MAKOTO SHINKAI, director of breakout anime flicks Your Name. and Weathering With You returns with a new epic that has top-tier animation, the looming threat of yet another nationwide disaster, and a banger RADWIMPs soundtrack.
Here's the story, in a gist:
Suzume Iwato (voiced by Nanoka Hara as a teen and Akari Miura as a child) meets Souta Munakata (Hokuto Matsumura), a young man who’s on a quest to stop a giant worm-like creature from destroying Japan. When a keystone — a magical object that effectively seals the demon — goes missing and Souta suddenly becomes incapacitated, Suzume must take over the role. Together with her tiny talking chair sidekick, she goes on a road trip across Japan in search of gateway doors to shut down once and for all.
Like most Makoto Shinkai protagonists, Suzume is a hopeless romantic
In the proud tradition of her heroic predecessors, Suzume is motivated by her relentless simping over a love interest. During their first meeting, she quickly figured out that Souta was — in her own words — an ikemen, or ridiculously good-looking dude. (One wonders if Dwight Ramos got the same compliment when he joined the B.League.) It fits, though: His character design looked like a cross between a boyband idol and the titular guy from Howl’s Moving Castle.

Later on, she went above and beyond to support, and then eventually take over, his mythological gatekeeping quest. She also ended up dropping the L-word (“I love you,” agad-agad?!) and told someone, “I’m afraid of a world where Souta doesn’t exist.”
She's not the only one clowing around in the name of love.There’s Minoru Okabe (Shota Sometani) who’s a full grown man who behaves in a similar way towards Suzume’s auntie.
To balance out all the mush, there were also empowering interactions between Suzume and the strong independent women she met along the way.
A talking chair possesses more chair-isma than all of us combined
Whimsy abounds in Suzume's scenes. A chair that can run, jump, and flirt with the heroine? A morally ambiguous and obnoxious talking cat? A giant worm causing earthquakes? Compared to previous films, Suzume contains more fantastical elements that give strong Hayao Miyazaki vibes.

Shinkai has said that Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki’s Delivery Service was one of his inspirations for the film, which is quite obvious when you look at Daijin’s (Ann Yamane) design. Very Studio Ghibli.
On the more realistic side, there were also references to the current digitally driven generation — the ones often told to go outside and touch some grass — such as social media sleuthing/stalking, the Internet’s obsession with cats, and a gratuitous amount of City Pop.
Is Suzume another worthy Makoto Shinkai entry?
As in the rest of Makoto Shinkai's films, real-world concerns also loom large. Shinkai’s breakout movies focused on preventing (or in someone else’s case, causing) a natural disaster — Comet Tiamat in Your Name. and the great flood in Weathering With You. He has previously stated that they are based on Japan's 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
For its part, Suzume features more direct references to the real-life event with the protagonist hailing from Tohoku, scenes depicting post-earthquake devastation, and the constant buzzing from disaster alerts.

Suzume renders the impending doom in highly immersive environments. Aside from the sprawling landscapes, limitless skies, and glittering bodies of water that stretch beyond our reach, we spend a lot of time exploring abandoned structures where the plot-relevant gateways are located. To activate the sealing process, Suzume must access the collective memory of those who remember the ruins during its heyday, a colorful flashback featuring the sights and sounds before it was destroyed.
As before, you've also got to hand it to the director Makoto Shinkai for being so committed to his fight-for-your-love message in an era where you can get easily disillusioned over ghosting, situationships, and general societal pressure.
And with Suzume focusing a great deal on healing from a traumatic event, rebuilding after destruction, and moving forward from devastation, the movie can strongly resonate with Filipinos and the shared experience of dealing with the aftermath of a natural disaster.
Suzume is playing now in theaters nationwide.
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