The Princess and the Pilot's Charles Karino) as Taki Tachibana and actress Mone Kamishiraishi (live-action Chihayafuru: Kami no Ku's Kanade Ōe) as Mitsuha Miyamizu.

The film opens in Japan on August 26. The film's site previously streamed a trailer last month.

Boy: On that day... That day when stars fell from the sky... It was almost like...
Girl: It was almost like a dream.
Both: It was beautiful.
Text: Japan prepares for the arrival of a meteor in a thousand years.
Text: A high school boy who lives in the heart of the city - Taki
Taki: After school? Sorry, I have my part-time job after this.
Text: A girl who dreams of Tokyo - Mitsuha
Mitsuha: I am so sick of the boonies. I am so sick of this kind of life. Please make me a hot boy from Tokyo in my next life!
Taki: Where am I?
Mitsuha: Come to think of it, it kind of feels like I was having a weird dream this whole time. A dream of someone else's life...?
Text on Arm: Don't get a big head!
Text: The meeting of two people who will never meet
Mitsuha: Ah!
Taki: Wha-!?
Mitsuha: This is... Is this...!?
Taki: Are we switching places
Both: Inside our dreams!?
Text: A miraculous story has begun to move
Mitsuha: There is one certain thing: We'll know as soon as we see each other.
Text in notebook: Who are you?
Text on hand: I found...
Taki: I had been thinking to tell you that wherever you are in the world, I'm going to go and see you no matter what!
Mitsuha: Who... are you?
Taki: Just who... are you?
Both: What's your name?

The Kimi no Na wa. film's "story of miracles and love" revolves around Mitsuha and Taki. Mitsuha is a female high school student who lives in a rural town nestled deep in the mountains. Her father is the mayor and isn't at home much, and she lives with her elementary school-aged little sister and her grandmother. Mitsuha has an honest personality, but she doesn't like the customs of her family's Shinto shrine, nor does she like her father participating in an election campaign. She laments that she lives in a confined rural town, and yearns for the wonderful lifestyle of living in Tokyo. Taki is a male high school student who lives in central Tokyo. He spends time with his friends, works part-time at an Italian restaurant, and is interested in architecture and fine arts. One day, Mitsuha has a dream where she is a young man. Taki also has a dream where he is a female high school student in a town in the mountains that he has never been to. What is the secret to their dreams of personal experience?

Shinkai is also writing the script for the film. Masashi Ando (Spirited Away, When Marnie Was There, Paprika) is serving as the animation director and Masayoshi Tanaka (anohana, The Anthem of the Heart, Toradora!) is designing the characters. CoMix Wave Inc. is animating the film.

RADWIMPS is composing over 20 tracks for the film's soundtrack, but is not composing the film's actual theme song. The band's leader Yōjirō Noda had met Shinkai about two years ago, and he has been involved since the early production stages of the film.

Shinkai will publish the original novel that inspired the film on June 18, ahead of the film's opening. Shinkai has previously written novels tied to his 5 Centimeters Per Second and The Garden of Words films. In addition, his Voices of a Distant Star and The Place Promised in Our Early Days films have received novelizations by different authors.

(The tagline on the below key visual reads, "I am searching for you, whom I have never met yet.")

Source: Sankei Sports, Anime! Anime!