Suzume

## Suzume *Suzume* (2022) is Makoto Shinkai's third consecutive global phenomenon, following *Your Name* and *Weathering with You*. Produced by CoMix Wave Films, it grossed over ¥14 billion in Japan and became one of the highest-grossing anime films ever made. Unlike Shinkai's previous works, *Suzume* operates as a road movie — propulsive, geographically expansive, and anchored by a deeply personal engagement with disaster and grief. Suzume Iwato is a 17-year-old girl living in rural Kyushu who encounters a young man named Souta Munakata searching for a door in the ruins of an abandoned resort. She follows him and accidentally opens a mysterious door that releases supernatural disasters into the surrounding world. Souta is then transformed into a three-legged chair by a small white cat and rendered unable to act. Suzume embarks on a journey across Japan, closing enchanted doors to prevent catastrophe at each stop — meeting strangers who shelter and guide her — while unraveling the mystery of her own childhood connection to these disasters. The film is a meditation on loss, Japan's earthquake legacy, and the possibility of moving forward.