Review of Suzume

Suzume review *Spoiler Free* PS: I will refer to Another one of Shinkais work, Your Name. Your Name is my favorite movie of all time for many reasons and since it’s one of his other works I will compare it. Genre: Supernatural Anime I have been waiting to watch this movie for over 6 months after it released in Japan. Now I know that Shinkai likes to release in Japan first but at the same time it was still annoying to wait a half a year to get it in the United States. Other than that I enjoyed the movie. Not close to Your Name levels but itwas better than weathering with you since it had some more emotional connection.

The Story: The story starts out with Suzume who is a high school girl. She comes across this man who is a “Closer” who basically closes doors to stop worms from appearing in the world and causing massive earthquakes. The Closer names Soto turns into a chair and as a chair he has to close these doors that appear in abandoned places with a lot of emotions. A big worm is appearing in Japan. I will stop it here because it is a spoiler free review but the ending was satisfying.

The Music: There is nothing to say. Radwimps made the music and they knocked it out of the park. I really liked the theme song of Suzume. It was reminiscing of Your Names music but it had its own twist so that it would be independent of Your Name which is good. While waiting for this movie Suzumes music sat in my playlist and it was really good. One of the reasons I watched the movie even apart from the Shinkai name. 10/10 music!

The Animation: This is the most beautiful anime piece I have ever seen. Like no joke the fluid dynamics and the sheer euphoria is actually amazing. The scenery is animated beautifully. I will talk about characters in another section. Some movements remind me of rotoscoping but I don’t think they rotoscoped anything. I think the sheer talent of the animator’s is just amazing. I did notice they did some CGI on the Tokyo worm but at the same time it was on screen for like 2 minutes so not that big a deal. But holy crap Shinkai just goes all out for animation huh. If anything it is just a beautiful movie. First ever 11/10 for Animation this movie just stepped up animation for the rest of the industry no joke. Watching it in Theatres was a good decision.

The Characters:
-Design: Okay the boy has long hair. And he turns into a goddamn chair it’s different yes. But Shinkai needs to find a way to differentiate between characters. Getting the same VA as Mitsuha from Your Name makes it hard to differentiate between the characters. In the next movie I am hoping to find better character design. I mean they are animated beautifully their motions are fluid and smooth. They are animated amazingly and expressions are there so it’s good but I do want to see different character design for the next one. It is hard to differentiate with anime but I am hoping Shinkai can pull it off.

-Emotions: Okay so it’s kinda weird but even as a chair Soto had some good emotions. I felt it through his voice. Prefacing I watched the dub so sub people I can’t relate too. Suzume had some good emotions as well. I did see some. The cats VA was also good. Overall the VA did a nice job for a dub.

My Gripes: My only gripe with this movie and the reason I’m giving it a 8.5/10 is because I felt like a lot of the movie was filler. In Your Name they made an amazing job portraying the body switching and introducing amazing humour elements into the story. But Suzume I didn’t feel *as* entertained as Your Name for the filler. To be fair the supernatural plot of Suzume was a bit more wilder than Your Name but still.

In the end, I enjoyed it. If you have not watched it on the big screen that’s one of the reasons I’m rating it this high. It is just such a beautiful movie.

Final Score: 8.5/10
Thanks!
-CyanCheetah