Suzume’s ending revolves around a subtle Studio Ghibli reference

Followers of anime writer-director Matoko Shinkai might discover periodic nods to Studio Ghibli’s films in his latest work — and so they’re very a lot intentional. However these references aren’t simply homages to Japan’s most well-known animation studio: They serve a really particular goal.

In contrast to Shinkai’s earlier two films, Your Identify and Weathering with You, his newest, Suzume focuses on the affect of a real-life catastrophe: the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. These movies’ little nods to Studio Ghibli — cultural touchpoints viewers are prone to acknowledge — particularly root the world of Suzume nearer to our actuality, earlier than the film’s ties to the 2011 catastrophe are absolutely revealed.

One among Suzume’s Ghibli nods is overt — somebody on social media spots Daijin the keystone cat using a practice on his personal, and compares the picture to Whisper of the Coronary heart. One other is subtler: Serizawa, a good friend of human-turned-chair Sōta, drives protagonist Suzume and her aunt Tamaki to their closing vacation spot whereas enjoying “Rouge no Dengon” from Kiki’s Supply Service on his telephone. However the film’s finest Ghibli nod is its subtlest. Actually, it won’t even actually be a full reference — and but it resonates a lot extra in the event you learn it as one.

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for the ending of Suzume — and for Studio Ghibli’s Howl’s Moving Castle.]

Picture: CoMix Wave Movies/Crunchyroll

All through the film, unintentional companions Suzume and Sōta journey throughout Japan to shut magical doorways. It’s not too far of a leap to check these portals to the magical destination-switching doorway seen in Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Transferring Fort. This feels very true when Suzume first steps by a kind of doorways and sees a lush meadow lined in wildflowers — a panorama that would simply match alongside the attractive area that Howl reveals Sophie in Miyazaki’s film.

Viewers be taught that it is a doorway to the afterlife, and the explanation Suzume can see it by the doorway is as a result of she one way or the other wandered into the realm as just a little lady. Flashbacks reveal that Suzume did certainly enter a mysterious door as a baby, and was greeted by a determine she assumed to be her useless mom. Afterward, she discovered a chair she thought she misplaced, the one which Sōta ultimately will get cursed to turn into.

Suzume learns she should return to the door she initially entered if she needs to save lots of Sōta, so she returns to the ruins of her hometown. That sequence is paying homage to the climatic scene in Howl’s Transferring Fort, through which, after Howl’s fort is destroyed, Sophie finds its magical door resting on some rocks among the many ruins. Opening that door, Sophie stumbles into Howl’s childhood, and a previous model of the meadow he confirmed her, then watches him meet his fireplace demon Calcifer, and make the deal that prices Howl his coronary heart.

Because the scene begins to fade away, Sophie calls out to Howl, “Discover me sooner or later!” and Howl and Calcifer each look her manner. It’s closely implied that that is the explanation Howl seeks her out later in his life, and can also be the explanation that Sophie is finally capable of save him.

Picture: Studio Ghibli

So when Suzume enters her personal magical doorway and finds herself in that wildflower meadow, it seems like an echo of Miyazaki’s film. Suzume enters the afterlife to save lots of Sōta, simply as Sophie entered the previous to save lots of Howl. Admittedly, Suzume options extra giant-earthquake-worm battles, simply sufficient that the speedy comparability fades away. However after Suzume saves Sōta — and in doing so, reclaims her personal will to dwell — she gazes on the area of wildflowers and notices a small determine within the distance. It’s herself, as a baby.

In Howl’s Transferring Fort, reaching again to the previous connects the film’s two protagonists, weaving collectively the beginnings of each their tales. However Suzume isn’t the identical type of romantic film as Howl’s Transferring Fort. The main focus is on Suzume’s development, the way in which she goes from apathy and self-destructiveness to somebody who truly needs to dwell. So, though she steps by the door to save lots of Sōta, she’s truly saving herself. She appears again on the previous and sees the youthful, despondent model of herself, and tells that crying little lady that it’s all going to be okay. It ties her story collectively completely, bringing the ending again to the start — simply as Miyazaki’s film does, in its personal manner.

Suzume is in theaters now.