Suzume (film): Difference between revisions
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the end credits (and subtitles) calls him "Souta Munakata", and it would be much easier typing his name if I don't have to find the macron O every time
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m (the end credits (and subtitles) calls him "Souta Munakata", and it would be much easier typing his name if I don't have to find the macron O every time) |
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12 years ago, then 4-year old Suzume Iwato (Nanoka Hara) lost her mother Tsubame (Kana Hanazawa) in the [[wikipedia:2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami|2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami]].
In present day, Suzume is now a high school student staying with her aunt Tamaki (Eri Fukatsu) in Miyazaki Prefecture, Kyushu, southwest Japan. One morning while cycling to school, she passes a college-age young man looking for ruins, who she later learns is named
The film is much closer to a [[Studio Ghibli]] production than typical Shinkai films, picking up the baton from ''[[Children Who Chase Lost Voices]]''. Suzume's town at the start of the film feels like something out of ''[[Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea]]'', with its cozy vibes and bay. Suzume encounters several friendly characters who are like characters from ''[[My Neighbor Totoro]]''. There's a couple of [[Shout-Out]]s and [[Homage]]s to Ghibli films as well. Shinkai cited ''[[Kiki's Delivery Service]]'' as a major source of inspiration for the film. Have you ever wondered, "Hey, what if Ghibli made a film about [[Eldritch Abomination]]s and chairs?" ''Suzume'' is that exact film.
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** You lose someone right before your eyes, helpless to do anything.
* [[The Alleged Car]]: Serizawa's fancy-looking convertible doesn't have a roof that can close properly, which becomes troublesome when it starts raining.
* [[Ambiguous Innocence]]: Daijin. {{spoiler|The first time it speaks, it declares that it likes Suzume, but that
* [[Amusement Park]]: The third door is located in an abandoned amusement park in Kobe.
* [[Another Dimension]]: The Ever After, where the souls of the dead go and {{spoiler|worms are held by keystones}}. It is impossible for living grown-up characters to reach the dimension; the only possibility of entering the dimension is going through a [[Portal Door]] at a young age or, {{spoiler|if you're grown up, going back through the door you used to enter the dimension as a child}}.
* [[Animalistic Abomination]]: Daijin looks like a white cat, but there's something clearly off about its left eye, and that's even before it goes [[Glowing Eyes of Doom]] or sounding way too gleeful about the havoc the worm will wreak.
* [[Animate Inanimate Object]]: A chair. Specifically, the three-legged
* [[Bad Vibrations]]: A small earthquake usually signals a worm is about to escape. When this happens, someone needs to do speed door closing. ''Quickly''.
* [[Blue and Orange Morality]]:
* [[Book Ends]]: An early scene has Suzume cycling to school and meeting
* [[But Now I Must Go]]: {{spoiler|After the sealing of the worm and returning of the two keystones,
* [[Cats Are Mean]]: Daijin is ''not'' nice towards
* [[Cerebus Retcon]]: Jokes about chair!
* [[Character Title]]: Guess who the main character is. No seriously. Guess. We will give you three hints: the character's name starts with "S", ends in "E", and shares a name with the title of the 2022 Makoto Shinkai film ''Suzume''.
* [[Christmas Cake]]: Tamaki is in her 40s and still single. One of her coworkers, Minoru, is obviously interested in her, but she doesn't seem to notice.
* [[Clarke's Third Law]]: When chair!
* [[Conspicuous CG]]: A lot of effort was put into blending CG elements with traditionally animated elements, but it's still easy to see that worms and some vehicles are computer generated. Shots with camera movements stand out. It's far less noticeable than other examples, but still noticeable regardless. That said, the CG is integrated so well you can't complain; in fact, the conspicuous artificiality of the worms helps make them all the more disturbing.
* [[Contrived Coincidence]]:
** Daijin jumps from the ferry to a passing boat, which fortunately happens to also be headed for Ehime.
** Suzume and
** Rumi's car passes by the bus stop where Suzume and
** {{spoiler|Serizawa just happens to be outside Ochanomizu Station when Suzume is passing by. Then Tamaki just happens to find her there as well, as opposed to any of the many, many other stations in Tokyo she could have tried looking at.}}
* [[Cool Key]]: The keys used to close doors. The word "elaborate" doesn't begin to describe them.
* [[Cosmic Keystone]]: There are two Keystones that keeps [[Eldritch Abomination]]s trapped in the Ever After dimension. If a Keystone is missing, then a worm can escape into the real world. When that happens, if it collapses onto the ground, it will be very bad and a lot of people will die. If both are dislodged, things will go [[From Bad to Worse]].
* [[Creative Closing Credits]]: The film proper does a [[Close on Title]] after
* [[Cute Kitten]]: Daijin. He is, however, far more devious than his cute looks would suggest.
* [[Deliberately Monochrome]]: Many of Suzume's flashbacks, along with {{spoiler|scenes of
* [[Disappeared Dad]]:
** Tsubame was a single mother; whether Suzume's father abandoned them or died or why else he's absent from their lives is never revealed.
** Rumi is also apparently a single mother to her twins. The father is never shown or discussed.
* [[Disturbed Doves]]: The worm itself is [[Invisible to Normals]], but the birds its emergence disturbs aren't. One shot of it reflected in a bird's eye implies they can sense it just fine.
* [[Diving Save]]:
* [[Doomed Hometown]]: Suzume's birthplace was destroyed by the tsunami.
* [[Doomed New Clothes]]: Chika gave Suzume a set of new clothes to change into, so she won't stand out in her uniform. The clothes were later damaged {{spoiler|when she climbed onto the Tokyo worm}}.
* [[Door of Doom]]: The very last door of the film, {{spoiler|the one where Suzume enters the Ever After}}. It's a pretty ordinary door, even a bit run down, but plays a significant role in resolving the conflict.
* [[Eiffel Tower Effect]]: Many famous landmarks of Japan like the suspension bridge between Shikoku and Honshu, Mt Fuji, Tokyo Tower and the Kaminarimon appear. Suzume even complains she missed sighting Mt. Fuji on a train trip.
* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: The worm first emerges from the doors as a, well, wormlike maroon smoke, but as more of it escapes, it starts to take on forms that wouldn't be out of place in ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]''. The unknowability comes from how
* [[False Camera Effects]]: Take a shot every time the film uses bloom, screen shake, or depth of field. You'll be dead in thirty minutes.
* [[Foreshadowing]]: When Suzume first picks up the keystone, around seven minutes into the film, she remarks it's cold. You know what else feels cold? {{spoiler|
* [[Ghibli Hills]]: Present in a lot of abandoned locations where doors are located. The hills are covered in vivid blades of grass. Also present in the Ever After dimension.
* [[Ghost Town]]: The [[Portal Door]] which Suzume first closes is located here, an abandoned onsen resort. Another portal takes the form of the main entrance of a school where the surrounding town was abandoned following a landslide.
* [[Glowing Eyes of Doom]]: Daijin demonstrates this when it appears in darkness.
* [[Got Volunteered]]: {{spoiler|When Daijin bound
* [[The Gump]]: In an antagonist variant, the worm's escapes are responsible for various historical disasters. The [[wikipedia:1923 Great Kantō earthquake|1923 Great Kantō earthquake]] is explicitly said to be one of those.
* [[Happy Rain]]: [[Downplayed]]. When a door is closed, the worm leaving through that door transforms into rain droplets falling towards the ground. The rain subsides after a couple of seconds. It's not much, but it ''is'' more welcome than the [[Eldritch Abomination]]s they were.
* [[Heavy Sleeper]]:
* [[Heroic Lineage]]:
* [[Homage]]:
** {{spoiler|Suzume falling from the Tokyo sky}} resembles the similar occurrence in ''[[Weathering with You]]''.
** {{spoiler|
** "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJwtKY_iWkM Rouge no Dengon]" ("Lipstick Message") is played as Suzume travels to her hometown far, far away. A delivery truck with a black cat is seen. What other film plays "Rogue no Dengon" during a long trip which ''also'' involves delivery services? ''[[Kiki's Delivery Service]]''. Given "Rogue no Dengon" is an iconic song in ''Kiki's Delivery Service'', it's impossible for a [[Hayao Miyazaki]] fan to ''not'' think of Kiki during the sequence.
* [[Implausible Deniability]]: Suzume's attempts to explain to Tamaki where she's going get increasingly thin.
* [[In a Single Bound]]: Both chair!
* [[Innocent Innuendo]]: Suzume uses chair!
* [[Invisible to Normals]]: Suzume quickly learns to her horror that, apart from herself and Closers like
* [[Jerkass Gods]]: Daijin, {{spoiler|a Keystone turned cat}}, is definitely ''not'' a nice god. He wants to spend time with Suzume, but
* [[Kaiju]]: The absolutely massive giant {{spoiler|worm that fully escapes into Tokyo and will shatter the Earth}} unless stopped.
* [[Kid Hero]]: The heroine is one of the oldest characters that can still be considered a "kid"; one more year and she'll belong in "Adult Hero". Although she hasn't come of age, she's too old to be considered a conventional Kid Hero. She's old enough to get a bank account, and is able to journey halfway across Japan without strict guidance from her guardians.
* [[Long-Haired Pretty Boy]]:
* [[Masquerade]]: Closers put up one so that worms will never be revealed to the general public. It's quite an easy Masquerade to pull off, given how [[Muggles]] cannot see the worms. However, Closers ''must'' do their jobs before any worm fully escapes into the world, otherwise the "Top Ten Most Deadly Earthquake" list will get a new entry.
* [[Mega Neko]]: [[Downplayed]]. Daijin is pretty small, but can grow to be about as tall as a person. Sadaijin, on the other hand, can grow to become much, much bigger.
* [[Memento MacGuffin]]: The chair Suzume's mother made for her as a young child. One of its legs snapped off, though Suzume can't remember how. Poor
* [[Mistaken Identity]]: {{spoiler|Suzume mistakes Suzume to be Suzume's mum. No, seriously. As a child, she believed an older version of herself was her mum picking her up in the Ever After}}. None of this is played for laughs.
* [[Muggles]]: Normal people cannot see worms, and will go about their day to day life as usual even when the world is ending, because they don't notice anything. Only Closers (and Suzume) can see the [[Eldritch Abomination]]s and do something about them.
* [[The Needs of the Many]]: {{spoiler|
* [[Nephewism]]: After Suzume's mother died, her aunt Tamaki took over as her caregiver.
* [[Never Got to Say Goodbye]]:
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* [[Next Sunday A.D.]]: The film is set in 2023 and was released in 2022 in its native Japan, 2023 for the rest of us, with no obvious difference from reality.
* [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero]]: Suzume removing the keystone is what speeds up the worm's escape, in the first door she closes.
* [[Ominous Latin Chanting]]: Chanting occurs whenever
* [[Opposite Gender Protagonists]]: Suzume, a high school girl, and
* [[Ordinary High School Student]]: Suzume starts as this, having no idea of the supernatural struggles hidden to Japanese muggle society. Her removing the keystone, unleashing Daijin, and subsequent drive to make amends lead to her helping
* [[Parental Abandonment]]:
** Suzume was raised by her single mother who went missing due to the 2011 tsunami.
**
* [[Parental Substitute]]: Deconstructed - Tamaki took it on herself to raise Suzume in Tsubame's stead, but developed resentment over what it's cost her.
* [[Portal Door]]: The solitary doors in the ruins, which apparently lead to a starry area. It's impossible for her to step through, though. Any attempts to do so only lands her on the other side of the door. {{spoiler|They're portals to the Ever-After, where the souls of the dead go and all time is present simultaneously, and the living normally can't go there. A young Suzume somehow fell through one, and the only way to go back is to find the same one again.}}
* [[Product Placement]]: Many real world brands, such as Toyota, appear in the film. Suzume stops to get McDonalds while on a trip.
* [[Road Movie]]: Suzume goes on the road and travels to many different places in Japan trying to catch Daijin and turn chair-
* [[Sailor Fuku]]: The uniform of Chika's high school, contrasting Suzume's which has a normal collar. Chika notes the difference as one of the signs that Suzume's Not From Around Here.
* [[Scenery Gorn]]: The film opens on the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Many scenes take place in abandoned, overgrown, ruined areas. The climax occurs among a landscape of flaming wreckage.
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** When Chika asks Suzume how she caught the runaway oranges, the latter says that [[My Hero Academia|"My body reacted before I could even think."]]
** Several to Shinkai's own ''[[Your Name]]'' despite the lack of common continuity -
*** Suzume wonders aloud if she's met
*** Listening to voices of things that don't normally speak is an important part of both works' supernaturality.
*** Both Mitsuha and Suzume have epiphanies that lead to them realising that their seemingly fantastic experiences were [[Real After All]].
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*** A shot of a sliding train door is identical to how that's depicted in the earlier film.
** Like in ''[[5 Centimeters per Second]]'', the main character has an apparent dream of an older loved one who is dearly missed set in an otherworldly landscape.
* [[Skeleton Key]]: The key
* [[Slice of Life]]: The main part of the film opens this way, starring the journey of an [[Ordinary High School Student]] biking to school. Fantastic sequences of closing the doors are also contrasted with mundane life with the people that Suzume encounters.
* [[Soft Water]]: Justified in the case of {{spoiler|Suzume falling from the Tokyo sky as Daijin takes on a giant form that covers and cushions the impact.}}
* [[Stable Time Loop]]: {{spoiler|In the climax, after sealing the worm, Suzume sees her younger self in the Ever-After and realises that the dream she had of her mother finding her younger self while carrying the chair? That was she herself all along. Which creates the issue that the chair Suzume has is three-legged because it was already three-legged when present Suzume gave it to past Suzume... so how did it lose a leg in the first place?}}
* [[String Theory]]:
* [[Talking Appliance Sidekick]]: A talking ''chair'' sidekick.
* [[Teen Drama]]: Majority of the drama is concentrated within the first ten minutes of the film. After the first ten minutes, drama occasionally occurs throughout the film, most involving people asking Suzume about her "boyfriend" or the troubled relationship with Tamaki.
* [[Time Capsule]]: Suzume buried a tin box containing items from her childhood on the grounds of her original home, including a diary with ''way'' too much blacked-out pages following the tsunami.
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* [[Travel Montage]]: A montage of a journey to Suzume's childhood home, set to Serizawa's catalogue of Japanese pop songs such as "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJwtKY_iWkM Rouge no Dengon]".
* [[Unusually Uninteresting Sight]]: Even when the worm is about to fall on Tokyo to destroy the city with its impact, and over half the screen is red, the average person never comments on anything. [[Justified Trope|Justified]], in that [[Muggles]] cannot see worms.
* [[Urban Fantasy]]: The supernatural is contrasted against modern life, with social media playing a key role in
* [[Voices Are Mental]]: Despite
* [[Wall of Text]]: Tamaki's text messages, which are so long they fill up several phone screens. Even though the text is in Japanese that doesn't get translated, you can ''feel'' our hero is in a lot of trouble and almost taste the lecture she'll get.
* [[Where It All Began]]: In order to enter the Ever After {{spoiler|to rescue Keystone-
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