Story :
Not gonna explain it, just talking about how confusing it was. It's creative but when it becomes an unexplicable mess with characters jumping in and out of the story, things happanings with no reasons that's where I draw the line. How did Suzume entered the door the firt time and managed to get out ? No clear explaination. Why did the 2nd cat-stone was destroyed ? No explaination. Why did it possessed the aunt ? Same thing, no explainations apart from the fact they needed a cliche "ur not my real mom/daughter and I hate you" moment, with no foreshadowing. The movie ends up being predictable in its narrative (not the creative parts)
It's original but it's not an excuse, you can be original and write a well-constructed story
Art :
Just sayin', it's the best part of the mivie. Gorgeous CGI shots of nature mixed with beatifully drawn art, smooth animation, attractive character designs. It's a movie that makes the art part of me shiver. It's a very good reason to like the movie in my opinions
Sound :
The music tracks were good, not very memorable but nice enough to get you into the movie and never letting you go. Acting was nice too I guess ? I really hate the souless, monotone type of voice so chair-man wasn't very good in my eyes for almost half of the movie. Suzume VA's was good tho, it made her feel relatable
Characters :
My favourite part to talk about, characters and they are all bland, yay. Who are these characters ? What do they like ? Why are they doing that ? WHO CARES, here is a guy turning into a chair :)
I could go on for hours to explain in details why character motivations are important and there are close to none in this story. The only reason I can figure out for Suzume helping this mysterious guy is because : 1, he's hot and 2, he knows about the doors and she wants to go there maybe ? The chair-man is doing all of that because it's his job but we never heard if he liked it or not, his insecurities about it, his family of key-men, how to become one. He is one of the main characters but we know close to nothing about him. You can find it interesting, I find it boring and lazy. Just gonna talk about these two because the aunt that brings NOTHING to their team, Suzume could have found the bicycle herself, Serizawa was driving, she could have the "ur not my real mom/daughter" moment on the phone or something. Like why did she came ? Serizawa was honestly the best part, his upbeat personality brought some light into this edgefest, he was funny in the unfunny way, he was useful and had real motives for finding chair-man, we know him better that the chair. Honestly a 10/10, useful character. If anyone was as well-ritten as him the film wold be much more interesting.
I'm just gonna evoke the most useful side story, the guy who crushes on the aunt, we were introduced to him, there was potential but just forget about it. Why movie why. You can setup something to then toss it aside
Enjoyment :
Pretty so I was happy while watching it but something that got under my skin was the "romance" between Suzume and chair-man, that was kinda creepy knowing he must be at least 23 and she still is in Highschool :|
Overall :
Pretty but empty, you had the pieces to make something great but it turned mid because the story and characters were pretty bad. Coming from a popular and respected movie director this is embarassing. I saw that he made the storyboards and other artisitc things, he should stick with it and not bother with the script if that's what he want to turn in.
Honestly if you're someone who likes pretty things, you could really love this story but I just can't
