https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/916224

As time approaches April, Makoto Shinkai's new work Suzume was finally released in mainland China on March 24th. This film has become yet another story exploring natural disasters and human love, following Your Name. and Weathering with You, and naturally it has received my extraordinary attention.

My friends and I went to see the movie together. Thanks to my buddy for reserving the super ultimate VIP seats (dead center of the last row)!

It was only after watching the film that I saw so many negative reviews online. Come to think of it, Weathering with You seemed to receive similar treatment after its release. I won't go into the root causes—I can't be bothered to look into it.

Let me add three regrets of mine:

1. The movie's plot felt incomplete, missing some points that I personally felt were quite important.

2. Remote small cities in Xinjiang can't get the Makoto Shinkai art book ()

3. My first viewing was only in a standard theater.

But personally, as an ordinary person who was pulled into the anime rabbit hole by a similar road-trip film (A Place Further than the Universe), this work gave me a feeling comparable to Your Name. There are many elements you can't pick up on the first watch, but upon careful reflection afterward, you can understand the deeper meaning.

However, the shortcomings are as most people have said—the pacing is too rushed. The novel only spans 5 days, just 5 days!

The published Makoto Shinkai Book 2 contains some deleted lines (from the video: BV1d24y1L7ha)

"The chair Mom gave me is missing a leg and can't be sat on anymore."

"Even with three legs, it can still stand. You may have some shortcomings, but you can definitely still stand."

As the uploader also said, these words might be too profound for a small child.

What the movie ultimately presented to the audience was:

"No matter how sad you are right now, Suzume will grow up just fine."

"So don't worry anymore—the future isn't scary."

"You'll fall in love with someone someday, and you'll meet many people"

"who love you dearly. Even though you feel the world is shrouded in darkness,"

"dawn will eventually come, and you'll grow up in the sunlight."

"The future will surely be like this, because it's already been destined."

"Big sister, who are you?"

"I am Suzume's tomorrow."

In these parts, the movie made too many sacrifices to accommodate the runtime. The novel's portrayal of these aspects is much more profound.

The second half of the movie has many details that need to be savored on your own. For example, little Suzume's silhouette as she steps through the Ever-After door—at the time, you might not feel much resonance, but thinking carefully afterward, the Ever-After inside the door seems both real and illusory, while in reality a blizzard rages outside. Yet little Suzume still chose to return to reality and face the cruel world where she lost her mother. Isn't this also a reflection of real life?

When little Suzume exits through the door, facing the massive snowstorm of the real world outside, she merely glances back at her "future self" and the "extraordinary person" beside her future self, then walks forward without hesitation. After suffering a great disaster, people must still strive to walk toward the future—no matter how difficult the road ahead, they must persevere and keep moving forward.

Suzume comes from a single-parent family. For Suzume, her mother was everything. Losing her mother meant losing everything.

She went searching for her mother, looking everywhere, until she accidentally wandered through the Ever-After door and met her future self, along with "that person" from the future.

Fortunately, what followed was little Suzume's encounter with Aunt Tamaki—"Come live with me."

This scene is remarkably similar to Suzume's encounter with Daijin, but though the beginnings are alike, they lead to different endings.

"You are the keystone."

"You don't have to be a Closer to serve as a keystone, right?"

"Daijin can't go to Suzume's home anymore."

If you ask me, Daijin and Suzume are really just two different endings for the same kind of person.

In fact, after being scolded by Suzume, Daijin's colors turned dull, just as described in the novel. After Suzume learned what Daijin had done, she chose to accept Daijin the same way Aunt Tamaki had accepted her, and only then did Daijin's colors become vibrant again. As a newborn deity, Daijin was curious about everything, but became so captivated by the beauty of the world that it forgot its original duty. However, it also guided Suzume to close one door after another. The locations of these three doors all seem to be areas where major earthquakes occurred in Japan's past. It wasn't that Daijin opened the doors—rather, it led Suzume to close them.

The most important threads running through the entire story: Daijin, Aunt Tamaki, and Suzume's chair (which isn't the male lead). The sheer volume of these threads alone is substantial, and not every one of them is fully revealed by the end.

Savor it. Really savor it.

Now let me share some of Makoto Shinkai's original text:

Stars twinkled overhead, the starry sky dazzlingly bright, as if someone had mistakenly turned the sky's brightness up tenfold. Stars, white clouds, and the setting sun hung in the sky, and below them I kept walking toward the silhouette of that child in the distance. I stepped firmly through the grass, fighting back the tears in my eyes.

So that's how it was—I finally understood, I thought.

I didn't want to know, yet I had always wanted to know.

I had always believed that person was my mother, deep in my heart always convinced I could meet her again, yet at the same time knowing we would never see each other again. The wind on the grassland was especially cold, my breath turning to frost. The long shirt Souta had put on me was too big, so I tied the red ribbon from my school uniform tightly around my waist, treating it as a white dress. On my feet were Souta's brown boots that I'd worn all the way from Tokyo. My ponytail had come undone, and my hair hung straight down past my shoulders. Before I knew it, my hair had grown as long as my mother's had been back then.

At the end of my line of sight was a small figure crouching in the grass. I gently set the chair down and approached that small silhouette in a mud-covered down jacket, calling out softly.

"Suzume."

The girl who had walked until she was exhausted, searched until she was exhausted, and fallen into despair, slowly turned her head toward me. It was four-year-old me—the me who had gone looking for my mother, accidentally slipped through the Ever-After door, and wandered into the Ever-After. Her eyes wavered with expectation and unease as she stared at me in surprise, as if she had finally found an exit from a nightmare. I didn't know what expression to make, but I wanted to ease her sadness, even if just a little, so I desperately managed a smile.

"Mama?"

Suzume asked. I hesitated. Though I knew perfectly well what answer Suzume wanted to hear, I—

"No..."

I said, shaking my head. I watched helplessly as tears welled up in Suzume's eyes, but she didn't cry.

"Do you know Suzume's mama?"

She placed her frozen little hands neatly together in front of her, tried her best to stand up straight, and said loudly:

"Mama must be looking for Suzume too. She must be so worried. So Suzume has to go find Mama!"

"Suzume—"

"Suzume's mama works at a hospital. She's great at cooking and at her job. Whatever Suzume likes, she can make it for me."

"Suzume, listen—"

"Suzume's home..."

It was no use—tears had already spilled from Suzume's eyes, streaming down her face. Little Suzume sniffled and desperately continued:

"Because my home is gone now... It's just that Mama doesn't know where I am yet—"

"Stop!"

I couldn't bear to listen anymore. I knelt in the grass and wrapped my arms tightly around Suzume.

"I already know!"

I said this to both of us.

"Why?! My mama is still here! I told you she's looking for Suzume!"

"Suzume!"

Suzume squirmed free from my arms and ran far away as if trying to escape from me.

As she ran, she shouted at the starry sky:

"Mama, where are you? Mama!"

"Ah!"

I couldn't help reaching out my hands. Suzume fell forward, but she immediately lifted her upper body from the grass.

"Mama!"

Suzume cried loudly, as if blaming her mother, blaming me, even blaming the entire world. She cried and cried, her voice going hoarse, as if she had used every ounce of strength in her body. Her body trembled violently. Across from her, the blood-red sunset of the Ever-After hung heavy and thick, beginning to slowly descend, as if mirroring her despair. That scenery seeped into my heart before I knew it, and I cried too.

"Mama."

I called out, and tears immediately streamed down my face. The Suzume who had been crying before me—her sadness was also mine. We shared the same sorrow. Her despair, loneliness, suffocating grief, and near-burning rage all remained undiminished within me. I cried too, sobbing uncontrollably. We sat on the grass and cried and cried.

But...

Listening to Suzume's heart-wrenching cries, a thought suddenly struck me—this won't do. I can't go on like this. I can't keep crying. Suzume and I are different. Though I'm still fragile now, after that moment, I've lived for twelve more years! I survived. Suzume is still alone right now, but I'm not. If I don't do something, if I just let her go on like this, she'll truly be all alone in this world and won't be able to go on.

I looked up, and something yellow caught the corner of my eye. I wiped my tears hard with the back of my hand, picked up the children's chair, and ran toward Suzume.

"Suzume—"

I set the chair down and crouched beside the sobbing girl.

"Hm?" Suzume looked surprised, tears still falling from her eyes. "That's Suzume's chair. Huh, how come?"

She looked up at me, puzzled.

"How should I explain this to you..."

I smiled deliberately and began searching for the right words. By the time I came to my senses, the sun had sunk into the clouds, and everything around us was enveloped in a transparent, vivid blue.

"Listen, Suzume—no matter how sad you are right now—"

All I could tell her was what had actually happened—nothing more than simple facts.

"From here on, you're going to grow up just fine."

The wind blew fiercely, carrying our tears into the air. The sky grew darker and darker, and the stars grew brighter and brighter.

"So don't worry, and don't be afraid of the future!"

Stars shimmered in Suzume's eyes. Praying that my words would reach the depths of her heart, I said loudly with a smile:

"Suzume—from now on, you'll have someone you love most, and you'll meet many people who love you most too. You might feel like everything is dark right now, but morning will come soon."

The starry sky rotated at a visible speed, as if time itself had accelerated.

"Morning comes, and night follows, over and over again, and you'll grow up bathed in light. It will surely be so—it's destined, and no one can stop it. Even if things happen in the future, no one can stop Suzume from growing up."

Several shooting stars streaked across the night sky, and the sky beyond the grassland was immediately dyed pink. Morning had arrived. I gazed at Suzume bathed in the morning light and said once more:

"You will grow up bathed in light."

With that, I stood up holding the chair. Suzume looked up at me and asked in surprise:

"Big sister, who are you?"

"I am—"

A gentle breeze blew past, and the flowers and grass at our feet swayed in the wind, dancing and swirling around us. I bent down and handed the yellow chair to Suzume:

"I am Suzume's tomorrow."

Suzume's small hands gripped the chair tightly.

A small girl, with a door before her.

Holding the chair in one arm and grasping the door handle with the other, she opened the door.

On the other side was a gray world. Dawn had not yet broken; under the dim sky, fine snow drifted down, and everywhere stood the dark silhouettes of freshly formed rubble. The March earth, brimming with grief yet to be consoled, stretched endlessly beyond the door into the distance.

Before slipping through that door, the girl looked back just once.

On a distant hill stood the shadows of two adults—a tall man and a woman whose dress fluttered in the wind—gazing steadily at the girl. They stood upon the lush grass swaying in the breeze, bathed in the light of the Milky Way, beautiful as a painting. That scene was forever etched into the girl's memory.

The girl turned back and walked through the door with resolute steps. Clutching her beloved yellow chair, she returned to that gray world, then firmly shut the door with her small, tender hands.

"Beyond the door, all of time exists."