2023 Drama Roundup
9 – Your non k-drama recommendation

I’ve loved Makoto Shinkai’s work ever since I first saw Your Name years ago (it remains one of my favorite movies). I then ravenously watched everything else of his that I could get my hands on, and Weathering with You was the last thing I saw in a movie theater right before the pandemic hit. So I was watching with impatient anticipation for Suzume to come out in the US this year, and when it finally did, I was not disappointed. A lot of Shinkai’s work explores how people deal with the emotional aftermath of catastrophic disasters, but this one was more explicitly about the tsunami in 2011. We get to follow a girl who meets a mysterious man – who then turns into a chair! – and ends up trying to stop earthquakes from happening before they start by closing doors in abandoned places around Japan. Meanwhile she meets amazing people in every new place she travels to, we explore the complicated but loving relationship she has with her aunt, and eventually join her as she faces her hometown that was destroyed by the tsunami 12 years ago. The animation is gorgeous, the story is fresh and interesting, and the soundtrack makes me feel all the things. I can’t wait to watch it again.