The Netflix Action Adventure Fantasy Anime Epic Will Take You On An Emotional Rollercoaster

Suzume, along with a stranger named Souta, travels through Japan to close doors housing a dangerous worm-like creature. If left to its own devices, the worm will collapse onto Japan, creating massive earthquakes and leaving only destruction in its wake. Along the way, Suzume gets to see new parts of the country and stunning scenes far beyond what she knows.

Of course, it makes sense that Suzume is visually stunning when the director is the famous Makoto Shinkai. Shinkai and his works are often known for their intricate attention to detail and breathtaking animation. Usually, this animation supports a story that is heavy in romance, science fiction, and fantasy.

In addition to Suzume, Shinkai has directed and written Your Name, Garden of Words, Weathering with You, and 5 Centimeters Per Second, among other movies.

Shinkai’s newer films—Your Name, Weathering with You, and Suzume—also have similar music styles. This is because Shinkai collaborated with the Japanese rock band Radwimps. The two first partnered up because Shinkai wanted to make sure his movies stood out from Ghibli’s music, and he thought working with one of his favorite rock bands would be the perfect way to do it.

In addition to the director and writer, Suzume’s cast is quite impressive. Nanoka Hara was the voice of Suzume. This is her first-time voice acting, but according to Crunchyroll, she was chosen out of 1,700 individuals. This is also Hokuto Matsumura’s (the voice of Souta) first voice-acting role, and Shinkai personally reviewed and chose her to play Suzume’s love interest.

Though there is romance in the show, it’s not quite in a traditional sense. Shinkai mentioned during an exclusive interview with Looper that he originally wanted Suzume to be a lesbian love story, as he was tired of classic “boy-meets-girl” romance. However, his producer told him that the audience loves traditional romance and, therefore, couldn’t go with two women.

While Shinkai was willing to back down a little, he still wasn’t ready for traditional. Instead, he had Suzume fall in love with a chair to change up the dynamic a little.

“At first, I wanted to turn this story into a movie about Suzume and another girl journeying. Why I even wanted to go in that direction in the first place is because I personally felt a little bit tired of telling the very traditional romance story. I felt that in Your Name, I [did] everything that I possibly could in terms of “boy meets girl” and “will they, won’t they, will they meet.” That element of romance is very relatable to the masses, which is why it was a subject matter that resonated with a large audience.”

He then continued, “Personally, because I’ve done that so many times, I pivoted. I wanted to pivot to a more sisterhood type of romantic story, but I had to change that because my producer said, “You may be tired of these romantic stories, but your audience loves it.” So in order to not make it too much of a romance, I decided to make her primary interest a chair.”

Even with the strange love story between a girl and a chair, this movie was popular. It scored an 8.31 on My Anime List, ranking #257 with a popularity rank of #680. It was also the fourth highest-grossing Japanese film of all time and was nominated for Best Animated Feature in the 81st Golden Globe Awards, but lost against The Boy and the Heron.

Ready to watch this gorgeous anime by Makoto Shinkai? Suzume is available to stream on Crunchyroll with a premium subscription.

Source: Looper