Anime film "Your Name." tries to predict the next iPhone

[dragontology]

So here's something fun I noticed in my second viewing of the fantasy anime film "Your Name." (Kimi no na wa). See, in animation, nothing in the scene is accidental. In a traditional film, you can have accidental things in the scene, you can be shooting a medieval film and someone's got a cell phone on a belt clip — oops. Or a boom mic or something. But with animation, no detail is accidental. So I like looking for things.

 

In Kimi no na wa, there's a couple time jumps. I can't really say more, but most of the movie takes place in 2016 (discovered using math towards the end when a year is given). The protagonist uses an iPhone 6s. It's pretty obviously an iPhone 6 or 6s. Someone on Reddit pointed out that he uses force touch, making it a 6s for sure (and the 7 would not be out yet). And then in 2013, we see that he actually has an iPhone 5 or 5s (we don't see the home button, so no telltale square or lack thereof). The sides, the detail is just perfect. Whoever drew the phones knew exactly what they were doing. They were two different phones. They could have had him have the iPhone 6s in 2013 and 99% of people wouldn't notice, and most of those who did, wouldn't care. But no, they took the time to show that he had the iPhone that was new in 2013, in 2013, and that's a neat detail.

 

At the end of the movie, it's 5 years since something that happened in 2013 (what exactly would be a spoiler), and my first thought was, "that makes it 2018, what does his phone look like now?" And there is one brief shot of it. Well guess what. He doesn't have the 6s anymore. The status bar is up on either side of the earpiece, and there is no home button, but it's clearly running some kind of iOS. (It still says Slide to Unlock, which is weird, but you have to realize this was animated before iOS 10 changed that.) Anyway, it's pretty obvious that he's using the prototype iPhone we keep seeing pictures of, that is all screen except the earpiece. Of course I took a couple screenshots. So, it's just a movie, and this is the only shot you see of his phone, but it's interesting that they chose to work the prototype iPhone in. Never mind that he's unsuccessfully looking for work — why would he buy a brand-new smartphone? He took some spills in the adventure, but we never see his screen crack or his phone break. Realistically, he'd just stick with his old one, at least until he got a job. But they figured, intrepid viewers might do the math and realize we're in 2018, we're a year or so in the future, why not slip the iPhone prototype into this one scene and see if anyone notices. Well, being a phone nerd, I noticed — and now you've seen it as well.

 

So now go watch Kimi no na wa if you haven't seen it yet. It's not the best anime movie I've seen (that would be Wolf Children) but it's a close second, and it's really damn beautiful. I mean, and this is no exaggeration, if you see a really beautiful anime wallpaper, of scenery I mean, it's from one of this guy's movies, the other notable two being The Garden of Words and 5 Cm Per Second. (Neither of which were very good, they were just extremely beautiful films. Kimi no na wa has the distinction of being just as beautiful, and actually a good movie. And if you're wondering, I prefer the Japanese name because it's fun to say, and the English name (Your Name., period and all, just like Clerks.) is kind of dumb.) The movie is out in Japanese right now, in select markets, which is how I saw it... the English version, distributed by Funimation in the US, won't come out until "later this year." Definitely buying the Blu-ray when it does.

 

Oh, almost forgot, they do show the back, but I didn't get a shot of that. Looks just like the iPhone 7. Nothing special there. The rear camera is obviously bigger, which is what made me pay attention. No vertical, dual camera. No rear fingerprint reader. Just what you'd expect the back of the iPhone 7 to look like.

[boo_star]

You're seeing what you want to see.

[dragontology]

On 7/18/2017 at 4:36 AM, boo_star said:

You're seeing what you want to see.

Interesting choice of words — have either of you seen the movie? What do YOU see?

[Adam Burns]

At the end of the movie I’m sure they say that it was 5 years since Taki visited Itomori, making the end scene 2021, 5 years after 2016.