The latest anime movie from director Makoto Shinkai, Suzume, is finally now in theaters in the US and UK. Shinkai is perhaps best known for anime like 2016’s critically acclaimed Your Name and 2019’s Weathering with You. Ahead of Suzume’s international release, Total Film had the opportunity to speak with Shinkai about the release and all of its thematic underpinnings. And three-legged chairs, of course.
If you’re not familiar, Suzume focuses on a high school girl named Suzume Iwato that lives with her aunt. Through a series of unlikely encounters, she ends up traveling across Japan to a number of different ruins, closing doors that cause disasters. Notably, a major part of the film deals with the disastrous circumstances following the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and Shinkai was fairly open during the interview about the effect of the real-life disaster on his worldview.
