Overview:
As the skies turn red and the planet trembles, Japan stands on the brink of disaster. However, a determined teenager named Suzume sets out on a mission to save her country. Able to see supernatural forces that others cannot, it’s up to her to close the mysterious doors that are spreading chaos across the land. A perilous journey awaits as the fate of Japan rests on her shoulders.
Our Take:
It was the beginning of 2018, I was just starting to get back into anime and it became something that really helped me in my life. Might sound silly sure but sometimes that’s how these things go. I kept seeing clips of an anime movie called Your Name. The animation blew me away and I remember thinking “Is this how good anime looks nowadays?”. Now not every show and movie looks that phenomenal but I had to watch it. It became one of my favorite movies and I decided I would watch his next film to see if lightning would strike twice. His next film was Weathering with You released here in the States in January 2020. I went and saw that movie in theaters eight times, and it became my favorite movie. Now I don’t think I’ll be seeing Suzume in theaters quite that many times (More out of financial responsibility than it not being as good) but the background information is necessary so you can know how seriously I took this.
With Suzume, I think Shinkai is asking more from his audience at the outset. All of his films deal with fantastical and supernatural things. But when you ask your audience to accept that one of the main characters is a chair and there is a love story involving said chair then you have to hope the audience commits and commit I did.
Like Weathering with You before it, Suzume decides to go with a mostly unknown cast. At least unknown when it comes to the world of anime voice acting. Our two main leads are Suzume and Sota voiced by Nichole Sakura and Josh Keaton respectively. Nichole did really well and I would love to hear her in more anime things she brought the character to life admirably. Josh did his best Robbie Daymond impression to me. I had to check the cast list because I was convinced it was him but I can guarantee you that no one can voice a chair like him.
If this isn’t your first Shinkai film then you already know what to expect and trust me even you will be surprised by some of the animations this man comes up with. If it is your first then prepare to be blown away. The reds of the “worm” pop and everything always looks so beautiful. I swear the McDonald’s food in his films looks better than it does in real life. I’m joking but seriously, once again a beautiful film.
Radwimps is back to do the soundtrack and once again it’s a banger. Though I was slightly disappointed with the lack of vocal tracks. I haven’t gone through the entirety of the soundtrack yet but so far I’ve only found two they’re fantastic so it’s okay. The feature track “Suzume (feat. Toaka)” has been on my playlist for months but with a Shinkai film I always look forward to adding new Radwimps songs to my playlist and “Kanata Haluka” doesn’t disappoint.
The plot was really the only weak point and I mean that in the most minor of ways. It was still fantastic, it just had some minor issues. Namely the same issues we see in just about any romance/ adventure movie like this. How can someone fall in love with someone so fast that they’re willing to go through the things Suzume puts herself through? Not only that but they were able to track a cat they needed to catch because people were posting the cat on social media. I know it seems odd that I can accept a chair running around but not that but it is what is. It also took a little while to get going, it felt very similar until the last third or so. Find a door close it, rinse repeat but once we got past that it was classic Shinkai.
I would say the film was still fantastic and Shinkai hasn’t disappointed me yet. Well he has but it’s a dumb reason, can he show the characters kiss just once?! Ahem… excuse me but all in all the film was fantastic and I will probably go see it again but I don’t know about eight times. Shinkai’s films are the epitome of anime as art to me and the fact that Weathering with You wasn’t nominated for the best-animated film still upsets me. Hopefully, Suzume can break through but it seems like an anime film winning is a lot harder than it should be.