Suzume (film)

is a 2022 Japanese animated fantasy adventure film produced by CoMix Wave Films and distributed by Toho. It depicts a high school girl and a mysterious young man trying to prevent a series of disasters across Japan. The film was commissioned in 2020, written and directed by Makoto Shinkai.

The film features the voices of Nanoka Hara and Hokuto Matsumura, with the character designs by Masayoshi Tanaka, animation direction by Kenichi Tsuchiya, art direction by Takumi Tanji, and music by Radwimps and Kazuma Jinnouchi.

''Suzume'' had an advance IMAX screening in Japan on November 7, 2022, and was released nationwide on November 11. The film has grossed billion (million), becoming the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2022 in Japan.

Plot

In a small coastal town in Miyazaki, Suzume Iwato dreams of her mother giving her a broken chair in a magical world. One morning, she encounters a young man searching for abandoned places in the area. She tells him about an old onsen resort, and they separate. Suzume, thinking she has met him before, heads there as well. However, she finds a door instead. After opening it, she finds the world in her dream, but cannot enter it. When she tries again, she trips into a keystone. When she picks it up, it turns into a kitten and runs off. Confused and frightened, she leaves and returns to school.

During lunch, Suzume notices smoke from the resort before a small earthquake happens. When she looks again, the smoke is now a trailing red column. Worried, she rushes to the resort to find smoke coming out from the door, and the young man trying to close it. Seeing his struggle, Suzume rushes to help him, the smoke gets pulled down, causing a massive earthquake. He then tries to close the door again, but despite his protests, Suzume helps him anyway. Then, after hearing conversations from the resort's heyday, they manage to close the door, and the man locks the door with the key from his neck. After this, the red column disappears, and it rains briefly. Suzume takes the man home, and he introduces himself as Sōta Munakata. He tells Suzume that he has to find and lock doors in abandoned places to prevent "worms" from the magical world from causing earthquakes. A cat then appears, and turns Sōta into the child's chair he was sitting on. Enraged, chair Sōta chases the cat, followed by Suzume. She chases them to a ferry headed to Ehime, but he escapes onto another boat, stranding them. That night, Tamaki, her aunt, demands her to come back, but Suzume hangs up. Sōta then tells her the cat was once a keystone, and the worms were released after its removal.

They arrive at Ehime. Using clues from locals who photographed and named the cat "Daijin", they follow the cat. Suzume asks a girl, Chika, if she's seen Daijin, but an earthquake cuts them off. Seeing a worm emerging, Suzume rushes off, and Chika offers a ride on her scooter. They arrive at an abandoned school, and Suzume runs in. Sōta fails to close the door by himself, and his key gets blown off. Suzume then picks it up. Needing her help, Sōta tells Suzume to imagine the school's heyday, and they successfully lock the door, exorcising the worm. The next morning, after staying at Chika's family's inn, and becoming friends with her, they part ways.

During a storm while going to their next destination, Suzume and Sōta take shelter at a bus stop. However, a woman named Rumi pulls over and gives them a ride. During a pit stop, Rumi points out the abandoned amusement park near the town. Suzume volunteers to babysit her twins when Rumi has to work, and Sōta helps her. When the twins fall asleep, Suzume helps Rumi at her hostess bar, when she notices Daijin. While she and Sōta chases him, a new worm appears, but Sōta splits up to chase the cat. Suzume finds the doorway attached to a Ferris wheel gondola, but Sōta accidentally activates the ride, and Suzume enters the gondola after seeing the dream world. Meanwhile, Sōta demands Daijin to turn back into a keystone, but he refuses, wanting to "play" with Suzume. Suzume, after being helped by Sōta, then locks the door. In the gondola, Suzume tells Sōta about the dream world and her mother. As they sleep, it is shown that Sōta is losing his sense of self in his chair form, while in Miyazaki, Tamaki decides to bring Suzume back herself after getting advice from Minoru, Tamaki's coworker.

The next day, Suzume and Sōta go to Sōta's apartment in Tokyo. There, he tells her the myth of Namazu and that the central keystone is in Tokyo, that it is missing, and that if Tokyo's worm appears, Japan will be destroyed. His family makes sure the doors remain locked, and he took on the burden from his hospitalized grandfather. However, they do not know where Tokyo's doorway is. Then, Sōta's friend, Tomoyo Serizawa, after knocking on the room's door, tells Suzume to let Sōta know he wants to speak with him, but Suzume sees a worm nearby. She runs out, and Sōta chases Daijin after seeing him again, but Daijin says Sōta has to become the new keystone to stop the worm. After finding the worm, Sōta thanks Suzume, and climbs onto it. Suzume follows him, and they make it to the top of the worm. At the top, Sōta turns into a keystone in Suzume's hands, and Suzume begs him to come back as the worm begins to fall. As the resulting earthquake will kill many people, Suzume tearfully puts the keystone down. Suzume then wakes up in a cave, where she finds Tokyo's doorway. In the dream world, she sees keystone Sōta and tries to save him, but fails to. Despite Suzume's pleas, Daijin says it is impossible to save Sōta. Undeterred, Suzume asks Sōta's hospitalized grandfather, Hitsujirō, for help, but he says the same. Angrily, Suzume says she will enter the dream world and save him. Realizing she has been there before, Hitsujirō says that to enter, she must find the first doorway she entered from.

Suzume begins her journey to her hometown in Tōhoku, which was destroyed in the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami. Serizawa tells her she can use his car to find Sōta, but Tamaki appears and demands Suzume come home with her. When she refuses, Tamaki decides to join her, but Suzume doesn't say her reasons for leaving. Daijin also silently accompanies the three as well. When Serizawa's car breaks down, they pull over at a rest stop. Tamaki suggests taking the bus to Tokyo she learned about from Minoru, but Suzume refuses, angrily saying that Tamaki is not her mother. Distraught, Tamaki tells Suzume she regrets raising her. After Daijin hisses, Suzume realizes that Tamaki is being possessed by Sadaijin, the black cat. Tamaki, now unpossessed but regretful, runs back to the rest stop. The next morning, they continue driving, but Serizawa crashes his car after hearing the cats speak. Suzume then runs ahead, and Tamaki catches up on an old bike. She rides behind Tamaki, and tells her the cats' true nature. Glad that her niece trusts her, the two reconcile. When they arrive, she finds a page from her old diary about the doorway in a time capsule. At the doorway, Suzume successfully enters after telling Tamaki she will save the one she loves.

The world is overrun with worms. Sōta, in stasis, reminisces about Suzume. However, upon hearing her voice, he reaches out, and she pulls him. No longer the keystone, he returns to his human form. However, Daijin returns to being a keystone as a result. To stop the worms, Sōta makes a prayer, and brings back echoes of Suzume's hometown. Sadaijin then also turns to stone. With two keystones in hand, Suzume and Sōta seal the worms and bring peace to the dream world. Sōta then notices a child, Suzume from 12 years ago, and Suzume remembers the first time she entered the dream world. Taking the chair, she rushes to her younger self, who confuses her older self for her mother. Suzume tells her she's not her mother, making both Suzumes break down. She gives the chair to young Suzume, and tells her about her future. Young Suzume asks her who she is, and she replies, "The Suzume of tomorrow." Young Suzume leaves the dream world, followed by Suzume and Sōta. Sōta returns to Tokyo, and Suzume returns to Kyushu with Tamaki, visiting her new friends on the way. Later, Suzume is on her way to school when she sees Sōta walking up the road they first met.

Voice cast

* Nanoka Hara as
** Akari Miura as child Suzume
* Hokuto Matsumura as
* Eri Fukatsu as
* Shota Sometani as
* Sairi Ito as
* Kotone Hanase as
* Kana Hanazawa as
* Matsumoto Hakuō II as
* Ryūnosuke Kamiki as
* Ann Yamane as
* Aimi as

Production

Development

Makoto Shinkai conceived the idea for ''Suzume'' while he was traveling around Japan to give talks about his past works. He said, "In Japan, it is customary to hold a ' or groundbreaking ceremony, before construction begins on a new building or home, but we do nothing when we close them down." Shinkai noticed that there were more empty or abandoned areas in Japan due to the country's declining birth rate and aging population, so he thought of writing a story about "mourning deserted places." As a result, the film inevitably turned into a road movie about visiting places.

The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami served as an influence for the themes in the film. While the Tiamat comet in ''Your Name'' and the concept of ''Weathering with You'' were ideas influenced by the natural disaster, Shinkai felt that he should "express the impact efelt through the earthquake and tsunami, instead of continuing to depict it as a metaphor." He feared that people's memories of the disaster start to become "hazy" over time, and by depicting the earthquake and tsunami in his film or novel, he could also share his memories with teens who were unaware of the disaster. Shinkai also cited ''Kiki's Delivery Service'' and Haruki Murakami's novel ''Kafka on the Shore'' and short story as influences for the film.

Shinkai and his staff planned the project from January to March 2020. They started developing the film's script in April, which is when the Japanese government declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In an interview with TV Asahi, Shinkai mentioned that the pandemic had a less tangible effect on the film's production. However, he said that "the mood of the times is indelibly etched into the script", adding that the film will have a post-apocalyptic theme. Sōta turning into a chair was in reference to Shinkai feeling trapped during the COVID-19 curbs. After finishing the script in August, the storyboards were drafted from September 2020 to December 2021, while the production of the animation started in April 2021. The film was officially unveiled during a press conference on December 15, 2021. The film's staff includes Masayoshi Tanaka as the character designer, Kenichi Tsuchiya as the animation director, and Takumi Tanji as the art director. CoMix Wave Films and Story Inc. were revealed as the film's producers. In October 2022, Shinkai announced that production on the film was completed.

Characters

Shinkai immediately decided for the film to have a female main character, since ''Weathering with You'' had a male main character, and also felt that a "buddy" character was necessary. He believed the film's tension would "inevitably become quieter" if the story focused on mourning a place, so he decided for the film to be a "buddy story" between a girl and a chair to keep it entertaining. Shinkai initially thought of other options for potential partners, such as another girl, one that turns into a monster throughout the story, and "inorganic partners" like a milk carton. The idea for a chair partner came when Shinkai saw a wooden chair sitting at a deserted bus stop, and found its "foreign feeling" to be better than any of his previous ideas. Shinkai also became less interested in writing a love story and wanted to depict different relationships, like with Suzume and her aunt.

Casting

Nanoka Hara was revealed as the voice of Suzume Iwato on July 5, 2022. Shinkai selected her from an audition involving more than 1,700 people. Hara has been a fan of Shinkai's works, remarking that she could not imagine being the one to share the "unforgettable, heart-shaking sensation" she felt when first seeing one of his films in theaters. On September 6, 2022, Hokuto Matsumura's role as Sōta Munakata was revealed. He described the character as one that " ehad never seen in any of the director's works". Therefore, Matsumura gave a voice for Sōta that he "had never heard before," which involved using a slightly lower tone. Shinkai found his voice to be "impressive" and said that it "embodies the character". Suzume and Sōta are Hara and Matsumura's first anime voice-acting roles. On September 29, Eri Fukatsu, Shota Sometani, Sairi Ito, Kotone Hanase, Kana Hanazawa, and Matsumoto Hakuō II were revealed to be joining the voice cast. On October 25, Ryūnosuke Kamiki, who voiced Taki Tachibana in ''Your Name'', was added to the cast for the role of Tomoya Serizawa.

Music

On September 20, 2022, it was announced that the band Radwimps, which had previously collaborated with Shinkai on ''Your Name'' and ''Weathering with You'', would be composing the score for the film, along with composer Kazuma Jinnouchi. It was also revealed that TikTok singer Toaka provided the vocals for the first theme song, , which debuted on music streaming services on September 30, 2022. The second theme song, , debuted online on October 28, 2022. The soundtrack was released on November 11, 2022, the day of the film's release. Some of its recordings were done at Abbey Road Studios in London.

Marketing

A teaser poster was released alongside the film's announcement. On April 9, 2022, an updated version featuring the film's protagonist was released online and as a full-page advertisement in the morning edition of ''The Asahi Shimbun'' newspaper. It was also announced that the film would be released on November 11. Toho debuted a teaser trailer on April 10, 2022, and a full trailer was released on July 15. The main poster, along with the second trailer, was released on September 29, 2022. Nippon TV previewed the first 12 minutes of the film on October 28, 2022, during a broadcast of ''Your Name'' on NNN's ' program. Prior to the film's release, the production committee warned filmgoers of scenes in the film that depict an earthquake and sounds of earthquake alarms, and reassured that the sounds were fictional.

Several bonus items were given to filmgoers in Japan. A booklet, titled , was the first to be distributed, and had a print run of 3 million copies. The booklet contained the original proposals for ''Suzume'', ''Your Name'', and ''Weathering with You'', and interviews with Shinkai, Hara, and Matsumura. A second booklet, , was distributed beginning on December 3, with a print run of 1.5 million copies. A spin-off novel written by Shinkai, subtitled , was given starting on December 24. A second novel, , was distributed starting on January 28, 2023. McDonald's Japan released a Happy Meal set that includes a spin-off picture book, titled , which tells an original story written by Shinkai and illustrated by Senbon Umishima. Other partners for the film include , Lawson, and KDDI's au. Additionally, a promotional campaign was held involving one local company from each of the 47 prefectures of Japan. The film also had a 20-page special feature in the #50/2022 issue of Kodansha's ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine''.

Release

''Suzume'' had an advance IMAX screening on November 7, 2022, for watchers who were decided through a lottery. It was released nationwide by Toho in 420 theaters in Japan on November 11 through regular and IMAX screenings. Midnight screenings were held in 11 theaters across six cities in Japan. The film will have its international premiere in competition at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival, to be held from February 16–26, 2023. It will mark the first time an anime film competed in the festival since ''Spirited Away'' in 2002.

In Asia, the film will begin screening on March 2, 2023, in Taiwan and Hong Kong; March 8 in South Korea; and April 21 in India. ''Suzume'' was also approved for release in China.

In May 2022, it was announced that Crunchyroll, Sony Pictures, and Wild Bunch International have acquired the film's global distribution rights. Crunchyroll will handle distribution in North America and will partner with Sony in territories outside of Asia, while Sony and Wild Bunch will co-distribute in Europe. The companies will begin screening the film on April 12, 2023, in France and Malta; April 13 in Australia, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, and New Zealand; and April 14 in Austria, Belgium, Canada, Gibraltar, Ireland, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, and United States.

Reception

Box office

As of February 6, 2023, ''Suzume'' grossed billion (million) in Japan. The film debuted at number one at the Japanese box office, and grossed billion (million) from the advance IMAX screening and during its first three days. It surpassed ''Weathering with You'' to become the biggest three-day opening for a Shinkai film. In Japan, it is the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2022, the tenth-highest-grossing anime film of all time, and the 23rd highest-grossing film of all time.

Critical response

The Japanese review aggregator Filmarks reported that ''Suzume'' received an average rating of 4.00/5 based on 6,585 reviews, placing second in its first-day satisfaction ranking.

Matt Schley of ''The Japan Times'' gave the film 4 out of 5 stars, and called it "the director’s most satisfying work yet." He praised the art and animation, and while he also described some of the dialogue as "cliche or cringe-worthy", he also felt that the film was "a bit more mature" than Shinkai's past films. Schley also found the film's climax "somewhat disturbing", and said that it might divide viewers on whether Shinkai "earns" it. Richard Eisenbeis, writing for ''Anime News Network'', graded the film 'A', praising the story, characters, animation, and music, but found the plot structure to be similar to ''Your Name'' and ''Weathering with You'', making the film "more predictable." Einsenbeis also criticized the appearance of a creature that Suzume encountered in Tokyo, describing it as "a cheap CG effect placed over the otherwise quality animation and blended poorly."

Accolades

Adaptations

A novel adaptation written by Shinkai was released on August 24, 2022, under the Kadokawa Bunko imprint. A portion of the novel was included in a booklet distributed during the 2022 Kadobun Summer Fair, which was held in Japanese bookstores on June 10. A children's paperback edition, which adds furigana and illustrations drawn by Chiko, was released on October 13 under the Kadokawa Tsubasa Bunko imprint. The novel has sold over 350,000 copies as of November 2022; it is the best-selling physical light novel volume of that year in Japan. In January 2023, Yen Press announced that they licensed the series for English publication in digital and print formats.

A manga adaptation illustrated by Denki Amashima began serialization in Kodansha's ''Monthly Afternoon'' magazine on October 25, 2022.

References

External links

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{{Afternoon

2022 anime films
2020s teen films
2020s teen drama films
2020s teen fantasy films
Anime with original screenplays
Crunchyroll anime
CoMix Wave Films films
Films directed by Makoto Shinkai
Films with screenplays by Makoto Shinkai
IMAX films
Japanese animated science fiction films
Japanese animated fantasy films
Japanese animated feature films
Japanese science fiction films
Japanese teen drama films
Middle school films
Science fantasy films
Toho animated films
Yen Press titles