Suzume – The Classic Story of a Girl and Her Chair

I might have whined a bit on this site about how I didn’t get to see Suzume in theaters. Well…I lied…I did! I found one artsy theater that was still showing it in Montreal and even managed to convince a couple of friends to go with me.

And check out this poetic turn of events. This one theater happens to be the exact same place I saw Your Name on the big screen all those years ago, and it was with these two same folks! I guess we have a tradition now. I don’t know what Shinkai’s next film is going to be but I know where I’ll watch it and with whom! There’s something nice about that.

I haven’t told them yet….

Anyways, I saw the movie and…well… I might not be with popular opinion on this one. There are parts I liked a lot but spoilers, as a whole I thought Suzume missed the mark in several ways. However, in order to be fair and balanced here at I Drink and Watch Anime. Always an important consideration! I decided to ask my viewing buddies their own thoughts on the film and I decided to make them fill out a short questionnaire. Because what are friends for if not to give you homework after dragging to the movies? I wouldn’t know!

Oh, both their names start with A so there’s going to be an A and an Aa just to make things nice and confusing! Let the fun times roll!

1 – What did you expect from the movie, going in?

 A: I actually had no expectations whatsoever… I hadn’t even watched the trailer.

Aa: The only thing I knew was that it was from the same creator as “Your Name”, so I was hoping for something along the same lines. Some kind of nostalgic/romantic adventure with great visuals, compelling characters, an engaging story and an emotional ending.

I: I is me by the way. I for Irina! I thought about doing something stupid like picking Ai for my marker but I figured you guys already humour me enough.

I knew a bit more about the movie but not much. I had read the official synopsis and seen the key visuals. From there I crafted what turned out to be a rather wrong idea about Suzume being some type of Science Fiction/Fantasy epic. It was very different in my head.

2- what did you think of the characters? 

A: In general, I liked the characters. However, I still felt like apart from Suzume, we only touched the surface of most of the characters. Maybe turning one of the main into a chair didn’t help relating…

Aa: Not much? It felt like we didn’t get enough time to get to know Suzume and see what her life was like before she was immediately thrust into an adventure. It was hard to understand her willingness to essentially run away from everything she knew to risk her life following some stranger that she knew nothing about. Maybe if we had a bit more time seeing what her home life was like other than a few throwaway lines, I might have better understood what kind of “connection” to felt with Sota.

We got to see glimpses of Sota’s life but not enough to really care about him as a person. Chair-Sota was entertaining though.

I : Much like my companions I didn’t dislike the characters mostly because I don’t think we ever got to know them well enough for me to form any strong feelings. To be a bit harsher, I think pretty much all of the characters (including Suzume) were just underdeveloped which is a real handicap for a movie that asks you to form a strong emotional bond with the people on the screen.

I will say that unlike A, chair Sota was the strongest character for me. Partially because of the weirdness of it, sure, but also because he was a …chair… a lot of care was put into animating and choreographing him to make him still appear lifelike and not make us forget he’s a main character. I feel like I got a lot of information about him through those movements. It painted a picture of a quirky, slightly exasperated guy who’s more childish and spontaneous than he cares to admit. If you haven’t seen it, this may sound odd but for those of you that have, did you get that too?

Unfortunately, that characterization sort of clashed with human Sota and it felt like two distinct characters in the end which was also a letdown. But in isolation, I thought chair Sota was a downright wonderful character.

3 – Favourite moment or element? 

A: I liked the sights of the “afterlife” we got through the doors: the sky and its colors we gorgeous.

Aa: The ending credits where we see Suzume reconnecting with all the people she met along the way.

I: I also liked the little vignettes at the end. I love afterwords in general. But considering everything I just said about the characters, unsurprisingly my favourite moment is a scene fairly early one when Sota first gets turned into a chair and runs off after the keystone cat, startling and baffling all the people along the way.

Actually, all the road trip with the chair scenes were my favourite, especially when he had to pretend to be a chair so other people wouldn’t get suspicious!

4- Least favourite?

A: There were a lot of feelings of déjà-vu that bothered me a bit. I feel it made the story lose a bit of originality.

Aa: 2nd cat-god who seems to show up for the sole purpose of having a cool background scene of kaiju-cat vs kaiju-worm.

I: I did not like the romance in this one. Suzume kissing the chair, Sota suddenly having an extremely wistful memory of Suzume’s face when up until that moment there was no indication, he even liked being around her. I found they ranged from mildly uncomfortable, to confusing to boring. Personally, I would have preferred the movie as a buddy road trip comedy and just cut out all the romance!

5- Random thing that stood out to you?

A: The keystone/cats – Daijin and Sadajin. We don’t really know if they’re good or bad (they probably are in some kind of grey zone). The fact that one’s black and tall, the other is white and small… They may represent opposites, although they are similar. I feel like there is so much more to these two, kind of makes me curious to search their background/mythology a bit.

Aa: Sato’s friend pulling the handbrake to park his car. Why they felt the need to animate that I cannot understand.

I: Let me be straight with you guys, I only put this question in so Aa could talk about the handbrake. I heard a lot about that handbrake!

Although it didn’t stand out in a good way, there is a scene in which Suzume’s aunt seemingly has a huge nervous breakdown in the parking lot and it felt so unearned and out of the blue. It was striking if nothing else.

6- What did you think of the movie? 

A: Overall, I had a good time watching Suzume. 

Suzume rises to the challenge in this coming of age/road trip, chasing a cat deity in order to turn back Souta to his human form meeting kind strangers and finding herself along the way. 

Aa: It was fine but not something I feel any need to rewatch. Maybe I had too many expectations after “Your Name” but this one really didn’t resonate. The ending felt anticlimactic and almost nonsensical in some ways. Character motivations seemed almost random or required some heavy assumptions from the audience.

I: So here’s the thing. For me Suzume was two movies. It was a fun supernatural romp about a girl and her chair running after a cat through the countryside and meeting eccentric characters along the way. It was also an emotional romantic drama about a girl coming of age and overcoming trauma while falling in love along the way with some Japanese folklore sprinkled in for good measure.

I loved the former. I like road trip movies. I like explorations of friendship. I like the Little Prince/Galactic Railway structure of going from one supporting character to another and learning about yourself along the way. I would have watched that movie for another hour with a lot of pleasure. In its current form it’s underwritten but the potential is there.

I did not like the latter at all. I thought the romance missed the mark entirely, the characters were too underdeveloped for the emotion to properly resonate with me which made the drama feel shallow and the supernatural lore elements often felt like an afterthought and ended up interfering with the story rather than adding to it. I say this as a self-proclaimed Yokai otaku.

At the end of the day, it’s difficult for me to reconcile my feelings for Suzume. I would say that I don’t understand the universal praise it has gotten from critics. It’s not awful but I have seen better anime movies. I have seen better anime movies from Shinkai…

But I got to watch it in a big teather with people I love so I can’t complain. I had a great time. I would do it again… Maybe with a different movie ;P