While not one of my all-time favorite animators, I am still fond of Makoto Shinkai. While Shinkai's tendency of emphasizing on his themes and style sometimes overshadows his storytelling and character development, his visual artistry is his one thing that's never in doubt, and he has also proven with his recent mainstream works that he is a true auteur who could create crowd-pleasing entertainment without losing his personal flavor that made him acclaimed in the first place. As for the popular claim that Shinkai could be "the next Miyazaki," the works of Shinkai and Miyazaki are completely different in style and target demographic, so I prefer to view them as animation filmmakers who both succeed in their own ways and managed to appeal to a wider mainstream audience outside the anime community.
As someone who followed Makoto Shinkai's full filmography, I was naturally interested in seeing Suzume. I was particularly curious to see Shinkai directly tackle a real-life major disaster in Suzume (3.11 Earthquake) after seeing him tastefully incorporate disaster undertones in his two recent works.
I had a lot to unpack about Suzume, so I wanted to watch it multiple times so I could better pinpoint my specific pros and cons. My initial reaction was that I liked Suzume while having a few major reservations, so I watched it again in hopes of gaining something I previously missed. On second IMAX viewing, I understood a little more about the story and characters, but most issues I had on initial viewing remained present. My opinion after third 4DX viewing was pretty much the same, and it confirmed that I liked but didn't love Suzume. As far as how Suzume ranks among Makoto Shinkai's other films, I find it to be mid-tier Shinkai. In my opinion Suzume is better than Place Promised in Our Early Days, (the only Shinkai film I dislike) Voices of a Distant Star, and Children Who Chase Lost Voices, but not as good as Weathering With You, 5 Centimeters Per Second, Your Name, or Garden of Words.
Getting my cons of Suzume out of the way first, my biggest problem is some of the character establishment and lack of fluidity leading up to character conflicts. One of the conflicts regards Suzume and her adoptive aunt, to which the main problem comes from Suzume not having enough interactions with her aunt to establish their relationship beforehand, which was not helped by the conflict resolved too quickly. Sure, the dialogue had some brief mentions of their relationship, but I would have liked to see more actual interactions between the two rather than relying on character explanations. The other conflict I have an issue with is considered a spoiler in terms of which characters it involve, so I'll put it like this - Because I never liked one of the participants in the first place, it makes me hard to be invested during a fallout involving a character who has already gotten on my nerves, especially when said character has a moment near the end that is intended to evoke an emotional reaction from the audience but left me not caring.
As for Suzume and Souta, I like the platonic relationship between Suzume and Souta as door-locking partners, but I don't see the extra spark that made Suzume go: "I can't live in a world without Souta!"
Side characters in Makoto Shinkai's past works were barely existent, and after making a good first step of improvement towards creating memorable supporting cast in Your Name, Shinkai finally made his most well-fleshed out cast of side characters in Weathering With You. Unfortunately, the side characters in Suzume took several steps backwards, if not to the extent of completely fading into the background like those from many older Shinkai films. Though the argument could be made that since Suzume is more of a "road trip" film, the titular character is only supposed to encounter each character at one location throughout her journey, but the lack of impression these side characters left on me as the film went on is still noticeable especially given how Shinkai has proven that he could develop his supporting cast properly in past works.
When it comes to the songs in Suzume, while Your Name and Weathering With You had some banger tunes that still stick in the mind, the few original songs RADWIMPS created for Suzume are good but not as memorable the previously-mentioned Shinkai works.
However, there were also so many other elements in Suzume done exceptionally well. Makoto Shinkai was able to create such impressive-looking backdrops and animation all by himself on a computer with his 2002 debut work Voices of a Distant Star, so it's no surprise that his craftsmanship improved over the years, especially since he now has a professional team of animators under his arsenal and a major studio backing up his works. The backdrops like the countryside views, the city landscapes, and the eerie earthquake aftermath ruins have the right balance between hand-drawn details with the right amount of CGI used to enhance the realism, which is no surprise for anyone who has seen any of Shinkai's past works. The character animation is also another strong point of Suzume, with the biggest highlight being the creative movements for Souta after he was transformed into a chair, while the movements of the human characters and a cat were also solid though not as noteworthy as the animation for Chair Souta. The motorcycle scene in Weathering With You must have been Shinkai flexing his action muscles, because he went out for a few set pieces for Suzume, with the opening scene, a sequence at an abandoned amusement park, and Souta's chase through busy traffic thrilling enough to make the jaw drop.
The story in Suzume may not being Shinkai's most tightly put-together film plot-wise (Your Name), but it still kept my attention throughout and hit most of the right beats, with the more dramatic parts packing plenty of hard-boiled tension, the humorous parts serving as good comedic relief without undermining the more serious parts, and most of the emotional beats hitting the mark. This film is less of a romance like Your Name or Weathering With You, but is more of a "road trip" journey to overcoming grief similar to Shinkai's older film Children Who Chase Lost Voices. But I find Suzume to be a better road trip story since there is a central stake of needing to stop earthquakes that drives the story constantly, unlike the tension in Children not feeling urgent enough to be gripping. After having incorporated disaster undertones in Your Name and Weathering With You, Shinkai puts the disaster elements front and center for Suzume, and the earthquake sequences were terrifying and haunting without being so heavy that it compromises the overall tone of the film. The pacing was fine, not Shinkai's tightest film (Your Name), but certainly not as deliberately-paced as his early works either.
Deep character arcs were never Shinkai's strong suit, though he has struck gold in that field before, most particularly through Weathering With You. The characters in Suzume, while not being some of the most well-developed cast of Shinkai characters, were still likable and have some traits to make them fun to follow throughout the journey. The most well-realized character is the titular heroine Suzume, who serves as a pretty good point-of-view character and emotional core for the story. While Suzume doesn't go through that drastic of a character arc compared to Hodoka from Weathering With You, her backstory still makes her an easy character to sympathize with and understand why she would follow Souta on his earthquake-stopping journey. While the supporting cast isn't that well developed, some of them were still amusing, with Serizawa or Chika standing out in my mind.
Although RADWIMPS' songs in Suzume aren't as memorable as their pop tunes from Your Name or Weathering With You, in exchange I think the instrumental music score they composed with Kazuma Jinnouchi is probably the best Shinkai/RADWIMPS collaboration thus far. RADWIMPS' music score from the previous two Shinkai collaborations did a good job fitting the tone of the film, but their compositions in Suzume is the first time I felt like their music score stood out as its own character and is not merely background sound. I especially loved the "lu lu lu" humming motif representing Suzume (the way that music theme transitioned into the opening title card is nothing short of breathtaking), and the haunting musical motifs towards the earthquake sequences stays in the mind as well. Also, if you're a fan of RADWIMPS' previous music scores in Your Name and Weathering With You, keep your ears open for two fun Easter Eggs towards these two works in Suzume's music score.
When it comes to the endings in Shinkai's films, I find them to be a mixed bag. Some of Shinkai's endings are too abrupt and in need of proper resolution (Place Promised in Our Early Days, 5 Centimeters Per Second), while other conclusions are satisfying but could have benefited from a little extra five to ten minutes of runtime to properly wrap up the story (Weathering With You, Children Who Chase Lost Voices, and especially Garden of Words). Up to that point the only Shinkai ending I found both emotionally satisfying and most well-rounded was Your Name, but after seeing Suzume I have to say that the conclusion for that is on par with Your Name as one of the best endings in a Shinkai film, potentially a serious contender for THE best Shinkai ending. While the ending for Your Name provides a crowd-pleasing catharsis for the audience, I feel like the conclusion for Suzume is by far the most poignant and mature ending I've seen in a Shinkai film, and I will admit that I did tear up a little by the end of third viewing.
Overall, a bumpy but ultimately worthwhile journey. Nowhere close to Shinkai's best, but far from his worst either. 7.5/10.
2 out of 2 found this helpful.
Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink