SUZUME
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Stars: Nanoka Hara, Hokuto Matsumura, Eri Fukatsu, Kotone Hanase
Rating: (PG) ★★★★
REVIEWED BY CHRISTINE POWLEY
I enjoy Japanese anime fantasy adventure stories much more than big-budget green screen studio efforts.
I think it is mainly because they come with a built-in layer of cross-cultural weirdness that Hollywood’s obsession with exhausting backstory can not replicate.
I had more fun watching Dungeons & Dragons a few weeks ago but Suzume (Rialto and Reading), while boasting a less complicated plot, has me pondering the possible deeper meanings in a way that will last longer than the time taken to write this review.
Suzume (Nanoka Hara) lost her mother in the 2011 tsunami. She lives with her aunt far from her home town and all she has from her childhood is a little yellow chair her mother made her for her 4th birthday. When she meets a mysterious stranger who looks as if he belongs in a K-pop boy band, his request for directions to the nearest ruins plunges her into adventure.
Souta (Hokuto Matsumura) is a Closer who serves Japan by closing all doors into other dimensions. His family have been doing this for generations, entrusted with the burden of containing a giant worm that lives underground and has the power to cause chaos if released.
Oddly, Susume has the power to see this worm as well as Souta. There is a deeper connection between them than what just looked like a teenage crush. Suzume ends up travelling the length of Japan helping Souta with his mission and in doing so she discovers parts of her past that she had long forgotten.
