Suzume: Another essential work from a modern master of anime

Makoto Shinkai is fast taking on near-legendary status in his native Japan and with animation enthusiasts throughout the world. His 2016 film Your Name — the third-highest-grossing anime ever — showcased a singular ability to work teenage trauma in with head-spinning fantasy.

The director’s latest feature is almost on that level. A tad wider in scope, maybe a little more ramshackle, the picture balances its intimate personal story against an apocalyptic yarn that speaks to universal ecological concerns. As ever with Shinkai, the film looks as beautiful as it sounds. The score from Radwimps and Kazuma Jinnouchi takes in pop, orchestral sweep and playful jazz as the images drag us up and down an endangered archipelago. The jokes are funny and weird. At its heart, there is a story worth caring about.

Suzume Iwato, an imaginative 17-year-old, lives with a concerned aunt in Kyushu. We get a few hints to the fate of her late mother before she bumps into a handsome young man — of the shoulder-length hair and fine-feature class — as she is making her way to school. Somewhat ominously, he is searching for doors in abandoned ruins. Later she encounters the statue of a cat that turns into a real cat. Huge wormy columns emerge from beautiful distance and threaten the surrounding territories. In the sort of twist one comes to expect from this world, Sōta Munakata, her good-looking pal, gets transformed into a three-legged chair as they embark on a mission to close down the portals to imminent calamity.

It is hardly worth further explaining the knotty lore here. Closely tied to Japan’s history of earthquakes, the mythical threat is spelled out with an impressive lucidity at a digestible pace. Even if those details prove too arcane, the humour and the emotional heft of the piece are certain to entertain. Suzume develops into an empathetic heroine whose own story stands in for that of humanity. Sōta is, to be frank, more enjoyable as a comically uneven chair than as an industry-standard hunk.

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The film does, perhaps, get a little too entangled in its later stages. But every background contains a detail worth savouring. Every music cue adds to the enveloping appeal. Another essential work from a modern master.