I bought the DVD of the Makoto Shinkai film Suzume today. Although released in 2022, the DVD and Bluray must have just come out here (I always scan the anime aisle when I visit JB HiFi). I’m such a fan of his previous films, like Your Name and Weathering With You, I can’t wait to see it. I’ve seen previews: there’s a seemingly sentient chair, a possibly evil cat and the title character dealing with catastrophic events that I assume echo the 2011 earthquake and tsunami (a constant theme with Shinkai). Then of course there’s those glorious skies and landscapes that he is renowned for. New Shinkai: life is good.
The highlight for today was watching Suzume, the Makoto Shinkai film I bought the other day. I watched it with the dub, as is my way with anime films so I can enjoy the visuals without bothering with the subtitles. And boy, has this film got visuals! But being a Shinkai film, that’s a given, you already knew that. The story takes the form of a freewheeling road trip, with 17 year old Suzume making her way from the island of Kyushu in the south-west of Japan, to the north-eastern corner of Honshu, via Shikoku, Kobe and Tokyo. Accompanied by a talking and walking chair (that’s right!), she gets help from various people along the way, and is joined by her step-mother for the final leg of the trip. The destination is her old home town, where her mother died in the earthquake/tsunami of 2011. It was a magical, emotional ride and I loved every minute of it. The film also reminded me, in some ways, of last year’s Miyazaki film, The Boy and the Heron. They both share a MC who’s lost their mother, and there are other similarities, but I won’t go into them here. I plan on watching the film again soon, this time with the sub version to hear how the Japanese voice cast faired. The English voice cast for the dub did a great job, but the guy who voiced the main male character, Souta, sounded so generic. I swear I’ve heard his voice a hundred times!