What does the anime “Kimi no Na wa (Your Name)” have in common with Blink 182?

2016-10-19 Ken

Box office revenue exceeds 15 billion yen. Becoming a social phenomenon in Japan

The anime movie “Kimi no Na wa (Your Name)” is becoming a smash hit.
As of October 16, 2016, its box office revenue had exceeded 15 billion yen, making it the sixth biggest Japanese movie hit.

Japan box office revenue

I rarely watch Japanese movies but it was Cinema Day (every 14th of the month at TOHO Cinema, you can watch a movie for 1,100 yen) so I decided to give it a try.

I went on a weekday afternoon but 80% of the seats were taken.

The audience was made up of a variety of people; young couples, mature couples, girl groups, lady groups.
There were a lot of guys too, which was a surprise.

What made the movie a hit?

The smash hit of “Kimi no Na wa (Your name)” was a surprise to even the producers of the film.
Their initial target was 1 billion yen so you can tell how big of a surprise it was to them too.

What were the factors that made it such a success?

I am no anime expert but what I thought was:

Good story! Exchange bodies and fall in love, that’s typical. Throw in the concept of timing difference into the mix, now it gets interesting
Reality within fantasy. The story is fiction, but the scenery and story settings are very real. I nearly fell off my seat when I found my apartment in the film
Music is good. Music matches well with the graphics and story. Just goes to show how music is a big part of a film

All in all, I enjoyed it!
If you’ve thought about going, definitely go!

What does “Kimi no Na wa (Your name)” and Blink 182 have in common?

As I was watching the credits at the end of the film, I spotted Tom Lord-Alge’s name among the sound mixers.
Needless to say, Tom Lord-Alge does the mixing for one of my favorite bands, Blink 182.

I thought the music was good. I wonder if there’s a connection…

What’s up with Blink 182 recently?

With High Standard releasing a new song in 16 years and Blink 182 coming out with a new album, it seems the bands I used to listen to when I was young are still playing strong.

I wasn’t following what Blink 182 was up recently so I decided to do some catching up.
And oh man was I surprised.

Tom Delonge left the band…

I knew that the guys weren’t getting along well but Blink was Tom and Tom was Blink, right?

Matt Skiba from Alkaline Trio has replaced him and they’ve released a new album called “California“.