Suzume works so well as a romance because Makoto Shinkai tried not to make it a romance
2016’s Your Namewasn’t the first project from director Makoto Shinkai, but it was his first huge success, becoming the third highest-grossing anime film internationally and establishing him as a worldwide name. It also solidified certain expectations for Shinkai’s future work: Since Your Name was such an evocative romance, fans anticipated more of the same from him.
His 2019 feature Weathering With You gave them exactly what they expected: another fraught relationship drama between young people with a supernatural element. So naturally, when the first trailers for Suzume came out, many fans expected another magically tinged romance. After all, the titular heroine meets a mysterious, handsome stranger, and they’re thrown together by intense magical conflict. Never mind that her dashing new companion turns into a chair early in the movie; the pieces all still seem to be there.
This time around, however, Shinkai was less interested in writing a love story. Instead, he wanted to focus on a variety of different relationships.
But by shifting the focus away from romance, he made Suzume’s romance absolutely incredible. Unlike in Weathering With You andYour Name, Suzume’s romantic arc is more understated, and less of the movie’s driving force. And yet, because the romance takes a back seat in favor of the main character’s growth, with the primary climax focused inward,Suzume ends up with a particularly unique and beautiful romantic arc.
[Ed. note: This post contains setup spoilers for Suzume.]
Like Weathering With You and Your Name, Suzume is about two young people caught up in a supernatural adventure. (And once again, one of them comes from a small town, while the other is a city slicker.) In this case, Suzume, the
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