Suzume’s best Studio Ghibli reference is its final, subtlest one
Fans of anime writer-director Matoko Shinkai may notice periodic nods to Studio Ghibli’s movies in his newest work — and they’re very much intentional. But those references aren’t just homages to Japan’s most famous animation studio: They serve a very specific purpose.
Unlike Shinkai’s previous two movies, Your Name and Weathering with You,his latest, Suzume focuses on the impact of a real-life disaster: the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. These films’ little nods to Studio Ghibli — cultural touchpoints viewers are likely to recognize — specifically root the world of Suzume closer to our reality, before the movie’s ties to the 2011 disaster are fully revealed.
One of Suzume’s Ghibli nods is overt — someone on social media spots Daijin the keystone cat riding a train on his own, and compares the image to Whisper of the Heart. Another is subtler: Serizawa, a friend of human-turned-chair Sōta, drives protagonist Suzume and her aunt Tamaki to their final destination while playing “Rouge no Dengon” fromKiki’s Delivery Service on his phone. But the movie’s best Ghibli nod is its subtlest. In fact, it might not even really be a full reference — and yet it resonates so much more if you read it as one.
[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the ending of Suzume — and for Studio Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle.]
Throughout the movie, accidental companions Suzume and Sōta journey across Japan to close magical doorways. It’s not too far of a leap to compare those portals to the magical destination-switching doorway seen in Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle. This feels especially true when Suzume first steps through one of those doors and sees a lush meadow covered in wildflowers — a landscape that could easily fit
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