Recurrence

Your Name (Japanese: 君の名は。 Hepburn: Kimi no Na wa.) is a 2016 Japanese animated film. Spoilers ahead.

In the movie, there was the story of a meteor impact that destroyed a small town by a lake three years prior. The main character has a recurring dream about the event, did his research and found out a disaster happened three years before. Managed to time travel and avert the the lost of lives by evacuating the town.

Sounds like a different movie like you remembered watching? That is because the focus of the synopsis is all different. Most people will tell you it’s about body swapping. That’s what they remember about the movie. To me, the movie has full of signs regarding the idea of recurrences.

I was walking through a small shopping mall yesterday evening when I went into a Japanese themed shop which was playing the theme from the movie. So it brought me back memories watching the movie. Then I thought at first to write a movie review. But having not enough time these days, rather than re-watch the movie and write a proper review, I will base my post on what I remember about the film.

What stood out to me was recurrences. The movie was set around the recurring dreams of 2 youths. Where you know, they’d swap bodies. Also, if I remember correctly, how every recurring generation there was a chosen female guardian from the remote village who was able to receive prophesies from a god.

Let me supply more details about the movie. Hmm, I remember it was the female main character who started behaving oddly and who was the one who saved the village from the meteor. Speaking about odd behavior, it turns out the girl’s grandma knew what was happening to the girl because prophesy apparently runs in the family. And the girl’s prophesying powers were explained by the boy being able to possess her body from the future. He was able to control her body from the dreams. They were both also able to almost make a physical connection thanks to the powers of the god, who made it possible when they met at a space-time dimensional gateway by tracing the rim of the impact crater at a certain hour in the day. And it was there and then that they promised to meet? They’d seek each other out in the future.

So, did I get the details correctly? There might be only a few out there who remember the movie the same way I did. Now, I’m not sure how many readers would be stopping at this point, like going, “Is this even the same movie?” “Is this guy making things up?” “Did he watch another version of the movie from his alternate reality or something…” Disagree away. I think my memory of the movie has become muddled with time.

Recurring dreams. Recurring generations of girl prophetesses. (Must they be maidens, though? Did the grandma retain her prophesying abilities?) One major detail was the recurring comet. Something which blew my mind in the movie was how the lake beside the town was originally an impact crater itself! Which over time pooled with water into a lake.

The meteor that struck and destroyed the town was actually the second impact, which happened to take a trajectory that led it to eventually land very nearby to the first. Wait, did they refer to the impact craters as a god and a goddess? That the lovers will re-unite one day? If I recall, the prophesy said so. But the odds of two meteors hitting around the same spot? I can see why they were lovers. Destined to cross paths. No matter the time and space apart, they would eventually re-unite.

The cyclic nature of time.

I myself have experienced this in life. Encountering the same kind of person over again. I’ve known people who remind me a lot of some others before them. Personalities, lifestyles, down to the hairstyles. I’ve also encountered the same kind of scenarios. Allowing me to do better each time. Similar conditions I’d recognize which remind me of what I’ve faced before. Recurrence.

The cyclic nature of space.

No one can verify this, but studies of the observable universe hinted that space is infinite. And that the same patterns of voids and galaxy clusters repeat over and over and over again. And if one went far enough, one would find another solar system with an identical planetary system, that means with another earth. Recurrence.

The cyclic nature of wealth?

This is something that is not bound by physics. People control their wealth. I believe that unlike fate or pre-destination, people can do something about their wealth. Poor people remain poor, they say. Top minds might even propose the theory that people are pre-programmed to be poor. You might want to read up on that. The system is designed to produce employees who work for their money. I only wrote the last paragraph because I had a conversation with a friend about whether people are here for learning or whether people are here for the money. I agreed with him that learning is indispensable. But I held the balanced view that the thirst for learning has to be balanced with a grounding in reality. I didn’t tell him that though. There does not have to be recurrence here, because people can make choices and have means of taking control.

I believe that recurrence can teach an important lesson. So by learning how things recur, one can learn how the world works. And learn how to make the best of things. Seize and take control. Create opportunities. Because if you don’t do that no one else will be there to do so on your behalf.

Lastly, the movie also showed me how the boy was able to seize and take control in order to avert the disaster. He made it all possible, because no one else was able to travel back in time. He could have gone on with his life, and the meteor would have always wiped our their lives. The past will play over in a loop. The future would have always been a lonely boy without his girl. And by playing the hero he not only saved lives, he pushed the limits of humanly influence on time physics, and he also got his soulmate.