There’s Something They Didn’t Tell Us About Suzume

We’ve reported several times by now on Suzume, the upcoming third animated movie from Makoto Shinkai (the one behind Your Name, the most successful anime movie of all time). Details were kept vague, but the story seemed solid enough. There was one detail, however, that Sinkai was purposely leaving out. Today the newest trailer was released and we now know the truth. This story has an element that’s, uh, interesting.

As we’ve said before, Suzume is the title of the movie and also the name of its protagonist, a survivor of some unspecified disaster that has left her Japanese town in ruins. She doesn’t know what caused it until the day she finds a single, battered door standing upright in the middle of a pile of debris, like the disaster somehow missed it. Stricken with curiosity, Suzume opens the door…which was not a good idea. Not only did what’s behind the door cause the disaster in the first place, doors like it are now opening up across Japan. Suzume has to clean up her own mess by finding and closing them all.

That’s what we knew up to this point. But the latest trailer reveals she also has a partner in crime, Souta. Souta seems to already know about the doors and is the one who tells Suzume they exist.  Two more things: the one responsible for all this chaos isn’t Suzume herself, but a talking cat named “AristoCat”….and in their first meeting with Aristocat, the villainous feline turns Souta into a chair.

He remains a chair for the majority of the movie and Suzume must carry him around while saving the world. Wow.

Up to now, we’ve been the only website paying any attention to this movie but suddenly, everyone is reporting on it! This movie’s got a talking cat and a talking chair! How can we NOT notice this? Why didn’t Shinkai tell everyone about the chair in the first place?

And yes, it totally appears that Suzume develops a romance with Chair Souta — you can see her leaning in for a kiss with his wooden face for a frame or two. I bet the makers of Pop Team Epic are cursing their bad luck for finishing their second season before this trailer came out — it would’ve made for an amazing parody.

Amazing. Simply amazing. Suzume will debut in Japanese theaters on November 11, 2022. Crunchyroll has the global rights and will begin distributing it here sometime in early 2023.