Review of Suzume

I'm sorry, I could not get past the first 30 to 40 minutes. I tried to watch it with my sister, and she thought it was tolerable, but I could not. I love Makoto Shinkai's Your Name; it's really one of my favorite anime movies. However, I had many problems with every aspect of this movie except the visuals and base concepts. At first glance, every Shinkai movie is visually stunning. The concept of closing doors to prevent chaos is cool. But here comes my first initial problem: that concept can probably get severely repetitive. Sure, it's aesthetic, but it's not much of a plot-heavyidea unless there is more to it. I hoped there was more to it, but we only got a man and an evil cat. [Again, I'm just judging based on my impression of the first 30 min of the movie, which I feel is justified enough b/c a viewer should be sucked into the story by then if it was good.]

Now, I'm gonna get critical. The characters were some of the driest, most unrealistic personalities I've ever seen. The man has no personality, and good thing he was a chair because that became his personality. The girl is just wack; she is inconsistent and makes so many unrealistic decisions as a 17-year-old high-schooler. You're telling me she followed a man (stranger), he turned into a chair (she didn't question that at all; I suppose people turn into chairs sometimes), met a talking cat (also did not question that because cats talk all the time supposedly), and just vibed with these crazy situations? I have a real problem with brainless characters that do not question wacky situations because viewers are left confused for a huge portion of the movie until it's addressed [I dropped the movie before it was addressed; I was not even curious at that point]. You can call me picky all you want, but if Shinkai is writing a story based on the real world, I expect realistic characters. Also, their relationship (romantic?) was really unnaturally forced. And the cat? The cat and their motives just didn't make sense to me. The plot scenarios jumped everywhere, randomly and nonsensically. I was exhausted and it was clear the story was trying to add too many things at once. The early ridiculous scenes should've been replaced with the girl and boy talking about what the hell is going on, please. But either way, none of the interactions felt genuine, and the pacing was so off.

I was told by my Japanese friend that this movie is good because of the Japanese myth/lore/past event context behind it. I stand by my opinion: I do not think an audience should be required to have prior knowledge about a certain subject to enjoy a movie that is being promoted out of its own country. That, in itself, to me, degrades the movie because it literally leaves out a meaningful experience for a huge chunk of the audience.

Shinkai's films are mostly motivated by themes rather than characters or plot, so he needs to try something new and while he's at it, improve his character writing.