 A moment can be defined as two things, a very short period of time, but also it can be defined as importance. In Makoto Shinkai's year name, Shinkai prepares the audience for one particular moment of importance, a moment that comes at about an hour and 18 minutes into the film. At first I want to understand how Shinkai was able to create this moment and the way he was able to manipulate the audience's suspense and expectations. Before getting to that, it is important to grasp the depth of the relationship of our two protagonists in order to understand the weight of this scene. As the movie shows us, on September the 12th, 17-year-old high school students Taki Tachibana and Mitsuha Miyamizu begin trading lives, waking up in each other's bodies a couple times a week as they state. The switching at first was very awkward and detrimental to their regular routines, as they had very contradicting lifestyles. Taki is an artist who lives in the bustling city that is Tokyo and he is working at a fast paced Italian restaurant. Mitsuha on the other hand is from Itamori, a very small close knit town a few hours outside of Tokyo. Shinkai works hard to showcase the opposition within our two leads. When the fast animation even showcases the difference in each character's unique mannerisms. Taki is awkward and impulsive, while Mitsuha is gentle and kind. As weeks pass, both Taki and Mitsuha become quite comfortable involving themselves in each other's lives. Mitsuha secures Taki with a waitress at his restaurant, Ms. Okudera, and Taki forces Mitsuha towards more extroversion, gaining her popularity in school. Though the two have never met each other, their only communication was through text messages and written notes on their own skin. Their lives become deeply intertwined. Taki's curiosity about Itamori would soon develop into a research project, one that would reveal the threads of time and the history behind Itamori. A history and culture he ultimately came to appreciate, and a landscape that he would soon memorize. Taki eventually develops an intimate attachment with the senior of Itamori, then later the culture and ultimately the young girl who he knew to live there. But on the night of October 4th marked the tragedy that would affect Taki's relationship with Mitsuha forever. October 4th marks the comet's first arrival. Within seconds, the captivating comet splits in half and it comes hurling to the ground, resulting in the complete destruction of Itamori. This tragedy is what marks the end of Taki's dreams of waking up in Mitsuha's body. This marks the end of his relationship with Mitsuha. Imagine, after nearly a month of living in an entirely new city, connecting with new people, people that you consider now your own family, people whom you care about, it all comes to a sudden stop, without reason, and without closure. And with this pause in his second life, Taki begins to feel this incredible draw to Itamori and to her, which propels him to finally go meet Mitsuha, who hasn't switched into his body or answered his messages in weeks. With his research of the town called Itamori, Taki soon learns of this comet, the comet that occurred three years prior. It is in his research that Taki discovers the Miyamizu Shrine, the shrine where Mitsuha had left her kuchikami sake, three years prior, ultimately proving to Taki that his dreams might not have been dreams after all. In order to connect himself with Mitsuha, hoping to realign the course of time, Taki drinks the sake, giving them a second chance at saving the town and a second chance at finally meeting Mitsuha. It is here that the chase against time begins, in the moments leading up to twilight, Shinkai added suspense, fear and hope, that the two would finally meet and that they would save the town. A small flashback shows Mitsuha's dedication to meeting Taki, as she as well goes to Tokyo to try and meet up with him, and after she successfully does meet him on a train, he doesn't recognize her, because he had not yet met her. This led the audience to crave the reunion even more, also showing off Mitsuha's determination to meet him. As Mitsuha and Taki were drawn towards twilight, the two met on top of the mountains surrounding the Miyamizu shrine, where twilight eventually envelops them, immediately switching them back into their original bodies. This moment should have been the breath of fresh air, or even the breath of relief. But it was in this moment that I held my breath. The scene was initially met with complete silence. No whistling wind, no background music, just straight silence. However the silence was also unnerving, it kept me guessing and wondering, and when the violin finally crept in and Taki begins to speak from his original body, I felt comfortable. The score in the background of the scene titled Katawaridoki brought a tune of finality. As if all of the hard work, all of the suspense was finally over, the journey was finally complete. And as the two finally meet, Taki suggests the idea to write each other's names on their hands, that way they would never forget. To me it made sense. The title of the movie was your name, and the entire movie was leading us to this point. At every moment that they switched bodies they would always ask each other who are you. So finally, Taki takes a marker and writes his name on Mitsuha's hand, and he carefully places the marker into the hand that he wrote, preventing her from seeing it. And Mitsuha begins to write. And suddenly the music frantically cuts and the marker falls, hitting the concrete. Mitsuha didn't finish writing her name. It was in this particular moment that solidified this scene as my absolute favorite in the movie because of the visceral reaction I had. The absolute devastation of this scene acted like a jump scare in a horror movie. Shinkai had the viewer ease into the fact that this was the end, especially with the score and with how calming and heartwarming this moment was. It was a breath of relief after all that running around. After one hour and 18 minutes, Mitsuha and Taki finally met. The meeting would only last three minutes. Shinkai knew he would have the audience in the palm of his hand and he engineered it wonderfully. Later it is revealed to us that Taki hadn't written his name on Mitsuha's hand. Instead he wrote, I love you. And after others have analyzed the way Mitsuha was planning to write on Taki's hand, she too was planning to write the same thing. Taki didn't know if Mitsuha was truly going to save the town, seeing as he had troubles doing it, so he decided to write something that would stay with her no matter the time or the place that they were going to be or the place that they were in currently. He decided to tell her a message that there was somebody in that world that loved her. Which essentially changes the meaning of the title for me. It was never about Taki or Mitsuha's name, but about what the two paramours meant to each other. The bond that was greater than distance, not bound by time or by space. A bond that found its inception in their dreams. To reiterate, for a month Taki and Mitsuha lived in each other's worlds, where they would learn about each other, about their families and about their friends. And it was where they would learn about each other as people. Both Mitsuha and Taki both state that in their older age, they seem to be constantly searching for something, for that person. This bond was now even bound through the threads of Musubi, which represents the flow of time and the connection of two people. Kimi no Nawa or your name was never about a name, it was about the emotional and spiritual connection and about what would become the unconditional love between Taki and Mitsuha.