[Review] Suzume (6.5/10)

 

Title - Suzume
Production - Aniplex, CoMix Wave Films
Starring - Hara Nanoka, Matsumura Hokuto, Fukatsu Eri, Munakata Hitsujiro, Sometani Shota, Ito Sairi, Hanase Kotone, Hanazawa Kana, Terakawa Aimi, Miura Akari
Writer - Shinkai Makoto
Director - Shinkai Makoto
Release - 16 March 2023

I believe Hinkai Makoto became popular after Your Name. I missed Weathering With You, and then jumped into Suzume. The same problems I had with Your Name. were still prevalent here. 

And those were generally about how the story was being told. Things happen in this world just to have them happen. I can not ask questions about how the worm can escape from just a small door, or how it's like a tornado when it comes out of the door and not the creature's actual being, or how the Daijin  - or the cat - works. 

But then, as Suzume's aunt broke down with emotion, suddenly another cat - Sadaijin - came into being. And how Sadaijin operates inside the other world, that just lost me.

With some bad, there were also a lot of good in the storytelling. Like how Daijin was misunderstood from the very beginning, and the whole subtext with Suzume welcoming Daijin and then misunderstood it and hating it. Or how the greetings in Japanese culture have been taken for granted these days and the story tried to work that into its climax - though I'll admit this flew over my head as it's more of a cultural issue. 

But the pacing was disrupted in the end of the second act, as Suzume met up with her aunt, and a new friend Minoru agreed to take them on a seven-hour drive. That part of the storytelling didn't sit well with me. And it became such a drag as it felt like we the viewers were also sitting through a seven-hour drive in the car.

Still, the ending was a work of art, with some emotional release that the story has been building up from the very beginning. But the negatives that started with the end of second act distracted me too much for me to enjoy that brilliant ending.