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A n im e a n d t h e C o n q u est o f T im e
A u th o r(s): A lis ta ir SWALE
Source: J a p a n R e v i e w , 2020, No. 35 (2020), pp. 199-218
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Japan Review 35 (2020): 199—217

Anime and the Conquest of Time: Memory, Fantasy, and

the “Time-Image” from Ghost in the Shell to Your Name

Alistair SWALE

A nim e is often characterized in term s o f its m ultiplicity and fracture, w ith

a p enchant for non-photoreal depictions o f fantasy characters w ho exist in
alternative worlds and become em broiled in implausible plot lines. Theories
particu lar to anim e are often developed to account for these idiosyncrasies
w ith a tendency to treat anim e as a distinct genre rather th an p art o f cinem a
m ore broadly.
T his article seeks to reintegrate anim e w ithin the compass o f cinem a by
em ploying Gilles D eleuze’s philosophical treatm ent o f the cinem atic image.
Deleuze argued th a t in certain instances cinem a had the capacity to supplant
conventional depictions o f m ovem ent in space and tim e to evoke a more fluid
perception o f m em ory and consciousness. These instances he characterized as
“tim e-im ages” as opposed to “movement-images.”
To explore how c e rta in aspects o f a n im a te d cin em a can ep ito m ize
D eleuze’s concept o f the tim e-image, I exam ine the oeuvre of several Japanese
a n im a to rs, fro m O sh ii M a m o ru an d K on S ato sh i th ro u g h to S h in k a i
M akoto. U ltim ately I contend th a t a b etter understanding o f the operation
o f these images aids us to reassess the “fantasy” elem ent in their work. W hile
acknowledging the entertainm ent value of certain stylistic flourishes I argue
th a t other “fantasy” tropes carry a m ore profound cinem atic significance.

K eyw ords : an im e, S h in k a i M a k o to , G illes D eleuze, m em ory, fantasy,

tim e-im age

Introduction: The Fragmented Mirror

In her groundbreaking overview o f anim e, Susan N apier characterized the “anim e im age”
as a “fragm ented m irro r.”1 T h is was an in tu itiv ely p ro fo u n d in sig h t, h ig h lig h tin g as it
did som ething at the h eart o f how the anim ated im age in the Japanese context entailed
a fu n d a m e n ta l d isp o sitio n to w ard fra c tu re , m u ltip lic ity , an d th e p u rs u it o f th em es
th a t are em otionally deeply engaging w hile nonetheless being presented th ro u g h non-
photoreal images and fantastical p lot devices. T hese characteristics have been discussed
in other instances o f academic com m entary on anim ation as well, particularly Paul W ells’

1 Napier 2005, p. 291.

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 Alistair SWALE

Understanding Anim ation (1998), and T hom as L am arre’s The A nim e M achine (2009). These
scholars have tended to argue th a t there is a “special character” inherent in the anim ated
image. In the case o f Wells, he grounds his understanding o f the anim ated image in b oth
its profo u n d ly m e tam o rp h ic character, and its d istin c t capacity to present th e illusion
o f m ovem ent.2 L am arre underscores p a rtic u la r visual tropes th a t can be traced to the
technology o f image construction and com positing.3
However, th e m ost th o ro u g h discussion o f th e relation o f fantasy to an im atio n to
date is the recently published collection o f th o u g h tfu l essays penned by a veritable “w ho’s
w h o ” o f an im atio n scholars (including Paul W ells an d Susan N apier) en titled Fantasy/
A n im a tio n : Connections B etween M ed ia , M ed iu m a n d Genres, e d ite d by C h risto p h e r
H olliday and A lexander Sergeant.4 W hile the varied perspectives on fantasy and anim ation
in the collection provide a w ealth o f stim ulating material, rescuing anim e from pejorative
assu m p tio n s o f associations w ith fan ta sy co u ld arg u ab ly be d one d ifferently. R a th er
th a n establishing a con tin u u m o f interrelation th ro u g h the use o f a “forw ard slash” (as
in the title ’s “fan ta sy /a n im a tio n ”), fantasy sh o u ld be m ore squarely treated w ith in the
realm o f genre and n o t as a d istin ct form o f cinem a. M oreover, regardless o f unh elp fu l
preconceptions w ithin the A m erican Film Institute regarding a distinct category o f fantasy
film, it does seem necessary th a t anim ated fantasy features, indeed any k ind o f cinem atic
anim e feature, should be treated n o t so m uch as a stylistic genre b u t as a p art o f cinem a
m ore generally.5
Accordingly, this article undertakes to reintegrate the discussion o f the anim ated image
and fantasy w ith a broader theory o f cinema, and does so w ith particular reference to the
w ork o f Gilles Deleuze. In order to delve further into the mechanics o f anim e’s distinctive
cin em atic style an d its ten d en cy tow ard fantasy, th ere needs to be a m ore system atic
consideration o f the param eters o f tim e, m otion, and space, an d the possibilities o f less
literal forms o f representation and m ore fluid evocation o f “tru th s” in ways th a t are more
sophisticated th a n the “realistic” depiction o f action in the “here and now.” Fortunately,
Gilles Deleuze does furnish us w ith such a paradigm , b ut he did n o t suppose his paradigm
w ould be applied to anim ation as such (although it is debatable w hether he w ould find any
fundam ental p o in t o f difference betw een the cinem atic im age and the anim ated image).6
However, given some of the idiosyncrasies o f D eleuze’s term inology it is necessary to state
clearly w hat aspects o f his th o u g h t are particularly relevant and, indeed, w hy we w ould
desire recourse to his analysis o f cinem a in relation to Japanese anim ation and ultim ately
the w ork o f Shinkai M akoto ík '/f ® in particular.
To build tow ard the discussion o f cinem atic anim e and ultim ately Shinkai M akoto’s
work, the ensuing section will outline key aspects o f D eleuze’s definition o f the tim e-image,
and its debt to H enri Bergson’s conception o f tim e and memory. I then address some key
examples th a t D eleuze h im self takes up, the b etter to id en tify the m ost salient stylistic
characteristics o f cinem atic images. N ext I transpose these characteristics on to cinem atic

2 Wells 1998, pp. 69-73; Wells & Moore 2016, pp. 118-120.
3 Lamarre 2009, pp. xxx-xxxi, 26-44.
4 For a general discussion of the relation of fantasy to anime, see “Introduction,” Holliday and Sergeant 2018,
pp. 1- 9.
5 Holliday and Sergeant 2018, pp. 12-13.
6 See, for example, Gehman and Reinke 2005 and Gunning 2014.

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 Anime and the Conquest of Time

anim e, in particular the works o f O shii M am oru and Kon Satoshi ^ f t . Finally, I
address the works o f Shinkai M akoto and specifically Your N am e (K im i no na wa
tí), w hich emerges as a m ost explicit example o f engagem ent w ith the potential o f the time-
image. I evaluate the fantasy elements in S h inkai’s w ork in terms o f their capacity to furnish
b o th mere am usem ent in some instances and profoundly evocative cinem atic m om ents in
others.

Deleuze, Bergson, and the Question o f Time

In Cinema I and Cinema II, Deleuze set out to give cinem a a level o f philosophical treatm ent
th a t up u n til th a t p o in t it had n o t received. C o m m en tary on co n tem p o rary cinem a in
France after W orld W ar II was em bodied in either relatively conventional film criticism or
in the more am bitious but nonetheless conservative view o f cinem a as articulated by A ndré
Bazin. Bazin extolled cinem a for its capacity to capture objective reality and the personal
vision o f the film m aker. T h is was quite a d ep a rtu re from pre-W orld W ar II theorizing
th a t accentuated cinem a’s capacity to m anipulate reality an d alter personal perception. It
is perhaps no surprise, then, th a t D eleuze, w hen searching for a philosophical paradigm
to em ploy in ree x am in in g cinem a, b u rro w ed back in to earlier veins o f p h ilo so p h ical
investigation, alighting in the process on the th o u g h t o f Bergson, a figure o f considerable
influence in the preceding decades.
Bergson was acutely aware o f “m u ltip licity ” in h u m a n consciousness, an d rejected
th e n o tio n o f p erceptions an d experiences as fixed d a ta th a t co uld be q u a n tifie d an d
discretely analyzed. A t the same tim e, he w anted to overcome the dualism betw een realism
and idealism, or the gap betw een the m aterial world and v irtu al modes o f representation.
H is answer was to propose the “im age” as the vehicle m ediating b o th aspects, and “pure
perception” as the awareness or recognition o f this profoundly integrated realm o f expression
and understanding. In tandem w ith this, he explored the im plications o f this insight in
relation to tim e, fam ously d istin g u ish in g betw een th e m ore conventional q u an titativ e
conception o f tim e as a linear sequence w ith h ard distinctions betw een past, present, and
futu re, and th e qualitative co n tin u ity o f tim e w hich he characterized as “d u ratio n .” In
M atter a nd M emory (1896), he further explored the relation between this conception o f tim e
and memory, articulating a distinction betw een “h ab itu al” memory, w hich had a merely
instrum ental function in sustaining day to day actions, and “p u re” m em ory w hich could
spontaneously break into consciousness w ith no particular adherence to the order o f isolated
m om ents and actions rooted in the past.7
Deleuze took these essential tenets and applied them to the cinematic image. H e was
preoccupied w ith how divergent approaches to the m anipulation of cinem atic images could
alter the b o unds o f perception. In itially he accen tu ated th e segm ented b u t nonetheless
co h e ren tly a rtic u la te d sequences o f im ages th a t alig n w ith a clear ch ro n o lo g y , an d
followed a m otor-sensory perception o f m ovem ent in space. T hese he called “m ovem ent-
im ages.” H e then w ent on to explore the possibility o f cinem atic images th a t break down
the tyranny o f chronological sequencing and the experience o f conventionally living and
m oving in the “a c tu a l” w orld. T hese he broadly described as tim e-im ages. D eleuze was
particularly interested in how tim e-images could transform our engagem ent w ith m em ory

7 For a lucid exposition of the legacy of Bergson and its influence on Deleuze, see Bogue 2003, pp. 11—40.

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 Alistair SWALE

an d consciousness. D isru p tin g lin ear tim e in th e n arrativ e an d fo rsak in g an exclusive

com m itm ent to the conventional depiction o f m ovem ent in space in the mise en scene m ade
it possible to reveal m em ory and consciousness as facets o f perception no longer rooted
in habitual action and experience. T here would, o f course, always be an anchoring o f our
perception to the “a c tu a l” th ro u g h recognition and recollection, b u t there could also be
a sim ultaneous exploration o f the realm beyond the actual th ro u g h the apprehension of
w hat he described as the “virtual.” T his was a realm pertaining n o t to the “here and now ”
or discrete points in the past, b u t to w hat D eleuze described as “im m anence.”8 A t root,
D eleuze’s contention was th a t certain cinem atic images (i.e. time-images) could take on a
character th a t m ediated bo th the actual or the virtual and, in so doing, reveal facets o f the
im m anent, facilitating a vision th a t resonates profoundly w ith Bergson’s n o tion o f “pure
perception.”

Identifying Time-Images
Given this basic outline o f D eleuze’s conception o f the “tim e-im age,” let us now consider
how we m ight identify distinct instances o f its articulation. Deleuze expanded on Bergson’s
philosophy o f tim e and m em ory by incorporating some aspects o f C . S. Peirce’s semiotics to
create a typology o f “signs” th a t are integral to the generation o f direct images o f tim e. As
we have seen, the tim e-im age is in a fundam ental sense a breaking away from the regime of
movement-images w hich lock tim e in relation to movements in space. M aking th at break,
according to Deleuze, entailed the following:

1. T h e generation of visual and audial signs (“opsigns” and “sonsigns”) th a t transcend

the constraints o f the movement-image.
2. T h e creation o f signs th a t pow erfully and directly reveal, or enable us to intuit, the
im m anent totality in relation to tim e (“chronosigns”).
3. T h e redefining o f action in ways th a t tolerate the breaking o f the linear connections
o f m ovem ent in a particular space.9

T hese interventions enable the subverting o f the lim itations o f the movement-im age, and
reveal glim pses o f the im m an en t whole. In essence, D eleuze’s chronosigns are produced
th ro u g h optical and acoustic images th a t disru p t m otor-sensory perception o f em pirical
m ovem ent in space at p a rtic u la r m om ents. So in stead o f a chronological succession o f
in c re m en tal sp a tia l m o m en ts an d m ovem ents, tim e is revealed th ro u g h d istin ctiv ely
asynchronic depictions as p a rt o f a highly fluid continuum . To use D eleuze’s rather poetic
tu rn o f phrase, “T here is no present w hich is n ot haunted by a past and a future, by a past
th a t is n o t reducible to a form er present, by a future w hich does n o t consist o f a present to
com e.”10 D eleuze characterized these cinem atic depictions o f tim e as “crystalline” rather
th an “organic,” in th a t perception is not tied in a directly organic way to the action inherent
in movem ent-im ages b u t rather in tu ited th ro u g h the prism o f the tim e-im age, hence the
crystal metaphor.

8 Deleuze 1989, pp. 82—88.

9 For a more detailed discussion, see Rodowick 1997, pp. 79—81.
10 Deleuze 1989, p. 36. See also Rodowick’s exegesis in Rodowick 1997, p. 81.

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 Anime and the Conquest of Time

To illustrate instances o f the tim e-im age in cinema, Deleuze drew on disparate works
such as the Italian N eo-R ealists, the film s o f O zu Yasujiró d A ^ S —fiP, and even A lfred
H itch o ck ’s Vértigo (1958). H e used these examples to describe a burgeoning art o f creating
cinem atic im ages th a t revealed a consciousness b eyond m ere action an d m o vem ent in
the “here and now.”11 Take, for example, the cinem atic style o f O zu Yasujiró. It w ould be
difficult to find a more em phatic example o f film m aking th a t subordinates action to place
and stillness, and th a t evokes the deep current o f tim e transcending the clutter and clatter
o f m undane daily life. O zu does capture daily life, b u t as revealed by his lingering shots of
hallways and stairs, along w ith the w ooden, alm ost m arionette-like delivery o f lines from
key protagonists, he has an eye for w hat is beyond action and speech in the m om ent th a t is
extraordinarily intense.
T here were, however, three films in particular th at Deleuze singled out as presenting
“crystal images,” instances, that is, o f tim e-im age th at give the viewer a w indow on “p ure”
perception and m em ory. T h e film s were Vértigo by H itchcock, Je t ’a im e Je t ’a im e (1968)
by A lain Resnais, and Zvenigora (1928) by A lexander D ovzhenko. It is surprising th a t
his examples are n o t exactly consonant in them e or style; n o r do they readily indicate a
com m on thread. Even so, a b rief review o f them reveals some useful insights.
Vertigo by A lfred H itc h c o c k has a very d iffe ren t visu al style in its tre a tm e n t o f
action and mise en schne w hen com pared, for example, to O zu Yasujiró. It is nonetheless
rem arkable in the way th a t the persona o f the female lead, K im N ovak, is stretched by
playing an im poster who inhabits a profound duality o f character. She plays Judy Barton,
the young lover and accom plice o f G avin Elster w ho persuades Judy to im personate his
wife M adeleine who he intends to m urder by setting up a fake suicide. T h e suicide will be
“w itnessed” by G avin’s friend Scottie, a retired policemen, who becomes intim ate w ith the
fake M adeleine before seeing her ascend to the top of a tower. H e assumes it is M adeleine
w hom he sees hurtling to the ground below. H e cannot follow her into the tower due to an
intense fear o f heights, hence the key role o f vertigo. A part from the duplicity and intrigue,
the film does succeed in prising open the flu id ity o f persona, as well as the m ultiplicity
o f relations and intim acies th a t coalesce uneasily across different m om ents o f tim e. Even
w hen Scottie “discovers” Judy B arton after the apparent suicide o f G avin’s wife, he wants
her to dress and act as M adeleine, the im poster figure w ho belongs in a tim e th a t cannot
be retrieved or redeem ed. H itchcock, in the guise o f a detective thriller, has set up an
impossible conundrum , one th a t forms a predicam ent for the two central characters, even
as it accentuates in a rath er excruciating fashion the possibility o f transcending discrete
personalities and fixed m om ents in tim e.12
By contrast, Deleuze singled out the film Je t ’a im e Je t ’a im e by Resnais w hich, quite
unlike Vertigo, is driven by a science fiction premise. T h e m ain character, Claude Ridder,
is released from hospital follow ing an unsuccessful suicide attem p t, an d is approached
by a private research institute th a t offers him the o p p o rtu n ity to travel back in tim e. T h e
institute claims it has succeeded in sending mice back for a m inute at a tim e, and he accepts
the offer. However, his experience is nothin g as m easured or predictable as h ad happened

11 See Deleuze 1989, pp. 128-129.

12 Deleuze 1989, pp. 86-87. See also an excellent exegesis of Vertigo in Deleuzian terms in Pisters 2003, pp.
33-38.

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 Alistair SWALE

to the mice; his experiences are fragm entary and o f irregular duration. T here is the added
co m p licatio n o f in te ra c tio n w ith his deceased w ife C a trin e w ho he in ex p licab ly an d
incorrectly says he had “killed.” T h e film ends w ith Claude disappearing back in tim e and
apparently not returning. In this case, it is not persona b u t rather the experience o f tim e and
the nature o f m em ory th at is stretched, and this treatm ent certainly coalesces w ith D eleuze’s
(indeed Bergson’s) notion o f m em ory em bedded in tim e as “duration,” as opposed to a set
sequence o f discrete m om ents and experiences. Because the director endeavors to present
som ething essentially beyond hum an experience in the here and now, he m ust o f necessity
adopt a plot device th a t gives at least a plausible avenue for exploring the chronologically
impossible. T h e film thus meets the criteria o f the crystal image by presenting tim e th a t
could otherw ise not be experienced or explained by other means, and it does so on the basis
o f a regime where the relation o f actual to virtual is undecidable.
D eleu ze’s th ird film was Zvenigora (1928) by A lexander D o vzhenko, a spraw ling
evocation o f U k ra in e ’s entire history th a t rests on th e fu lcru m o f the m ain character, a
grandfather, explaining to his grandson the existence o f a treasure buried in a m ountain.
T h e film mixes fact w ith fantasy while depicting the overwhelming flow o f tim e and nature
th a t engulfs the individual. T h e sheer scale o f th e evocation o f tim e reflects D eleuze’s
p re o c c u p a tio n w ith tim e as “ d u ra tio n ,” an d is p resu m a b ly th e m a in reaso n w hy he
highlighted it. It is noteworthy, incidentally, th at this was a silent film, m eaning it excluded
live speech-acts.13
In reviewing such disparate examples it is apparent th a t Deleuze was n o t attem pting
to say “this is precisely the exemplar o f the tim e-im age in cinem a,” b u t rather th a t the time-
image could be appropriated or presented in m ultiple ways through diverse approaches. T h e
litm us test w ould be the degree to w hich the film could provide glimpses of a w orld beyond
a strictly chronological series o f events and discrete actions, and the extent to w hich m em ory
an d consciousness could be articu la ted in frag m en ted b u t nonetheless intensely direct
ways. Ultimately, D eleuze’s account o f the crystal image is multifaceted, providing diverse
examples o f ways to explore consciousness and memory.
A f u rth e r p o in t to take fro m D ele u ze’s d iscussion o f these exam ples is th a t th e
transition from the “organic” to the crystalline generates a variety o f “side-effects” th a t
appear in typical ways, such as the blurring o f personas and o f the actual and virtual, along
w ith a radical disrupting o f w hen and where som ething happened, as well as w hether it
really happened at all. Referring to the “signs” th a t generate such m om ents o f revelation,
Deleuze states, “Sometimes..., [the signs] are characters form ing series as so m any degrees
... through w hich the world becomes a fable. Sometimes it is a character him self crossing a
lim it, and becom ing another, in an act o f story-telling w hich connects h im to a people past
or to come.”14 H e generates such revelations by playing n ot ju st w ith tim e b u t also persona
and the criteria o f determ ining w hich world one is inhabiting and when. Moreover, as “the
world becomes a fable,” the distinction between the “false” and “tru e” is transform ed so th at
the seemingly fantastical stylistic flights o f narrative, persona, and place denote n o t mere
illusion or deception, b u t the force o f som ething im m anent.

13 Regarding Je taime Je taime and Zvenigora in Cinema II, see Deleuze 1989, pp. 86—87. For a discussion of
Zvenigora in relation to the crystal image, see Matviyenko 2011.
14 Deleuze 1989, p. 264.

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 Anime and the Conquest of Time

To sum m arize, the potential o f the crystalline generates specific im plications for our
understanding o f the tim e-im age in bo th film and anim ation. U nder the crystalline regime,
description or depiction o f “the real” falls into a realm where the distinction betw een the
real and the im aginary is indiscernable. A t the same tim e, narration entails n o t rationally
sequential articulations o f a story, b u t iterations o f the present th a t are inexplicable. T his
presents a c o n u n d ru m for m a k in g ju d g m e n ts reg ard in g th e veracity o f w h at is being
depicted where alternative versions o f a past appear whose tru th or falsity is undecidableP

The Crystal Image and Anime

A lthough D eleuze focused exclusively on instances o f cinem atic film m ak in g in relation
to the crystalline, it is n o t only conventional film m ak in g th a t is capable o f exploring
such possibilities. Indeed, we can identify some anim ated features th a t exhibit the same
propensities. A nim ation predisposes itself to this possibility because, generally speaking,
it em phatically denies explicit “representation” from the outset. C el-an im ated images in
particu lar transpose a character on to a figure th a t is n o t necessarily “life-like,” allowing
us to engage w ith such figures w ith the full force o f our im agination, particularly if they
deal, even obliquely, w ith deeper, m ore im plicit references to em otional experience. T his
rather counters (potentially at least) the im plication th a t the cel-anim ated image in anime
pertains to the realm o f m ere “fantasy.” O n the contrary, it suggests a d istin ct utility in
certain circum stances and w ith certain subject m atter. It m ight even be said th a t anim ated
images have a peculiar efficacy in articulating the crystalline, and opening up possibilities
for depicting m em ory and consciousness beyond analogue representations.
In this connection two Japanese anim ated films readily spring to m ind: Ghost in the
Shell (Kokaku kidotai 1995, dir. O shii M am oru) and M illenium Actress (Sennen
jo y ü 2001, dir. K on Satoshi). T h e degree to w hich th ey lend them selves to a
Deleuzian analysis makes it surprising that they have n ot been more fully exam ined in such
terms in anim e-related research. Ghost in the Shell is replete w ith m ultiple reflective surfaces,
replications o f identities, and m ultiple levels o f tim e an d space. M illenium Actress is also
deeply structured around the notion o f m irroring space, identity, and time.
A p rim e exam ple o f how tim e is com pressed an d stretch e d b ey o n d co n v en tio n al
consciousness in Ghost in the Shell is the scene w here K usanagi is at one m om ent diving
in the h arbor and then transported instantaneously into a sequence th a t has no obvious
narrative function. It simply invests the m om ent with the evocation o f a cosmos em bodied
in a m ythic East Asian megalopolis. Clearly an am algam o f Shanghai, Tokyo, and H ong
Kong (among others), the caverns o f the city boulevards are enclosed by half-constructed
skyscrapers festooned w ith cranes and scaffolding, contrasting w ith the lower streets and
canals. As Brian R uh aptly characterizes it, it is a sym phony o f vignettes th a t lovingly evoke
the life o f the city, and n o t ju st one subjective world b u t an entire universe in a m om ent.
T h e scene resolves back to a brief exchange betw een Batou and Kusanagi, as if the previous
sequence had n o t even occurred.1516
T h is sequence is arguably one o f the m o st em p h atically cry stallin e am ong O sh ii
M a m o ru ’s a n im ated features. Even on th e level o f visu al im agery, O sh ii em ploys th e

15 See Rodowick 1997, pp. 85-86.

16 Ruh 2004, pp. 125-148.

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 Alistair SWALE

reflective surfaces o f w ater to project an enorm ous aircraft flying overhead, th e deluge
o f rain in the m iddle o f the sequence dissolves the sky, thus the walls and the glistening
pathways dissolve together. T he floating advertisem ent on a p u n t in the m iddle o f the canal
is reflected in a shop window, as Kusanagi glances up into one o f the shop windows to see
the visage o f someone w ho is an exact replica o f herself. T h e sequence continues for some
three and a h a lf m inutes, and is bookended by a close-up o f a pensive Kusanagi w ho has just
returned from an underw ater dive. T h e im plication is th a t the entire sequence has played
out in the fraction o f a second’s contem plation. T his is a truly extraordinary em bodim ent
o f the crystal im age in anim ation. It skilfully employs reflective surfaces to destabilize the
sense o f space and create m ultiplicity and layers w ithin the images, as well as evoking the
cosmos in the fraction o f a m om ent.
A longside O sh ii’s works, m any o f K on S atoshi’s film s also have a deeply em bedded
am biguity o f tim e, place, and persona th a t certainly merits attention, b ut it is perhaps his
M illenium Actress th a t explores the possibilities o f stretching tim e m ost explicitly. Janine
V illot, who refers to the “plasticity” o f tim e in the film, does refer to D eleuze’s theory of the
tim e-im age to some extent.17 W hile her characterization o f b o th D eleuze’s theory and the
structure o f m em ory as presented in the film cannot be faulted, there is more to be said in
regard to D eleuze’s Bergsonian concerns and the possibilities o f appropriating crystalline
images dealing w ith memory. M oreover, V illo t’s concern is w ith the film ’s exploration of
Japanese history and them es im plicitly related to n atio n al identity. She does n o t engage
directly w ith the stylistic aspects o f im age co nstruction or the possibilities o f crystalline
images in articulating distinctive perceptions o f persona or memory.
In M ille n iu m A ctress h is to ry is n o t tre a te d as p a s t “ fa c ts,” b u t is d e lib e ra te ly
p ro b lem atiz ed th ro u g h p ara llel dep ictio n s o f th e m a in c h a racter C h iy o k o ’s p erso n al
w artim e experiences and her experiences o f the films th at she acted in, m any o f w hich had
historical themes. B oth personal experience and v irtu al representations o f th a t experience
are thus conflated, so th a t an indiscernible relation betw een actual and v irtu al is deeply
em bedded in the film ’s fabric. Moreover, the fluid glossing betw een “personal” memories
and film sequences enhances the sense that the subjective is only p art o f a broader and more
am biguous tapestry. Are we viewing her actual experiences or staged film sequences? K on’s
deft touch in having C hiyoko’s interviewers appear in the “flashbacks” and reminiscences
enhances th e flu id ity o f co nnection. T h ey are being draw n in to th e very sam e web of
inexplicable connections and crossovers that, in one sense, are inconceivable b u t nonetheless
present her interview ers as p articip a n ts in her broader consciousness o f tim e, n o t as a
sequence of factual events, but a super-subjective experience o f a world th at is im m anent.
K on’s v irtu o sity in m a n ip u la tin g tim e, space, an d p erso n a is also exem plified in
Paprika (Papurika 2006), w hich explores the interaction betw een a world o f the
unconscious th a t can be accessed thro u g h com puter technology and the m ain characters
who are chasing a crim inal m asterm ind. T h e crim in al has invaded the com puter and is
attem pting to use it for his own ends. K on represents the characters in the world o f the
unconscious as alter-egos, the m ain character Paprika herself being the “doppelganger” for
a female scientist, D r. Atsuko Chiba, who works in the lab where the technology is housed.
O ne m om ent the characters in the film seem to be operating in the “real” world, b u t they

17 Villot 2014. See also Osmond 2009, pp. 43-58.

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 Anime and the Conquest of Time

th e n fin d th a t b o th m o tio n and space are severely in te rru p te d , so th a t the d istin ctio n
between the virtual and the actual is ultim ately undeterm inable. T he coalescence of the two
realms in the film is accentuated by visual motifs such as the sequence where Atsuko walks
past some reflective surfaces in her lab and the figure th at appears on the reflective surface
is her doppelganger.18 T here are similarly fantastic flourishes in the early scenes o f Paprika
as well: from the opening where the clown emerges from a toy car th at is too small to have
emerged from, to the next sequence where the detective chasing the villain is incarcerated
in a cage w ith in a circus ring, and is attacked by a m arau d in g audience, all o f w hom ,
regardless o f gender and age, share his face, including his moustache. H e then inexplicably
falls through the floor of the cage to find him self instantly plum m eting from a great height
from the ceiling of the circus tent. Saved by Paprika on a trapeze, he resumes his pursuit of
the crim inal m asterm ind, only to find that he has entered a corridor where gravity has been
suspended and even the walls billow and bend. H e sees the crim inal exit the other end o f the
corridor, and here the sequence ends. W hile highly imaginative and fantastical, K on presents
here a series o f images th a t in key regards epitom ize the crystal image, and reinforce our
sense that there is a distinctive facility in these anim ated sequences to present direct images
o f time.
C onsidering the foregoing instances together, we see a quite close replication o f the
ch aracteristic sym ptom s o f th e cry stallin e in a n im a te d featu res, even th o u g h , strictly
speaking, we are n o t dealing w ith precisely the same sort o f m anipulations o f light and
m ovem ent in space th a t are found in classical cinema. W h eth er due to a particular technical
facility or simply a long-standing stylistic propensity, it seems th a t Japanese anim ation has a
distinctive capacity to achieve an intensification o f the power to evoke the crystalline realm.
W ith the typical flourish of transposing hum an forms into the register o f “imposters” for “real
people,” and the facility for generating images th a t flout the “laws” o f tim e and space, these
films present a consciousness o f m em ory and perception th a t m om entarily reveals fragments
o f perception superseding analogue depictions o f the lived world. M ost im portantly, in some
cases these anim ated features have h ad a p ro fo u n d im p act on m ain stream film m ak in g .
Ghost in the Shell is perhaps the m ost pro m in en t exam ple o f this phenom enon, w ith its
influence on the W achowskis’ T heM atrix (1999).

Shinkai Makoto’s Treatment of Time-Images

H av in g co n sid ered how D ele u ze’s d istin c tiv e p reo c cu p atio n s an d in te rests m ig h t be
related to earlier instances o f Japanese anim ation, let us now explore how the D eleuzian
perspective m ig h t take us to a deeper u n d ersta n d in g o f S h in k ai M a k o to ’s w o rk .19 It is
n o t an exaggeration to suggest th a t tim e and m em ory has been very m uch at the core of
S hinkai’s films from the outset. In She a n d Her Cat (Kanojo to kanojo no neko
O ® , 1999), there is a palpable sense th a t the passing o f tim e is the p o in t o f each shot, in a
m anner that transcends individual movements or m om ents. Indeed, the film is notew orthy
for the absence o f movement, as in a mobile phone lying on a shelf depicting expectation or
a toppled chair indicating em otional upheaval. T h e cam era does n o t invite us to follow the
m ain characters in their movement; indeed the p anning of the perspective creates a rhythm

18 See Gardner 2009, Wells 2011, and Osmond 2009, pp. 101—118.
19 The reader is referred to http://shinkaimakoto.jp/ for samples from a variety of Shinkai's works.

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 Alistair SWALE

th a t evokes continuity o f a sort but w ithout reference to action. O n another level, Shinkai
juxtaposes moving elements w ithin the fram e w ith utterly impassive and im m obile elements.
So, the kettle on th e stan d o f th e gas cooker is a recu rrin g m o tif th a t accentuates the
fragility o f the flickering flame beneath it, as it contrasts w ith the iron fram e around it. T h e
silhouette o f a m onolithic rail track w ith clouds th a t stream beyond it in the background
creates a sim ilar effect.
S h in k ai’s early approach to evoking tim e rather th a n action is replicated to varying
degrees in his later w orks, th e expansion o f th e scale o f location being a key p o in t o f
difference. In later film s, even as he devotes loving atten tio n to the detailed m inutae of
dom estic interiors, Shinkai embraces the city and the fam iliar elements o f bridges, railway
lines, and roads. H e uses them as large-scale anchoring points for juxtaposition w ith either
m inim ally evoked actions or, conversely, to carve o ut blocks o f constructed cityscape set
against expansive skies. A later feature, Five Centimetres Per Second (Byosoku go senchimétoru
& M 5 ^ > b;k, 2007), w hich takes its title from the speed at w hich a flake o f snow
falls, exemplifies the relative indifference o f Shinkai to action and plot, w ith the cityscape of
Tokyo subtly employed to evoke the essential predicam ent o f the m ain characters, nam ely
their incapacity to conquer tim e. T his is n o t ju st the passing o f tim e, w hich o f course does
happen, b u t a suspension beyond place and tim e, as accentuated in am bient n ig h t shots of
the Tokyo m etropolis contrasted w ith h um an figures as the passive cargo o f a com m uter
train, or unm oored passengers standing unm oving on a station platform . Such techniques
indicate m ore than a passing proclivity w ith exploring the tim e-image, even if Shinkai does
n o t necessarily pursue it self-consciously or deliberately.
However, Shinkai has n o t simply developed a style in his films th a t generates cinematic
tim e-mages; he has explicitly toyed w ith the m echanism s o f tim e and the m anner in w hich
it is experienced in different places and by different persons. In 2002, he released Voices o f a
D istant Star (Hoshi no koe ^ L © Ü ) , w hich uses the science fiction premise o f space travel
to engender a situation where the heroine, M ikako N agam ine, is sent on a long-distance
m ission to battle aliens from T harsis. However, she m u st deal w ith the increasing tim e-
lag in com m unication betw een where she is and earth, where the love o f her life, N oboru
Terao, rem ains. A part from the increasingly excruciating separation through tim e, the two
characters m ust cling to the one th in g th a t transcends tim e, their m em ory o f each other,
w hich is a continuous present o f sorts.20 In a later feature, The Place Promised in Our Early
Days (Kumo no muko, yakusoku no basho 2004), S h inkai revisits
the them e o f separated lovers, but this tim e the nature o f m em ory itself is more intensely
disrupted. T he film commences w ith three teenage friends w ho live in an alternative Japan
where H okkaido is occupied by “the U nion,” and the rest o f Japan is p a rt o f the A lliance
w ith the U nited States. T h e U nion builds a mysterious tower th a t can be seen across the
strait from H onshu, and it is the focus o f fascination for the three teenage friends: Sayuri,
the heroine o f the film , and her tw o m ale friends, T akuya and H iroki. However, Sayuri
m ysteriously disappears one sum m er and Takuya and H iro k i take two divergent paths in
the wake o f her sudden absence. Takuya joins an A lliance scientific laboratory w hich also
includes m em bers o f an underground organization called the U lita L iberation F ront. H e
eventually discovers th a t Sayuri has been in a com a for three years due to some phenom enon

20 Bingham 2009.

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 Anime and the Conquest of Time

related to the tower, where she has become caught up in the its capacity to stream parallel
universes. It is apparent th at the tower will be used as a w eapon against the Alliance, and the
Front arranges to strike first. In the m eantim e, H iroki has been w orking on reconstructing
a crashed U nion drone and after Takuya reconnects w ith H iroki they agree th a t H iroki will
carry out the attack w ith Sayuri onboard.21
T h e mission is a success but the cost is Sayuri becom ing aware that, as she wakes up,
she will lose all m em ory o f her prior experience, including the special affection she had for
H iroki. T his is n o t a disastrous ending as such, b u t it is one th a t suggests th a t w hatever
sustains feeling, m em ory and affection is n o t enough to sustain it in a conventional sense.
Shinkai even seems to be suggesting that the special relationship betw een Sayuri and H iroki
m ust be found beyond the conventional reservoir o f shared experiences and memories in the
past.

The Crystalline in Your N am e

T h e foregoing titles provide im portant context to Your N am e w hich visually follows on from
the more am bient and gentle style of Five Centimeters Per Second (2007) and The Garden o f
Words (Koto no ha no niwa a © í © É , 2013), b u t then marries th at m ore gentle ambience
w ith the earlier plot devices and tim e shifting seen in Voices o f a D istant Star (2002) and
The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004). Moreover, in Your Name, Shinkai interrogates
even m ore deeply the interchangeability o f persona, place, and tim e.22
T h e opening scene does n o t in fact declare the film ’s m ore serious intent. It has the
catchy Radw im ps them e song, and one could be forgiven for im agining after ten m inutes
th a t the film m ight not evolve beyond an elaborate rom -com for teenagers. T h e schoolgirl
heroine is M itsuha M iyam izu, who lives in the rem ote countryside, and declaims early in
the film th a t she hates living away from the city and w ould rather be a young boy living
in Tokyo. T his segues to the character T aki T achibana, a boy who lives in the city, who is
about to find him self w aking up in the body o f M itsuha; she wakes up in his. T h e potential
for com edic episodes abound as the two characters learn more about each oth er’s lives, and
begin to leave notes and messages for each other as well as change relations w ith people at
school and work. T aki ends up in a rom antic relationship w ith a coworker, and M itsu h a
becomes m uch more assertive and popular at school.
T h e film takes an em phatically m ore experim ental tu rn w hen T aki decides th a t he
w ants to try and find the girl th a t he has been exchanging bodies w ith. H e had just been
inform ed by M itsu h a th a t a com et was about to pass th ro u g h the sky on the day o f her
village’s festival, but th a t is the last message he receives before the body sharing suddenly
stops. T h e text messages he had received gradually disappear, and his recollection o f things
begins to fade quickly as well. H e travels to the H id a region where he is sure the village is,
b u t he can no longer rem em ber the village’s nam e. Fortunately a shopkeeper identifies his
sketch o f the village, and he learns th a t the village, nam ed Itom ori, had been w iped out
several years previously w hen a fragm ent from a m eteor broke o ff and m ade a direct h it
as the villagers were celebrating a festival. T aki rushes to a library to verify the story, and

21 For a thorough exegesis of the film albeit from a postcolonial perspective, see Walker 2009.
22 For a dedicated website covering the background and content of Your Name in Japanese, he reader is referred
to http://www.kiminona.com/.

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 Alistair SWALE

discovers to his horror th a t M itsuha is am ong the dead. H ere Shinkai has broken apart any
conventional sense o f tim e and space. T aki has been experiencing a parallel world through
another’s body only to find that the tim e that seemed contem porary and parallel had already
passed. H e has, in other words, been in spaces and m om ents th a t could n o t exist, and yet
he has enough recollection o f them to lead him to an actual place in the present, and to
discover an actual disaster in the past.
As the film progresses from this shocking revelation, so do the treatm ents of time, space,
and m em ory becom e m ore stretched and startling. T aki remembers th a t on one occasion
when he was inhabiting M itsuha’s body, he accom panied M itsuha’s grandm other to a cave
high atop a hill overlooking the village. There they left an offering o f sacred kuchikamizake,
a form o f ferm ented saké th a t was p a rt o f the trad itio n al rites perform ed by M itsu h a ’s
fam ily as hereditary custodians o f the local shrine. T aki reclimbs the hill and decides to
drink the saké. H e falls asleep only to wake up as M itsuha, and it is the day o f the festival
w ith the m eteor due to traverse the sky that evening. H e runs down to the village and tells
M itsuha’s grandm other everything that has happened. She recognizes w hat has happened—
and th a t someone else is in M itsuha’s body— and she encourages him to w ork out a plan.
W ith M itsuha’s friends they resolve to create a false em ergency w hich w ill force everyone
to evacuate. T he plan fails and Taki, as M itsuha, runs back to the hill to see if he can find
M itsuha in T aki’s body. W hen he gets there, he finds th at indeed she is there; however, as the
sun sets and tw ilight descends, they find for just a m om ent they are their actual selves.
M itsuha realizes that she m ust try one more tim e to convince the villagers to evacuate,
b u t as the tw ilight turns to night they become aware th at are being separated. In desperation
they try to tell each other th eir nam es and even attem p t to w rite th em on each o th e r’s
hands, b u t it doesn’t work. T aki wakes up at the tim e he revisited the cave. H e is alone and
cannot rem em ber w hat happened.
T h e device o f having the persona o f the tw o m ain characters radically destabilized
through the interchangeability o f their physical beings deeply subverts the idea o f “this is
a boy” and “this is a girl,” or even th a t this person is M itsu h a and th a t is Taki. T h ey have
personas, b u t they are essentially detached and transposed away from their physical selves
m oving in fixed m om ents in tim e and place. T h is strategy subordinates the conventional
sense o f tim e and even displaces it, w hich is the essential function o f the tim e-image. T h e
device o f having T aki drink the kuchikamizake to be transported to another plane where the
exchange o f bodies can be replicated across tim e enables Shinkai adroitly to create a realm
where tim e continuously divides into “a present th a t is passing, a past th at is preserved and
an indeterm inate future.”23 T he tim e-im age in this form is n o t only foreshadowed through
such ploys as the exchange o f bodies; it is also evidenced though the evocation of a realm
where the past and present and even fu tu re are profoundly fluid. T h e key im plication is
th a t tim e can be sensed as the vast undercurrent o f whatever superficially is the “action” or
the bodily form o f the character. At the same tim e, th at vastness can be concentrated into a
sym ptom atic m om ent that just happens to perm it a leap into different stages of th a t flow of
tim e.24

23 Rodowick 1997, p. 81.

24 See Bogue 2003, pp. 135-149.

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 Anime and the Conquest of Time

T here are several other m otifs th a t S hinkai employs to facilítate the ellipsis o f tim e
an d experience. T h e p rim a ry one is the n o tio n o f tasokare or tw ilig h t, w hich
etym ologically conjures up the question “w ho are you?” or “w ho is there?” Tasokare is a
quintessentially lim inal space th a t transcends day and night, and in S h in k ai’s adaptation, it
constitutes a zone th a t facilitates m ovem ent across the past, present, and future. T h e second
m o tif is musubi, w hich is introduced as a traditional braid-weaving tradition o f the village,
b u t ultim ately it is w orked into a key them e o f th e narrative. M itsu h a ’s g ra n d m o th e r’s
com m entary on it signifies the p rofound linkages in life and experience th a t transcend
tim e and place. T h e grandm other, H itoha, explains musubi in the following exchange w ith
M itsuha:

H itoha: M itsuha, do you know about m usubi?

M itsuha: Musubi?
H itoha: It’s w hat we used to call the local guardian deity long ago, and it means
“u n io n .” T h is w ord has profo u n d m eaning. Tying strings together is a
union. C onnecting to people is a union. A nd the flow o f tim e is a union.
T hese are all p art o f the g o d ’s power.
T h e braided chords th a t we m ake are tied to that, a skill from the god.
T h ey represent the flow o f tim e itself. T h ey assemble an d take shape.
T h ey tw ist, tangle, unravel now an d then, break and reconnect. T h a t’s
w hat a union is, w hat tim e is.25

In this brief exchange, Shinkai is m aking explicit his awareness o f tim e n ot as chronology
rooted in a particular tim e or place, but rather as som ething enabling connections th at unify
across different times and different places. Sometimes it is m anifest and sometimes it seems
to unravel before reconnecting. In essence, he is expressing an understanding o f tim e th a t is
very m uch resonant w ith the crystalline as discussed above in relation to the time-image.
T h e foregoing conception o f tim e and consciousness resonates profoundly w ith our
earlier discussion o f the Bergsonian elements in Deleuze th a t deal w ith tim e as “duration”
and “pure memory.” By creating sequences th at are deeply m etam orphic in their depiction
o f place and persona and profoundly elliptic in terms o f narrative, Shinkai is appropriating
precisely the k in d o f crystalline images articu lated by D eleuze. To re tu rn to the earlier
quote describing the nature o f signs th a t generate the crystalline, “ [W ]e witness change or
m etam orphosis across a sequence o f images as the transformation o f states, qualities, concepts
or identities.” A nd, indeed, S hinkai’s characters “cross lim its, becom ing another, ... in an act
o f story-telling w hich connects ... to a people past or to come.”26

Anime: Beyond Mere Fantasy

In reviewing the oeuvre o f O shii, Kon, and Shinkai, it is impossible n o t to be struck by the
degree to w hich the realms o f fantasy and a more conventional “reality” are routinely forced to
collide and to reveal possibilities o f perception and introspection th at w ould n o t be possible
in a conventional depiction o f action. To describe their highly im aginative narratological

25 Transcribed from the English-language edition of Your Name (2016), dir. Shinkai Makoto, 34’:20’’—35’:20.’’
26 Italics by author; see Deleuze 1989, pp. 275.

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 Alistair SWALE

and visual devices as fantasy invites o f course the suggestion th at there is an inherent lack
o f seriousness in the w ork undertaken. Indeed it is a recurring (though n o t always openly
acknowledged) assum ption th a t anim e is inherently juvenile or merely am using, precisely
due to its propensity for the fantastical.27 O ne m ight invoke in this connection the critique
o f Roger Scruton, who argued th a t cinema, indeed screen m edia in general, is intrinsically
susceptible to the p roduction o f m orally vapid content, such as gratuitous violence, and
escapist rom antic dram as, precisely given its propensity to facilitate fantasy. H e famously
argued th a t the capacity of film and television to depict plausibly unthinkable violence and
cruelty to an audience safe in the knowledge th at they are “only on the screen” enabled the
w orst kinds o f fantasy gratifications. In the Freudian sense, they signified a pathological
attem pt to overthrow or subvert reality rather th an deal w ith it directly.28
E xam ining the problem atic character o f “mere fantasy” is therefore im portant, and it
requires us to respond w ith a more nuanced consideration o f artistic expression. O ne o f the
forem ost thinkers to address fantasy was R. G . C ollingw ood, w ho engaged directly w ith
very m uch the same concerns as Scruton b u t provided some vital clarifications. According
to Collingw ood, artistic expression, properly understood, entails some k ind o f imaginative
rew orking o f sensa (sensory perceptions), along w ith a co m b in atio n o f in p u t from the
conscious and the pre-conscious level to produce expressions th a t engender a deeper self-
know ledge, th e “b ringing to consciousness” o f th a t w hich was h ith e rto only inchoately
apprehended. N aturally, w hat we “bring to consciousness” w ill entail a degree o f evoking
w hat we are already conscious o f (memory), as well as w hat we in tu it th a t we know b u t
fin d d ifficult to express. Expressing b o th o f these necessitates some p articu lar operation
o f intellect, em otion, an d im agination, and it ca n n o t be co n fin ed to th e replication of
w hat is already know n b u t m u st include the discovery o f unprecedented form s. A rtistic
expression cannot be constrained to the replication o f the already know n, b ut m ust be open
to possibilities th a t may well entail the deploym ent o f fantasy as m uch as fact. A t the same
tim e, however, C ollingw ood distinguished between the use o f fantasy as an exercise o f facile
“make-believe,” and fantasy as an aspect o f im agination utilized to bring to consciousness
the inchoately felt and perceived. Indeed, he acknowledged th at facile or decadent flights of
make-believe are tied up w ith pathological behaviors. U ltim ately, however, he asserted that
the artistic im agination, insofar as it is preoccupied w ith artistic expression and n ot some
facile distraction from the life we lead, w ill engage in fantasy b ut m ust also be indifferent to
mere desire-gratification.29
In a sense th en , C o llin g w o o d w ould have agreed w ith S cru to n ’s ch aracterizatio n
o f fantasy in its pathological aspect. However, he also incorporates a fu rth e r category of
fantasy th a t is essentially harm less even as it pertains to facile entertainm ent. W ith in the
compass o f a broader category th a t he term s “am usem ent,” he includes a fu rth e r n o tion
o f the facile version o f fantasy as serving an in stru m e n ta l g ratificatio n o f a tem p o rary
desire “in-th e-m o m en t,” w ith no in ten tio n o f applying it to life an d living. T h is covers

27 Thomas Lamarre squarely addresses this pejorative perception of anime (Lamarre 2006, pp. 161—188). He
argues, much like Holliday and Sergeant, that the increasing integration of production techniques through
CGI have done a great deal to close the gap in perceptions of cinema and anime. While this is certainly true,
I would argue that there is a need to address pejorative perceptions of fantasy more directly as well.
28 Scruton 1998, pp. 151-158.
29 See Collingwood 1938, pp. 135-139; Lewis 1989, p. 547.

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 Anime and the Conquest of Time

pathological instances o f fantasy b u t also allows us to delineate sim ple an d essentially

harmiess fantasies th a t no one intends to take seriously anyhow. T his in tu rn contrasts w ith
his characterization o f fantasy as intrinsic to the “bringing to consciousness” o f th at w hich
cannot be apprised by conventional modes o f expression.30
Consequently, C ollingw ood provides us w ith an im p o rtan t distinction between fantasy
for am usem ent and fantasy w ith significance for artistic expression while being indifferent
to desire gratification and the constraints o f the already know n. C ollingw ood’s account of
artistic expression is in fact n o t inim ical to D eleuze’s conception o f the use o f signs to bring
about a perception o f the im m an en t thro u g h the various instances o f crystalline images.
It also resonates w ith D eleuze’s conception o f a d istinct order o f “tr u th ” th a t is generated
through the “powers o f the false.”31 T he expression “powers o f the false” is perhaps rather
unnatural, b u t it denotes a position w hich in fact coalesces w ith C ollingw ood’s conception
o f artistic expression as indifferent to the reality or otherw ise o f the subject m atter. T his
does n o t im ply indifference to “facts” or “em pirical experience,” b u t rather articulates an
im p o rtan t precondition for genuinely revelatory artistic expression. T h a t this m ight bring
about the am algam ation of seeming absurdities is a risk b u t if the artist emerges through the
process w ith some notion o f a previously undisclosed consciousness then arguably they have
fulfilled a m ore purely artistic aim.
In Your Name, we encounter num erous instances o f fantasy th a t have little expressive
or artistic function other th an to am use. T h e exchange o f bodies betw een the two m ain
characters is one o f the key sources o f com edy in the first h a lf o f the film, and is m ilked
to a degree o f overuse. But in the scene where T aki returns to the shrine and drinks the
kuchikam izake to be then transported to another plane where the exchange o f bodies can
be replicated across tim e, Shinkai adroitly creates a realm where the connectedness o f the
two m ain characters conquers tim e. H is use o f such devices reveals the power o f the time-
im age to p o rtray em otions and m em ories beyond the analogue w orld o f experience. To
regard these artistic devices as mere fantasy short-changes the distinctive power o f cinematic
images. Your N am e distils a distinctive message th ro u g h the crystalline where the flourishes
o f tim e-bending, shape-shifting, and m ind-sharing coalesce to reveal a pow erful relationship
betw een the two m ain characters th a t is not anchored in cognition o f specific m om ents of
tim e or in fixed memories. Your N am e arguably succeeds in articulating the bond between
M itsuha and T aki as a state o f “becom ing,” a bringing to fore under conditions th a t disinter
it from the “then and there” or the “here and now.” Shinkai uses their experience o f each
other’s bodies and places in tim e as the fulcrum for a transition from their tem poral selves
to an experience, however imperfectly depicted, o f som ething deeper and, in a Bergsonian
sense, “pure.” In the D eleuzian sense, Your N am e is an indistinguishable am algam o f actual
and virtual, w hich offers glimpses o f a totality th a t is neither true or false. It is a perception
characterized by profound m ultiplicity.32 It has a sim ilar pow er to the w ork o f O shii and
Kon, b u t is more strikingly explicit in its handling o f tim e, place, and persona.

30 Regarding “amusement,” see Collingwood 1938, pp. 78—87; regarding the artistic processes of “bringing to
consciousness,” see Collingwood 1938, pp. 105—117, 125—134.
31 Deleuze’s conception of the “powers of the false” and its philosophical underpinnings are detailed in Deleuze
1989, pp. 127-129.
32 See Deleuze 1989, p. 130; Bogue 2003, pp. 148-150.

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 Alistair SWALE

S h in k a i’s attem p t to present the b o n d betw een his m ain characters as so m eth in g
beyond tim e and place, b u t nonetheless capable o f perception, is validated by the film ’s
ending. In a seem ing anticlim ax, T aki awakens after finally “m eetin g ” M itsu h a to fin d
th a t he is in his own present, and has little precise recollection o f w hat ju st happened. H e
then continues to live his life m uch as he w ould otherw ise have done, finding out in the
m eantim e that, happily, the villagers o f Itom ori were saved w hen the mayor o f the village
was persuaded to evacuate before the com et struck. U nfortunately, T aki had no way of
finding M itsuha as he could no longer rem em ber her nam e. T h e final scene is preceded by
a typical Shinkai flourish o f two young people, T aki and M itsuha, seeing each other from
different trains and somehow mysteriously sensing th a t they have a bond. T h ey b o th alight
from their trains and w alk towards each other, m eeting on a stairway. T h e film ends w ith
them asking each other their names. T h e simplest o f gestures in a m om ent is packed w ith
enorm ous resonance.

Conclusión
Shinkai M akoto’s w ork follows on from a substantial tradition o f anim e th at engages and
entertains w ith arresting im agery w hile also subtly exploring the deeper undercurrents of
h u m an em otion and consciousness. W h a t distinguishes Shinkai from his predecessors in
Your Nam e, however, is his appropriation o f a profoundly flu id realm o f expression th a t
explores the m ultiplicity o f persona, place, and tim e w hile nonetheless unifying it in the
consciousness o f the two m ain protagonists. It is on one level perhaps merely a rom antic
dram a, and yet the sophistication o f his m anagem ent of tim e and consciousness renders it
w orthy o f recognition as a pow erful cinem atic statem ent.
Your N am e departs from the m ore fam iliar sci-fi devices evident in his earlier works,
and even the works o f O shii M am oru and Kon Satoshi, to employ w hat m ight be described
as an alm ost spiritual and culturally essentialist set o f premises. It is unm istakeably a self-
consciously very Japanese film in its motifs and settings; indeed, Shinkai lavishes affection
on b o th the u rban cityscape and the ru ral countryside. H e has also set o ut to en tertain
and am use a broad segment o f the Japanese public, in a way th a t his earlier works were not
necessarily able to do. H is earlier films are em phatically in the sekai-kei ( t t ^ - ^ ) genre that
focuses on the em otional predicam ent o f contem porary young people, w ho feel alienated
and seek a significant other to share their predicam ent w ith. T hose elements persist to a
degree b u t do not altogether dom inate the scope o f the work.
In contrast to S h in k ai’s earlier works, his focus on the h u m an connections in Your
N a m e is clearly b o th m ore fam ilial, as in the atten tio n he gives to M itsu h a ’s extended
fam ily and ancestry. It is also social and com m unal, as we see in the scenes depicting school
socializing and village festivities. B ut th e core co n n ectio n betw een T ak i an d M itsu h a,
though initiated while they are high school students, is elevated beyond the juvenile premise
o f boyfriend and girlfriend to encapsulate som ething th a t binds them beyond th a t p o in t in
tim e, indeed any point in tim e. T here is a certain poetry in the way th at Shinkai has taken
the fam iliar notion o f the deepest kinds o f love th a t som ehow feel predestined, and seem
capable o f enduring even beyond this life.
I have devoted considerable space here to teasing out the intricacies o f D eleuze’s theory
o f cinem a to explore how his th o u g h t makes it possible to distinguish various ontologies
o f the im age in Your N am e. Your N am e is a film replete w ith flourishes th a t propel it

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 Anime and the Conquest of Time

beyond a ru d im e n tary exercise in depicting star-crossed lovers. D eleuze’s conception of

the tim e-im age enables us to fram e how anim ated images in Your N am e evoke orders of
perception as instances o f transcendental m om ents o f m em ory and consciousness beyond
chronological tim e. By integ ratin g D eleuze’s th eo ry o f the tim e-im age in to an analysis
o f Your Name, we can understand m ore clearly how the anim e discussed above share n ot
merely some relatively superficial relevance to the order o f m ovem ent-im ages; there is a
great deal that can be unpacked in terms o f their significance as a distinctive order o f tim e-
images. A nim ated images m ay o f course operate as m ovem ent-im ages, b u t w hen they do
th a t (and n o t m uch else) they fall fairly quickly into the realm o f sim plistic replications of
m otor-sensory perceptions. It is as tim e-images th a t they lend themselves to more profound
artistic expression where the constraints o f m otor-sensory representation are abandoned, and
precisely the kinds o f radically fractured, m ultiplied, and transposed expressions emerge in a
predom inant fashion.
T h e ultim ate m erit o f this perspective is th at it leads to an appreciation o f anim ation
as enabling access to realm s o f cinem atic expression th a t are in th eir ow n way sublim e
and deeply relevant to the broader artistic aim o f expressing “tru th s ” ab o u t th e h u m an
condition. M oreover, the perspective helps clarify how Japanese anim ation, th o u g h often
neither photo-real nor “realistic,” is yet capable o f dealing in m uch more th an mere fantasy.
C ollingw ood’s insights allow for a more nuanced approach to fantasy as n ot merely fiction
or am usem ent, and expose the m anner in w hich D eleuze’s notion o f time-images is tied to
some o f the purest forms of artistic expression.

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