Suzume Review

Suzume is the latest film by the acclaimed anime director Makoto Shinkai. This time Shinkai tells a story about a teenager travelling across Japan in a fantasy adventure.

Suzume Iwato (Nanoka Hara) is a high school student who lives in a seaside town in Kyushu. Her life changes when she encounters a drifter, Soto Munakata (Hokuto Matsumura). She soon sees creatures that threaten Japan and must travel across the nation with Soto to stop them from causing death and destruction.

Shinkai is probably best known for making Your Name, a fantastic body swap film with a devastating twist. It was a visually stunning film with a lot of emotional weight because it was an unconventional love story. Suzume did share some DNA with Your Name. Like Your Name, Suzume was a coming-of-age story, a threat of some sort of disaster, and there was a time-bending narrative. Fans of Your Name can appreciate the similarities.

Suzume was narratively different from Your Name. It was a road movie: Suzume and Soto go from the south of Japan to the north of Honshu. Like many road movies, Suzume was about the people the main character meets and the tasks she must do. Suzume meets various people, from a girl her age to a mother who owns a karaoke bar. This allowed Suzume to discover herself and have some moments of levity amidst all the world-threatening danger. Suzume has been adapted into a book and a manga series in Japan and it was fitting because Suzume’s different meetings felt like chapters in a book.

Suzume’s personal journey, and the coming-of-age story, made the film feel a bit like a Studio Ghibli film. Many Studio Ghibli films focus on female characters who find themselves in extraordinary situations. Suzume was similar to the lead character in When Marine Was There because both characters were orphans who made discoveries about their families. Both characters also suffer a personal crisis, since Anna was worried about her relationship with her foster parent, whilst Suzume feels like she was a burden to her aunt who acted as her guardian. I was also reminded of Belle when watching Suzume since the main character also lost her mother during a disaster.

All these films show that they have a strong bedrock for an emotional story. Suzume’s trip ended up causing tension with her aunt. There was a heartbreaking moment at a service station where tensions erupt.

Suzume was also a love story. When she meets Soto she becomes enamoured by the man and they get closer during the journey across the nation. This happens despite the age difference since Suzume was a junior in high school and Soto was training to be a teacher. The other issue was Soto was turned into a chair.

Disasters were also a big theme in Suzume. The early scenes in the film showed Suzume walking through a decimated town. She was a survivor of the 2011 Tsunami and this made Suzume an evolution of Japanese filmmakers using national trauma as a story influence.

Throughout the film, Suzume and Soto were travelling to prevent earthquakes in Japan. This was one of the more bizarre aspects of the film since earthquakes were caused by creatures that were breaking through portals from another world. These creatures looked like the Sand Worms from Dune. It was weird to see a film that showed real disasters, like the 1923 Tokyo Earthquake, being caused by a supernatural force. To be fair, there was a lot of intensity when Suzume and Soto tried to close the portals because a disaster can happen. The chanting chorus during these sequences was wonderful because it sounded like the opening credits for Ghost in the Shell and the main theme of Years and Years.

Suzume could be weird at times. This was a film where a man gets turned into a three-legged chair and the main two characters were following a mischievous cat across Japan. This weirdness did help to lighten up processing and provide a bit of humour. There was a cartoony zaniness when a three-legged chair was chasing a cat around Suzume’s hometown.

Suzume did try to cover a lot with its story, character, and themes and the ambition was admirable. It was a touching exploration of personal and national trauma and anime and non-anime fans should enjoy it.