Suzume is a tremendous anime romance because it’s just barely a romance

2016’s Your name wasn’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 He was so evocative in his romance that fans hoped for more.

This is his 2019 feature Weathering with youThey got exactly what they wanted: another fraught drama about relationships between young people, with an supernatural twist. Naturally, the trailers were released. SuzumeMany fans expected another romantic story with a magical twist when the book came out. After all, the titular heroine meets a mysterious, handsome stranger, and they’re thrown together by intense magical conflict. The pieces are still there, even though her new dashing companion transforms into a chair very early on in the film.

Shinkai wasn’t interested in writing about a romantic story this time. Shinkai wanted to be able to look at a wide range of relationships.

However, by shifting the emphasis away from love, he was able to create Suzume’s romance absolutely incredible. This is not like in Weathering with YouAndYour 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, SuzumeIt ends with a very unique, beautiful, romantic arc.

[Ed. note: This post contains setup spoilers for Suzume.]

Image by CoMix Wave Films/Crunchyroll

You might like Weathering with YouAnd Your name, SuzumeThis story is about two teenage people who get caught up in an extraordinary adventure. The story is about two young people who are caught up in a supernatural adventure. (And again, the one from a small city, and the other from a big city. In this case, Suzume, the protagonist, meets the enigmatic Sōta after he asks her if there are any abandoned places nearby. She learns that Sōta is on a mission to close doors between worlds, to contain a giant supernatural worm (a staple in Japanese mythology) that threatens to cause natural disasters. But when she follows Sōta to a dilapidated hot spring, she accidentally sabotages his mission, and he becomes a chair. Suzume and chair-Sōta trek across Japan together, closing doors and containing the worm all the way to Tokyo.

While Suzume’s journey kicks off when she meets Sōta, the movie isn’t solely about the sparks between them: It’s more about how Suzume connects with everyone around her, and how that ties into her growth as a person.

Early in the movie, it becomes evident that while Suzume seems like a typical high school student, there’s something more to her, something that seems slightly out of place. It could be her willingness to throw aside everything to follow Sōta’s mission, or the fact that she seems to have trouble connecting with the people around her. It’s subtle at first, but it comes to a head as she helps Sōta close one of the mysterious doors, and they face the powerful worm creature together. Sōta, who has trained his whole life for this duty, questions why Suzume is risking her life for his cause.

Image by CoMix Wave Films/Crunchyroll

Her response explains a lot about her character — why she’s so willing to throw herself into danger, why she’s independent to a fault, why she’s so disconnected from the people around her. The reasoning behind that response is rooted in the traumatic events she experienced as a young girl, during the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. After realizing this, Suzume no longer risks her life in order to fulfill a mission that she learned about and meet a great guy. Instead, Suzume deals with her trauma and attempts to control these natural disasters.

In another movie, Suzume’s dedication to her mission could easily lend itself to single-minded obsession and self-destruction. Instead her journey across the country slowly and steadily prompts her openness to other people. Her relationship with Sōta is vital to this change, but more importantly, she encounters and accepts help from a wide range of people on her journey.

SuzumeIt is all about processing trauma, and learning how to live. Even after the movie’s turning point, Suzume is still recklessly throwing herself into danger to save others. You like Your nameAnd Weathering with You, Shinkai’s latest sees its young heroes racing against time to stop an impending disaster. There are some important differences. SuzumeThe final act should be crafted in such a way as to surpass the two previous movies. Suzume is connected to the approaching catastrophe through a close personal relationship that wraps tightly around her character. While the actual event is vast and expansive, Suzume’s personal connection to it makes the movie more impactful. And when Suzume steps up to fight her battles, it’s less about making a dramatic choice or defying all odds. She simply reframes what she’s trying to do in a way that feels more personal than most action heroes’ journeys. She doesn’t want to give her life to save the world; she just wants to stay in it.

Image by CoMix Wave Films/Crunchyroll

Sōta inspires Suzume to live, but not Für ihnIt is not because of love. She is inspired by him to live for others He wants to live, which makes her realize she’s worth a life as well. She changes for the better because he inspires her. The movie is primarily about Suzume, a character. We see her as she is and the things she desires. Sōta is just a smaller part of her bigger journey, which makes their relationship richer and more fulfilling.

Romantic relationships are not the sole driving force in life, after all, and knowing that Suzume’s relationship with Sōta isn’t the only significant facet of her life actually makes a future for them more likely. The movie leaves them both with their own meaningful stories, which doesn’t detract from their deep connection. If anything, their relationship resonates more because it isn’t the center of their lives or their story.

That’s far from the bittersweet ending of Your nameWhere the connection between young lovers is lost to the universe, or where there’s a powerful decision in Weathering with YouWhere the characters choose one another over a dying universe. Suzume’s romantic threads are subtler, and left more up to the audience’s interpretation. But Shinkai’s refusal to spell out every step of their connection makes it feel like a more mature relationship, one where the two parties have more of an idea about who they are as people, and what they’ve done for each other. Without the traditional movie-clinching kiss or love confession to give viewers their big, obvious cathartic love-story moment, the relationship feels more natural — which grounds Suzume’s more fantastical bits as well.

SuzumeOn April 14, the debut will be in theatres