Taki Tachibana

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

Taki's existence shifts when he wakes up as Mitsuha on certain days, forcing him to navigate her life in Gifu while she inhabits his body in Tokyo. They establish rules for communication, writing notes on paper and skin to manage their shared reality. Through Mitsuha's perspective, Taki learns of Comet 279P/Tiamat, which is scheduled to strike Itomori on the day of the autumn festival in 2013. When the body-swapping stops inexplicably, Taki discovers that Mitsuha died three years prior in the comet disaster. Refusing to accept this fate despite fading memories, he travels to Hida with friends Okudera and Tsukasa Fujii. Upon finding only ruins where Itomori once stood, he realizes the temporal gap separating them.

In Their Own Story

Driven by a vision triggered after drinking kuchikamizake at the Goshintai shrine, Taki relives Mitsuha's life and discovers she had traveled to Tokyo to find him before her death. He awakens in her body on the morning of the festival, where he convinces her friends Sayaka and Tessie to hijack the emergency broadcast system to evacuate the town. At twilight, their timelines intersect, allowing them to meet at the shrine. Taki returns Mitsuha's kumihimo braid, but night falls before she can write her name on his palm; instead, he writes "I love you." He awakens in 2016 with no memory of her, spending five years searching for a nameless face. On April 8, 2022, he spots Mitsuha on a parallel JR East train and they race to the steps of Suga Shrine, where they simultaneously ask for each other's names.

Reader's Guide

To understand Taki's arc, note his initial characterization as belligerent yet well-meaning. His transformation begins when he uses Mitsuha's body to improve her popularity and later takes charge during the crisis in Itomori. He demonstrates significant adaptability, learning the local Mino dialect while inhabiting her form and utilizing modern technology to save a town from three years prior. Key turning points include his realization of the time discrepancy at the Hida City Library, where he learns 500 residents perished, and his decision to drink the sacred sake to regain lost memories. His journey concludes not with a grand supernatural feat, but with the persistent melancholy of searching for someone whose name he has forgotten until their chance encounter on the train.

Did You Know?

• Taki was born in 1999, exactly three years after Mitsuha, who was born in 1996.
• While in Mitsuha's body, Taki accidentally fondled her breasts until he was caught by Yotsuha, a running gag throughout the film.
• Taki later cameos in Shinkai's next film, Weathering with You, as an architecture student alongside his maternal grandmother.
• The kumihimo braid Mitsuha weaves symbolizes the red thread of fate and is worn by Taki as a lucky bracelet after she gives it to him.
• Taki's mother divorced his father a few years prior, though he lives with his father who works in Kasumigaseki.