‘your name.’ Plagiarized Popular Anime Movies? One YouTuber Explains

Makoto Shinkai’s animated feature film hit your name is still conquering theaters by storm since last year. Due to its beautiful story, original concept, and unforgettable characters, the thoughts of this anime film being a photocopy of some previous anime movie concepts will definitely not cross your mind.

However, one YouTuber named Ms. Rachel explained in a video that one animated sequence of the movie is actually plagiarized. She did a side-by-side comparison of the movie and two animated movies The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Niji-Iro Hotaru _{Eien no Natsu Yasumi}. You can watch the mention video below:

The scene that Mitsuha was running down the mountain is claimed to be a copy of a scene from the anime movie Niji-Iro Hotaru ~Eien no Natsu Yasumi. In just watching the video, you may definitely say that the scene strike some similarities. The part when Mitsuha fell was also being questioned and seemed to be similar to Makoto’s fall in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Looking at these particular scene however, a lot of you would really say that this just a coincidence due to the different animation techniques being used in the production. Some of the commenters agreed that the film may have plagiarized scenes from these movies.

This has caught the attention of Niji-Iro’s director Konosuke Uda. In his post on Twitter, he shared that when he saw your name. in theaters, he also felt some similarities but he believed that if a certain movie’s direction changes the content sufficiently, then it can be called as original work. He also added and to quote: “It’s not correct to settle it by talking about rip-offs.”

Although some have agreed to the similarities, some commenters do not agree since the timing is a bit off and the animation styles, background, and the characters used are completely different.

The final verdict of this matter will be up to you. Regardless of this claim, Kimi no na wa is considered by many anime fans and movie critics as one of the most unique anime movies to date.

Sources:

Konosuke Uda’s Twitter

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