ANI-MOVIES, *Suzume

Originally titled Suzume Looking Up, Makoto Shinkai's latest addition to his international winning list Suzume follows up the success of Your Name and Weathering With You, even though this feature doesn't take place in the same universe of The Garden Of Words like the past two releases. Suzume is another fantasy romance about doomed lovers who keep having everything in the world working against them to get together. There is of course the average amount of Shinkai's selling out to McDonald's, even though decidedly less than usual. Comix Wave Films once again was the production company behind a visually arousing film by Shinkai, even though it does have some problems with pacing and knowing exactly where to end. Shinkai does keep adding more and more plot points on as it already had enough going on after all that happens in just the first act, which did work against Shinkai slightly in Weathering With You as he was compelled to pile further story elements into an already rich storyline. It is in fact one long road trip between two strangers that are trying to avoid natural disasters which is interchangeable from Shinkai's previous two outlets.

Suzume is a high school girl under the care of her aunt Tamaki in the countryside since her mother passed away a decade ago after the disasters that plagued real-life Japan in 2011. On her way to school one day, Suzume encounters a handsome young man named Souta who asked her where any nearby ruins might be. Suzume points out an abandoned resort and then goes to school but notices a dark plume of energy coming from the uninhabited park. She ditches school and finds a single doorway sitting in the middle of an empty area that the energy comes out of. The doors are portals to a realm called the Ever-After where a titanic spiritual worm exists and unless these portals are periodically sealed off by otherworldly specialists called Closers of which Shouta is the last one. Shouta manages to close the door with Suzume's help, although Suzume finds a small cat statue that turns into a real cat. She takes Shouta back to her place to nurse an injury he got from the experience and the cat appears surprisingly talks to them. The enchanted kitty changes Shouta into a child's chair Suzume's mother made for her, and then the cat named Daijin quickly runs off. Suzume and her newly transformed comrade follow the cat across the Japanese islands as Daijin goes from one portal after another seemingly to release the giant worm. Suzume makes a lot of comrades along her journey in trying to finally track down this troublemaking tabby and its campaign that leads to Tokyo where the head of the worm resides which could cause a massive earthquake. Suzume and Shouta have been under the impression that Daijin is one of the two keystones that hold the worm in place, but there's a shocking reveal that Shouta has been given that task instead, even as an animated small chair. Shouta sacrifices himself, leaving Suzume heartbroken thinking that her would-be love interest is now dead. The title heroine gets new hope from Shouta's grandfather who tells her that she might be able to bring him back if she goes to where she first entered into the Ever-After. This whole thing turns out to be a causality loop where Suzume's present-day self meets with her past self just after her mother's death and gives her the chair after Souta is free from the curse. Suzume heads back home as she eventually runs into Shouta again hinting that the two of them will begin a romance together.

There is a ton of unexplained lore behind this story, like what started the whole ritual of Closers in the first place, and why Daijin changed Shouta into a chair in the first place. Shouta's curse was an excuse for the plot to have a teenage girl travelling on a mystic quest around Japan with a man in his early 20s without it being totally suspicious. Makoto Shinkai's story can get slightly cringey at times with the main characters' age difference, plus the legendarium not being all fleshed out. There are several nods to the works of Hayao Miyazaki in this like the worm being a stand-in for the demonic curse from Princess Mononoke, or background characters confusing Daijin for the baron cat from Whispers Of The Heart. Suzume might seem like the third part of a themed trilogy that Shinkai started with his last two theatrical creations, even though it leaves out the romantic overtones of either Your Name or Weathering With You. The visual look of the film is wondrous and makes you want to visit all the places in Japan that it covers. The stratagem of Suzume does work even though the plot seems stretched on longer than it turned out. It's not a masterpiece, but still a must see for fans of Shinkai's library of works.