Review of Suzume

I appreciate how Japan can deliver to mainstream some story with barely any sense. OK, I heard about Denshinbashira Elemi no Koi which portrays love between a telephone pole (!) and a 25-yea-old man, but knowing how many people is actually crying over a serious GIRL x 3-LEGGED CHAIR romance is a strange phenomena. Ok, I'd start telling that I remember a lot of hatred over the hype of Byousoku 5 Centimeter between people I consider less golden retriever about anime, when it came out. I believe that one is definitely among his best along Your Name, since those are within the few I've accepted watchingand had patience to finish - I've found out a lot of those turn-off pretentious anime movie trailers I've seen in netflix had to do with him.

I believe Makoto Shinkai and his fellow producers are very clever. I mean, take Voices of a Distant Star which is a bit more serious in subject, or tries to, and think about it; it's a joke. And the more fantastic he gets, more unexplained bollocks comes. It always fascinates me to see people consuming nonsense, and that's my only reason to be intrigued here. However, it's undeniable he knows how to reach the audience with the music and script, making people emotional about any unbelievable matter.

This is a Ghibli film wannabe, that relies on using tricks, same tools learned from the studio classics on visuals (the food part is extremely forced, honestly), score, etc and now, even with a few references. You can tell this movie was an expensive production, though still uses some CG support (and that breaks any real link it could have with its main influences); that thing alone is pure gamble. If your work is good enough, whatever if you use CG background here or there. Though if boring, these minor lazy details start getting on my nerves.

The main plot is meaningless and tiresome at parts, but as I said, I appreciate the surreal way things are presented, without any reason; that's a positive point, and I'm glad a lot of japanese media still fights (much probably not consciently) the current need of everything completely solved, forgettable scripts that leaves no further thinking and cutting every artistic or intelligent trace off any media to feed a generation addicted to soulless, fast here & now entertainment. Even in shonen anime, it's funny how they tend to overexplain details about their skills then leave most things unsolved by the story ending. I don't even know why/how the cat was doing all that, and if they explained any of these subjects during the 5 minutes I fell asleep, please tell me so I'll have to decrease the rating of my review.

Then you have the romantic melodrama Shinkai is known for, what a hearbreaker; there is minimum to zero development between the girl and little chair besides they are running from one dimensional doors to another for them to feel this ridiculous love. Kissing the chair and all. The family drama didn't feel fresh. Being sincere, there were some moments I thought it was funny, but nothing that made me laugh.

To summarize, it's an absurd movie that fails to look absurd, a romantic drama that you have to be much of a philosopher in heavy drugs to take anything of it but comedy, pretty colored but CGI... And I didn't even hate it that much! Watchable mediocre Ghibli wannabe.