is a 2022 Japanese animated coming-of-age fantasy adventure film written and directed by Makoto Shinkai. The third and final installment of Shinkai's Disaster trilogy, following Your Name (2016) and Weathering with You (2019), the film follows seventeen-year-old high school girl Suzume Iwato and young stranger Souta Munakata, who team up to prevent a series of disasters across Japan by sealing doors from the colossal, supernatural worm that causes earthquakes after being released.
Produced by CoMix Wave Films and Story Inc., it features the voices of Nanoka Hara and Hokuto Matsumura, with character designs by Masayoshi Tanaka, animation direction by Kenichi Tsuchiya, and art direction by Takumi Tanji. The musical score was composed by Radwimps and Kazuma Jinnouchi. The film began production in early 2020, eventually being announced as completed by October 2022. Its themes were inspired by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. A novel adaptation, also written by Shinkai, and a manga series illustrated by Denki Amashima both debuted prior to the film's release.
Suzume first premiered in IMAX in Japan on November 7, 2022, followed by a theatrical release by Toho on November 11. It received largely positive reviews from critics, with praise directed towards the characters, animation, visuals, music, and emotional weight. The film grossed million worldwide, becoming the fourth-highest-grossing anime film at the time and the fourth-highest-grossing film of 2022 in Japan. Among its numerous accolades, the film was nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 81st Golden Globe Awards and received seven nominations at the 51st Annie Awards.
Plot
High-school girl Suzume Iwato lives with her aunt Tamaki in a town in Kyushu. She dreams of her childhood self walking through a ruined cityscape at night, before running into a shadowy figure resembling her late mother. One morning, Suzume meets a young man searching for abandoned locations with doors, and tells him of a nearby abandoned resort. Following him there, Suzume discovers a free-standing door, which she opens to find a starlit field that she cannot enter. She trips over a cat statue on the floor, which turns into a real cat and flees, before rushing to school.
During lunch, Suzume notices a large column of smoke outside the classroom window from the abandoned resort, which no one else can see. There, she finds the man from earlier struggling to close the door from which the smoke escapes. Suzume helps him lock the door with an old key. The smoke disappears, but not before causing earthquake-like damage to the town.
Suzume takes the injured man, Souta Munakata, to her home. Souta is a "Closer" who locates and locks specific doors in abandoned places throughout Japan to prevent a supernatural "worm" from being released, causing earthquakes. The cat from the resort turns Souta into the chair he was sitting on. He and Suzume chase the cat onto a ferry headed for Ehime. Souta tells Suzume that the cat is a "keystone" she removed at the resort, releasing the worm from it.
Upon reaching Ehime, Suzume and Souta find that netizens have dubbed the cat "Daijin". They encounter the worm again after helping a girl named Chika save oranges from rolling down a hill, with whom they travel to seal a door at an abandoned school. Afterwards, Suzume stays the night at Chika's family hotel.
The next day, Suzume and Souta hitchhike to Kobe with a woman named Rumi. Suzume helps at Rumi's bar before seeing Daijin leading them to an abandoned amusement park, stopping the worm from emerging through a ferris wheel gondola. While closing the door, Suzume asks about the starry field. Souta explains that the portal within the doors lead to the Ever-After, where souls go after death.
Tracking Daijin to Tokyo, Souta asks Suzume to take them to his apartment. He explains the legend of the worm, and that he is the last descendant of a generational family who locked doors to the Ever-After. The western keystone has become Daijin, while the location of the eastern keystone is unknown. He warns that if the worm tries to emerge in Tokyo, its damage will be similar to the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake.
Suzume notices the worm's emergence, so she and Souta hop in the worm as it fully breaks to find Daijin, who reveals that he has passed on his function as keystone to Souta and if they don't want the worm to fall, Souta has to be used to seal it. Souta suddenly starts crystalizing, forcing Suzume to use him to seal the worm.
Awakening at a shrine housing the Tokyo door, Suzume sees Souta within the Ever-After but is unable to enter. Suzume goes to visit Souta's grandfather Hitsujirō at the hospital, hoping to discover how to rescue Souta. Hitsujirō explains that Suzume's ability to see the worm and the Ever-After through the doors means that at some point in her life she entered the realm through one such door, the only door where she can re-enter the Ever-After.
Suzume runs into Souta's friend Tomoya Serizawa, and Tamaki, who wants to take her back home to Kyushu. She instead convinces Tomoya to drive her and Tamaki to her childhood hometown in Tōhoku, destroyed by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that killed her mother, to find the door she first visited. At a rest stop along the way, Suzume discovers that her aunt is possessed by Sadaijin, the eastern keystone. They reach the ruins of Suzume's old house and town, after looking at her old journal from when she was a kid. Suzume finds the door and enters it with Daijin and Sadaijin.
Inside the Ever-After, Sadaijin distracts the worm, while Suzume awakens Souta, who regains his human form. Realizing the consequences of his freedom, Daijin reverts himself to being the western keystone. Suzume and Souta use him and Sadaijin to imprison the worm again in the Ever-After. Afterwards, Suzume sees a young girl in the Ever-After with them. She realizes the young girl is herself, from 12 years ago, and that the younger Suzume mistook her older self as her mother. Suzume gives her the chair that had been Souta's body, built by her mother as a childhood birthday present, allowing younger Suzume to leave the Ever-After, to be taken in by Tamaki. Souta returns to Tokyo while Suzume and Tamaki return to Kyushu. A year later, Suzume unexpectedly encounters Souta again on the road where they first met.
Voice cast Character Voice actor Japanese English Nanoka HaraAkari Miura (young) Nichole SakuraBennet Hetrick (young) Hokuto Matsumura Josh Keaton Eri Fukatsu Jennifer Sun Bell Shota Sometani Roger Craig Smith Sairi Ito Amanda C. Miller Rosalie Chiang Kana Hanazawa Allegra Clark Matsumoto Hakuō II Cam Clarke Ryunosuke Kamiki Joe Zieja Ann Yamane Lena Josephine Marano Aimi Mela Lee
Production Development
Makoto Shinkai conceived the idea for Suzume while he was traveling around Japan to give talks about his past works. He said, "In Japan, it is customary to hold a or groundbreaking ceremony, before construction begins on a new building or home, but we do nothing when we close them down." Shinkai noticed that there were more empty or abandoned areas in Japan due to the country's declining birth rate and aging population, so he thought of writing a story about "mourning deserted places." As a result, the film inevitably turned into a road movie about visiting places.
The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami served as a major influence for the themes in the film. While the Tiamat comet in Your Name (2016) and the concept of Weathering with You (2019) were ideas influenced by the natural disaster, Shinkai felt that he should "express the impact [he] felt through the earthquake and tsunami, instead of continuing to depict it as a metaphor." He feared that people's memories of the disaster start to become "hazy" over time, and by depicting the earthquake and tsunami in his film or novel, he could also share his memories with teens who were unaware of the disaster. Shinkai also cited Kiki's Delivery Service, Guardian: The Lonely and Great God, and Haruki Murakami's novel Kafka on the Shore and short story as influences for the film.
Shinkai and his staff planned the project from January to March 2020. They started developing the film's script in April, which is when the Japanese government declared a state of emergency due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In an interview with TV Asahi, Shinkai mentioned that the pandemic had a less tangible effect on the film's production. However, he said that "the mood of the times is indelibly etched into the script", adding that the film will have a post-apocalyptic theme. Souta turning into a chair was in reference to Shinkai feeling trapped during the COVID-19 curbs. After finishing the script in August, the storyboards were drafted from September 2020 to December 2021, while the production of the animation started in April 2021. The film was officially unveiled during a press conference on December 15, 2021. The film's staff includes as the character designer, as the animation director, and as the art director. CoMix Wave Films and were revealed as the film's producers. In October 2022, Shinkai announced that production on the film was completed.
Characters
Shinkai immediately decided for the film to have a female main character, since Weathering with You had a male main character, and also felt that a "buddy" character was necessary. Initially, he wanted Suzume's companion to be another girl, with a "sisterhood type of romantic story", as he believed that he had exhausted the potential of the "boy meets girl" formula in previous films. However, Shinkai's producer discouraged the idea, saying that the audience for his films was still enjoying the typical romance aspects of his films. Thus, making the partner a chair was decided upon both to avoid the film becoming "too much of a romance," and also to lighten the mood of the film, which would "inevitably become quieter" if the story focused on mourning a place. Shinkai also considered other options for potential partners, such as a partner that turns into a monster throughout the story, and other "inorganic partners" like a milk carton. The idea for a chair partner came when Shinkai saw a wooden chair sitting at a deserted bus stop, and found its "foreign feeling" to be better than any of his previous ideas. Shinkai also became less interested in writing a love story and wanted to depict different relationships, like with Suzume and her aunt.
Casting
Nanoka Hara was revealed as the voice of Suzume Iwato on July 5, 2022. Shinkai selected her from an audition involving more than 1,700 people. Hara has been a fan of Shinkai's works, remarking that she could not imagine being the one to share the "unforgettable, heart-shaking sensation" she felt when first seeing one of his films in theaters. On September 6, 2022, Hokuto Matsumura's role as Souta Munakata was revealed. He described the character as one that "[he] had never seen in any of the director's works". Therefore, Matsumura gave a voice for Souta that he "had never heard before," which involved using a slightly lower tone. Shinkai found his voice to be "impressive" and said that it "embodies the character". These were Hara and Matsumura's first anime voice-acting roles. On September 29, Eri Fukatsu, Shota Sometani, Sairi Ito, , Kana Hanazawa, and Matsumoto Hakuō II were revealed to be joining the voice cast. On October 25, Ryūnosuke Kamiki, who voiced Taki Tachibana in Your Name, was added to the cast for the role of Tomoya Serizawa.
Music