For a long time, I did not understand the appeal of tragedies like 1997's Titanic and Romeo & Juliet. Yeah, it sucks that their love did not last, but sad shit happens all the time. Hundreds of tragedies occur every day, yet here we are still observing ones from years ago. But clearly, there's something to them. Else, these stories would not have lasted in the popular culture. What was I missing?

It wasn't that I believed nothing bad should ever happen to the main characters. In fact, I really liked Greek tragedies. The main character has some tragic flaw that leads to their demise. Think of Odysseus with his masculine arrogance, or Macbeth with his masculine arrogance, or for a modern-day example, Walter White with his masculine arrogance (I'm sure the similarity is just a coincidence). In these Greek tragedies, there is a clear line between the characters' actions and their demise. Whereas in, say, Romeo & Juliet, there is no flaw outside of them falling in love in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tragedies of circumstance didn't connect with me.

But, as I've gotten older and consumed more media and thought about tragedies some more (and watched many YouTube videos on the subject), I have finally come to understand the appeal of tragedies. Only with the help of an animated film from Japan called Your Name.

For those unaware, Kimi no Na wa, localized as Your Name, is a Japanese anime film directed by Makoto Shinkai released in 2016. The film was wildly popular in the anime space, being the third highest-grossing anime film of all time, behind Spirited Away and the Demon Slayer film (not joking btw, that Demon Slayer). The film's broad appeal is due in most part to its visuals and story.

Your Name is a great looking film (seriously, if you haven't seen it yet, the film is gorgeous). Before the film's release, Shinkai was already known for his great cinematography. Your Name is the culmination of over a decade of experimentation, and it shows. Regardless of how one feels about the film's story or anime as a movement, anyone can appreciate some pretty pictures.

Also, the story is simple but novel and engaging enough to get the audience through the whole film. The movie stars two characters: Taki, a Tokyo-dwelling high schooler who dreams of being an architect, and Mitsuha, a countryside resident who wants nothing more than to live life in the city. One day, Taki and Mitsuha find themselves body-swapping, and the two must learn how to navigate life with someone of another gender randomly swapping in for a day. Much hi-jinx and gender-mismatch hilarity ensue.

Despite Your Name's popularity, many anime fans deride the film for lacking depth. Even comparing the film to other popular anime, it's easy to see how they come to that conclusion. The romance is less developed than Toradora. The film doesn't tackle philosophical questions about life like Fullmetal Alchemist. The story is less emotionally gripping than Re:Zero or Angel Beats. While the scenery is stunning, the art lacks the creativity and expression of any Miyazaki film. To many, Your Name is very pretty, but does not say much.

While I understand where those criticisms are coming from, I am of the firm belief that Your Name is good, actually. Particularly, the film is good in how it tackles the theme of tradition and its commentary on the nature of tragedy.

The film reveals its hidden tragedy mid-way through the film. As a result of all the Freaky-Friday shenanigans, Taki and Mitsuha have started to develop romantic feelings for one another (anime will be anime). However, the two stop body-swapping with neither knowing why. Distraught, Taki goes on a journey to discover where Mitsuha's country village is located, only to find a giant crater next to the ruins of the old village. Taki learns that they were not just swapping across space, but also over time. 3 years ago, Mitsuha's village was annihilated by large debris from a passing comet. Taki shortly finds Mitsuha's name among the list of the victims from that incident. Mitsuha was dead.

Here, Your Name follows the path of the romantic tragedies that have come before it. The death of Romeo and Juliet was tragic but fated from the start. So, too, were the deaths of Jack Dawson and Rose Bukater aboard the fictional Titanic. Mitsuha was dead long before Taki began body-swapping with her. This time displacement gives her death a sense of inevitability, that Taki was interacting with someone who was all but assured to die.

Even so, that is where the comparisons end. Unlike Titanic or Romeo & Juliet, the other romantic half, Taki, remains alive. Despite being heartbroken and grieving, Taki realizes he is the only one who can do something. In desperation, he bikes up treacherous terrain to reach a secluded altar that houses ceremonial sake imbued with Mitsuha's spit (she's a shrine maiden, they do this kind of stuff a lot). After drinking the sake, he manages to swap with Mitsuha once more and warns her of her village's demise. Using Taki's warning, Mitsuha collaborates with her friends to evacuate the villagers away from the debris landing site. The village remains destroyed, but everyone survives. The film ends with Taki and Mitsuha meeting each other many years later on a street in Tokyo. Tragedy averted.

One key aspect of the tragedy, or any emotional story, is how invested the audience gets in the story. We understand what they are going through and relate to what they want. Many people that have experienced romantic attraction as a teen know what Romeo and Juliet felt. We see a part of ourselves in the characters on the stage or screen. This attachment makes their eventual fate unbearable. No matter how many times we watch those tragedies, there's a little hope that maybe this time they will turn out alright. Such hope, and the subsequent losing of it after the characters die, is why some describe tragedies as a way to practice grief.

While I agree with that to an extent, I believe there is more to tragedies than pure grief. Grief is a negative outcome. Those experiencing grief must perform emotional labor to overcome that grief. Grief is a burden. But tragedies can be more than just work. They can also be constructive. How? Look at Taki from Your Name.

Taki also goes through grief. After Taki learns about Mitsuha's passing, he is utterly distraught. This person, Mitsuha, that he has spent the past several months getting to know, living with, and falling in love with, has befallen a grave fate. More than that, she died years ago, giving a sense of inevitability. She's dead, and, at first, he feels like he couldn't save her.

Yet Taki does not give up. He uses his knowledge of Mitsuha's life to reach back in time to prevent the big catastrophe. While Taki's previous intimacy with Mitsuha was a source of sorrow, that personal connection made him uniquely capable of intervening. Knowing Mitsuha and then losing her enabled Taki to save the day.

Taki's experience of getting to know Mitsuha can also work as a metaphor for the audience in a tragedy. In the body-swapping part of the film, Taki and Mitsuha never have a regular conversation. Sure, they talk to each other in notes left behind during a swap, but they learn the most from living the other's life. Mitsuha never tells Taki that she's a shrine maiden directly. Rather, Taki learns by performing shrine maiden duties inside of her body. Taki steps out of his own world to live in Mitsuha's. This is a parallel to how we, as audience members, consume stories. We imagine ourselves in the lives of characters from books and movies. We suspend disbelief to picture past or fictional events as happening in the present, just as Taki does when he body-swaps with Mitsuha. Consuming stories is a way of putting ourselves into another world.

And just like Taki, we do not let those characters die. Sure, we don't physically travel across time and space to change the course of events, but we do other things. We write alternate tellings and fanfiction, versions of tragedies where our beloved characters survive and live happily. One could argue that Taki changing the timeline is him creating an alternate universe, just like many fanfiction authors do. Additionally, we let tragedies live on in culture. We continue to think and discuss characters long after their passing. There continue to be countless productions of Romeo & Juliet despite the play being centuries old. By reading, watching, and interacting with tragedies, we give the ill-fated continued life.

For me, the purpose of tragedy is two-fold. First, we use tragedy as practice. We mourn the loss of beloved characters to prepare for or remind us of tragedies in our own lives. Second, we use tragedy as fuel for our own lives. We take the sadness and the heartache felt from these shows and use it to honor the memory of those who came before or to be more appreciative of those who are still here. Tragedy can be constructive. Look no further than Your Name, created as a tragedy about tragedies.

Your Name shows that tragedies are a powerful method of acknowledging injustices both past and present, fictional and real. But one thing I still think about is all the hundreds of tragedies that occur which we don't talk about. In Your Name, one could argue that city-boy Taki would have never have met Mitsuha had they not shared such a grand journey together. That works for Taki in the movie. But in the real world, how will we learn the stories of those whom we cannot see?