Makoto Shinkai’s Suzume Is a Spectacular but Limited Look at Our Relationship with Natural Disasters
Japan sits upon a nexus of several tectonic plates, which cause hundreds, if not thousands, of earthquakes per year. Most are minor rumbles, but some are far more substantial. Recent examples include the Kumamoto earthquake of 2016 and the infamous Tohoku earthquake of March 2011 (known as 3/11), the latter of which led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdown. The Fukushima disaster occurred after a tsunami caused by the earthquake smashed into the shoreline of northeastern Japan. Although international coverage focused on the meltdown, the utter destruction and overwhelming loss of human life were the disaster’s real tragedy. More than 15,000 people died, mostly by drowning when the tsunami breached the sea barriers and flooding reached several stories high. Entire towns along the Tohoku shore were completely wiped away overnight as receding flood waters dragged entire neighborhoods into the ocean.
It is impossible to overstate the dramatic effect disasters like 3/11 have on survivors who must live through their aftermath, but in a country where massive natural disasters are commonplace, life must go on. Every city in which I have lived in Japan has provided direct guidance on what to do if an earthquake occurs: cover your head, shelter in a stable part of the building, and after the earthquake subsides, flee far from any low-lying coastal areas as soon as possible. The knowledge that your town may be the site of the next major earthquake is just a facet of everyday Japanese life. Although Japan is far from the only place that faces natural disasters, this everyday awareness of the precariousness of human society is perhaps more pronounced here than in many other countries.
This consciousness of natural disasters is at the forefront of Suzume, the latest film from acclaimed director Makoto Shinkai (Your Name, Weathering with You). Shinkai has explored the relationship between human society and nature in his other films, but none have centered the fear of catastrophic events and the long term consequences on their survivors quite to the degree of Suzume. The film’s titular character is a seventeen year-old girl who lost her mother to natural disaster at a young age. As a result, she moved across the country to Miyazaki in southern Kyushu to live with her aunt, Tamaki.
One day, she encounters a college student named Sota, who is on a quest to visit ruins and search for abandoned doors. As Suzume quickly discovers, Sota’s work is no mere hobby. The doors can be entrances to Toyoko, the eternal land, which houses fearsome spirits. If these massive, worm-like spirits fully emerge from the doors unencumbered, they crash into the nearby ground, triggering massive earthquakes. Sota’s family has for generations worked to locate the doors as they appear and lock them magically shut before the spirits escape into Japan. Suzume guides Sota to an abandoned hot spring resort and he successfully locates the door to Toyoko within, but not before a massive worm begins to emerge. The pair successfully seal the door, but in the immediate aftermath, Sota is incapacitated by a spell cast by the kanameishi (keystone) spirit who is supposed to help maintain the seals. Suzume must then travel across the country to seal the doors to Toyoko and find a cure for Sota’s affliction.
Although Suzume is about as geographically removed from the site of her mother’s death as possible, she still feels her loss acutely. It haunts her dreams and bleeds into her difficult relationship with her aunt. She feels a strong sense of despair that such a terrible event could occur beyond human control, so she finds catharsis in her direct role in the prevention of further disasters. In Suzume, earthquakes are the result of spirits running amok, and humans wielding arcane knowledge can directly exert influence over the source of natural calamities. It is a supernatural simplification of environmental phenomena that inspires us to imagine a world in which individual humans can exert a more direct control over their own ecological destiny. In this sense, the movie exudes a compelling but almost naive degree of wishful optimism even as it attempts to emotionally navigate the devastating destruction that has visited Japan over the past decade.
Suzume’s spiritual interpretation of natural disasters is rooted in folk beliefs often associated with Shinto. Particularly in the Edo period, popular illustrations linked earthquakes with the Namazu, a massive catfish that lives underground and causes the earth to shake. The Namazu is kept at bay by the kami spirit Takemikazuchi, who keeps it pinned in place with a kanameishi, the basis for the keystones that Sota and Suzume use. This type of supernatural explanation for natural phenomena is far from exclusive to Japanese folk beliefs, but the Shinto-ish flavor of Shinkai’s interpretation is a welcome addition that illustrates the intimacy of local relationships between human society and the land.
The movie’s score and animation further the local flavor of Suzume’s encounter with the supernatural. The dexterity of rock band RADWIMPS continues to impress, but this time they are joined by composer Kazuma Jinnouchi (Ghost in the Shell SAC_2045), who adds a dramatic zest to the Toyoko spirit conflict. The tracks for the major fights make heavy use of ritualistic chanting and the shakuhachi flute, adding a surprising but fitting mysticism to otherwise intense moments. Just as importantly, the animation during these scenes is particularly impressive. The animators working with Shinkai continue to produce some of the best illustrations in the industry. Even though I expected this level of quality already, a few moments during Suzume’s fights are still startlingly dynamic and beautiful. The animators have clearly continued to refine their craft and build upon Weathering with You’s visual strengths. Intimate character-driven scenes are usually the highlights of Shinkai’s films, but these outstanding songs and fluid animations help make the action scenes some of the most compelling parts of Suzume, a striking departure from other entries in the director’s repertoire.
Shinkai’s films in recent years have centered Japan’s urban-rural divide and the overwhelming pull of Tokyo on the countryside, a trend which Suzume continues. The film’s background illustrations of urban neighborhoods and rural villages are hauntingly beautiful and give its kaleidoscope of settings a strong sense of identity that would be absent otherwise. However, Suzume is a bit more agnostic in its exploration of Japan’s various locales than its predecessors. Suzume and Sota’s travels take them everywhere from the farmlands of Ehime prefecture on Shikoku island to the bustling streets of downtown Tokyo, but the film is less interested in contrasting these areas and more keen on exploring their similarities. Even the Tokyo megapolis is filled with abandoned buildings ripe for the appearance of doors leading to Toyoko. Every town and city the pair visits is near the Pacific Ocean and right along the tectonic fault line, so they are all potentially one bad earthquake away from unimaginable disaster. The exact contours of each community’s relationship with nature are shaped differently, but at their core are remarkably similar.
I greatly enjoyed Suzume for all of the above reasons, but the movie also suffers from a couple of substantial problems. Suzume’s emotional arc as she confronts her own experiences with natural disaster is a compelling story for her as a character, but Shinkai struggles to balance it with the complexity of real-life catastrophes. 3/11 and other calamities were real events that had real consequences. They were not directly caused by humans, but many associated tragedies were the result of human error or institutional negligence. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster was not an inevitable result of the earthquake and ensuing tsunami, and some groups have accused the facility’s management of not taking necessary precautions that may have prevented the meltdown. Furthermore, after 3/11, perceived failures in government response to the crisis were a key reason for the collapse of then-prime minister Naoto Kan’s administration.
Humans may not yet have the means to prevent earthquakes, but we can take measures to minimize the loss of human life. For better or worse, Suzume is not concerned with the structural problems that exacerbate these tragedies. It leans into the survivors’ emotional struggles, but does not holistically interrogate the complex sources of their pain. Perhaps it does not have to do so, but I think it would benefit from a more robust examination of this problem. Shinkai is capable of at least tacitly engaging with these questions. One of his previous films, Your Name, also featured a character attempting to avert a natural disaster who was in part hindered by an uncooperative local government. I enjoyed Suzume for what it was, but I suspect that many people who have directly experienced serious environmental disasters may feel differently.
Suzume’s cross-country travels and action-packed fights with supernatural beings are surprising highlights of the movie. Unfortunately, they come at the expense of Suzume and Sota’s relationship, which is not platonic but probably should be. Suzume spends far more time talking with the various people she meets during her journey across Japan than she does with Sota. This is not inherently a bad thing; she makes meaningful connections with people from various walks of life. Each encounter is a chance for Suzume to grow and is also a chance for the audience to learn about different lifestyles across Japan. But there is a trade-off for this, and when the film attempts to explicitly state the main couple’s romantic feelings toward each other, I have my doubts. They have only known each other for a few days, and more importantly, the film never meaningfully explores Suzume’s feelings for Sota. The audience is just expected to know that they clearly must love each other. The result is that a common strength of Shinkai’s films is actually one of Suzume’s greatest weaknesses.
Concluding Thoughts
Suzume will probably be a slightly polarizing film when it comes to the United States in the spring. It misses the mark on Shinkai’s staple romantic coupling and is a relatively simplistic interpretation of very real natural disasters. However, the film still entertainingly and empathetically explores the relationship between people and nature. The action-packed fights are a surprising highlight, and the little moments of joy along Suzume’s cross-country journey are as inspiring as they are intimate. Suzume makes a flawed but earnest attempt to sort through the national grief in the aftermath of 3/11 with a story that is meaningfully grounded in contemporary Japanese society and folklore, and that alone is already enough of a draw for me.
Thank you to DoctorKev for proofreading this review!
Suzume released in Japanese theaters on November 11th, 2022. It is licensed for distribution abroad by Crunchyroll and will arrive in North American theaters in spring of 2023.
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