Makoto Shinkai Says 'Suzume' Origins Made it 'Painful' For Some Viewers

Suzume, the latest film by acclaimed anime director Makoto Shinkai, examines the collective grief felt across Japan after the Tohoku earthquake.

The 2011 disaster, which led to the deaths of almost 20,000 people, also inspired two of his previous films: Your Name in 2016 andWeathering With You, released in 2019. But the director told Newsweek some viewers reacted differently to Suzume because of how closely connected it was to the earthquake.

The film's titular character is a 17-year-old girl who encounters a mysterious man named Sōta in her quiet town of Kyushu. Through him, she becomes aware of various doors that, when opened, lead to untold disaster. Suzume decides to travel across the country to help close the portals before it's too late.

Makoto Shinkai Says 'Suzume' Origins Made it 'Painful' For Some Viewers

The doors are situated in different abandoned locations in Japan and each leads to the Ever After, a realm connected to great tragedies. Suzume has a connection to the doors as well: her mother died in the Tohoku earthquake when she was only 4 years old.

Shinkai told Newsweek the tragedy had a strong impact on his work: "At the time I didn't realize how important it was going to be to me and I think, like a lot of Japanese citizens back then, there was a lot of confusion and anxiety and nervousness about what's going to happen with the future of the country. [What] is [it] going to look like?

"I was continuing to make animation but there was a shift in my approach, or feelings rather, and how I came face-to-face with the natural disasters in the context of entertainment. These disasters instilled a lot of fear not just in me, but in everyone who had to experience any of it."

The director said he had asked himself how he could "contextualise that within the entertainment space and the answers that I came up with were the three films: Your Name, Weathering With You and Suzume."

In Japan Suzume was released last November and Shinkai said that for the local audience, "there are as many different reactions as there are individuals.

"There were some who saw it as a simple adventure, a journey type of film. Others who of course recall the events of 2011 and felt it was rather painful."

He added that some people "almost denied the movie and said 'I'm not going to see this because of how you're using the disaster as a the central theme.'

"And among them were even victims who told me that they almost found the words that they were searching for this entire time."

Telling a Different Story

One noticeable difference to Shinkai's previous work is that the new film doesn't rely on a romance between its main characters, but focuses more on Suzume's familial relationships with her aunt and others. This, he said, was deliberate.

"I had discussed with my producer, Genki Kawamura, very early on that I was tired of telling these love stories. I felt that with Your Name we'd explored that romance genre of two kids being tied by a red string of fate quite thoroughly," Shinkai said.

"I wanted to tell a coming-of-age story of a young girl as a protagonist, but my producer said, 'Well, a love story, and the romance component, is a very big part of your strengths so don't let it go completely. And, although you might be tired of it, I'm sure your audiences still have a little appetite for that.'

"I remember that conversation with my producer quite clearly. So, instead of turning into a full-on romance film we decided to sprinkle in some components and elements of romance but make it not over the top."

"Instead of having her [love] interest be a human, we made him a chair!" Shinkai joked, in reference to an event that takes place early in the film.

The Symbolism behind 'Suzume'

Symbolism is an important component of Shinkai's work. Thered string of fate was both literal and figurative in Your Name, for example.

In Suzume there is the character of Daijin, a mysterious and crafty cat who appears at every door Suzume and Sōta find, and the butterflies that can sometimes be seen around the protagonist.

Daijin was inspired by a shelter cat that Shinkai adopted while making the film. He even named his pet Suzume after his lead character, he said.

"She as a protagonist is really fighting natural disasters, or trying to prevent natural disasters. That seems to be her main antagonist," Shinkai said. "In a way, she's taking a stand against nature herself. So I thought, 'What animal could represent nature?' and I arrived at the character Daijin.

"Cats can be very whimsical. One moment they can be very friendly and beautiful, and then the next moment they could bear their fangs at you and then scratch you.

"So, in a similar way with Suzume's relationship to nature—she has a very interesting one with the ocean in particular because in one moment it could be very beautiful, but at the next it could send a tsunami to wash everything away—I was trying to represent that dichotomy in an animal."

Referring to his own pet cat, he added: "In many ways, Suzume helped inspire and was the key in animating Daijin."

The butterflies that are seen around the lead character have a deeper meaning as well, the director said, though he didn't realize exactly what they would represent until the animation was near completion.

"They didn't exist when this film was still in its screenplay stage," Shinkai said. "But as I transitioned into the storyboards and I was drawing out all the storyboards, for some reason—I really can't explain it—it just felt very natural and instinctive to place butterflies in those scenes.

"I realized after completing the film why I had put in place the butterflies in those particular scenes. I don't know if the same can be said in Western, European or American countries but in Asia, particularly, butterflies can be the symbol of someone's soul.

"So, the yellow butterfly that we see, like Suzume's chair, is something she lost, a soul that's very close to her: of her mother, or perhaps her thoughts of her mother."

While the film was inspired by a tragedy that had a huge impact on Japan, Shinkai added that its representation of collective grief and loss have resonated with plenty of viewers outside the country as well.

"Suzume is a very Japanese story at its core, and the 2011 natural disaster tragedy plays a very key role in it. I don't know that you can fully experience or understand the nuance of the film without having that knowledge or background or experience," he said.

"But I did make the film in such a way that even without the knowledge it's still very enjoyable."

He added: "When the film was released in Asia—South Korea, China and other countries—it did much better than we had predicted. So, although they didn't have that shared grief perhaps the message was able to transcend borders and language, which to me is, of course, very flattering."

Suzume will be released in theaters on April 14 in the United States, Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.