Ah, my first anime in about five months. Apart from that, all I knew going in was that it involved a young adult duo, a magic door, and an ominous-looking feline. That much looked promising to me.
The title character (Nichole Sakura), an orphaned modern high school girl, meets college man Souta (Josh Keaton), who asks where to find nearby ruins. Intrigued by his strange quest and handsome looks, she heads there after him and learns the hard way that he's dealing with dangerous supernatural forces. Specifically, he wants to ensure that an earth-shaking giant "worm" invisible to most people stays locked in the land of the dead, called "the Ever-After" in translation. Alas, Suzume unwittingly moves a "keystone," a statuette that turns into flesh-and-blood talking kitten Daijin (Lena Josephine Marano) and abandons its post, increasing the likelihood of doom on Japan. Souta tries to work alone but grudgingly admits that he'll need Suzume's help to lock secret doors in abandoned areas across Japan until the imprisonment is stabler. Suzume's guardian, Aunt Tamaki (Jennifer Sun Bell), becomes increasingly worried about the girl ditching school and running off with a strange boy. Souta's fair-weather friend Serizawa (Joe Zieja), unaware of his duty, wants to find him too.
To make matters worse, Daijin, an apparent god or demon, makes Souta's body disappear and fuses his soul to a three-legged kiddie chair that Suzume has kept around as a memento of her mother. Souta can still run, leap absurdly far, and talk despite the lack of a visible mouth, but he tends to fall into deep sleeps, on the verge of accepting his role as an inanimate object. He learns not to move in front of unknowing witnesses most of the time (not that Suzume is inconspicuous while carrying an undersize chair), but when he does, they make him out to be a robotic curiosity. Oddly enough, Daijin gets equal attention online just by being cute in public and traveling a lot, which helps the heroes figure out where to go next.
Daijin cannot readily be summarized as good, bad, or neutral. Despite his curse on Souta and usually callous demeanor, he does seem to care about Suzume and want her to succeed at her goal. When she expresses outrage at him, he gets sad but does not stop liking her. By the third act, he's no antagonist. It's as if writer-director Makoto Shinkai couldn't decide between making him as lovable as he looks and subverting expectations -- tho the compromise could be seen as an even bigger subversion. The other keystone character, who shows up late in a confusing fashion, similarly vacillates between mean and beneficial.
I'm not surprised that the same people brought us Your Name. and Weathering with You. All three movies involve teen love interests addressing a threat of massive "natural" disasters in Japan, as inspired by real events, and all pack a Shinto flavor. I was afraid that Suzume would go the WwY route and save Souta at the expense of millions of homes, but there's definitely a happier ending here. Perhaps the worst that happens is that the heroes spend a lot of money and miss important school days. They seem to get closer to Tamaki and Serizawa after the dust settles.
Perhaps of greater concern is the age difference between Suzume and Souta. It sounds like he's almost done with college. Wikipedia gives Suzume's age as 17, but based on dialog, I'd say 15 at most. In any case, I'd hope they wait before getting serious with each other.
The movie is visually beautiful, fairly exciting, and sometimes heartwarming. I just wish it had a clearer point. What lesson can we take away? That many of our problems pale in significance once we see the big picture?
Shinkai is no Hayao Miyazaki, but at least he has a distinctive style. I may or may not check out another of his works someday.
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