Over the past few days, Suzume has broken another record in South Korea, becoming the most-watched Japanese movie in the nation's history.
Suzume outperformed THE FIRST SLAM DUNK, which had just recently surpassed Your Name to become the most-watched Japanese movie in South Korea in March. Suzume's rise overtook THE FIRST SLAM DUNK, which has 4,484,722 tickets sold as opposed to Suzume's 4,598,245 tickets sold. Both movies are currently showing in South Korean theaters.
Suzume, at US$36,233,776, is currently the year's highest-grossing movie in South Korea, surpassing Avatar: The Way of Water, which took in US$36,199,621. THE FIRST SLAM DUNK is second in admissions and third in box office revenue ($35,737,524).
Makoto Shinkai, the director of Suzume, also wrote the screenplay for the movie with Masayoshi Tanaka as the character designer, Takumi Tanji as the art director, and Kenichi Tsuchiya as the director of animation at CoMix Wave Films.
Suzume was released in Japan on November 11; starting on April 12, 2023, Crunchyroll will distribute the film outside of Asia alongside Sony Pictures and Wild Bunch International.
About Suzume
In the peaceful Kyushu village where Suzume, 17, first meets a young guy who says, "I'm looking for a door," the narrative of Suzume begins. What she discovers is a single battered door that is standing upright amidst the debris as though it were safe from whatever catastrophe had taken place. Suzume grabs the knob because she seems drawn to its power.
Doors start opening one after the other across the entirety of Japan, unleashing destruction upon anyone who is nearby. Souta is widely known as a "Closer" because of his job of traveling throughout Japan and locking doors shut.
However, as soon as the door is opened, the enigmatic white cat with the nickname "AristoCat" appears in front of them. "I love Suzume, but you [Souta] are in the way," it said, and as soon as it said those words, Souta transformed into Suzume's childhood chair, which she has treasured ever since she was a child.
As Souta follows the cat posing as a chair with three legs, Suzume chases after him in a panic. On their mission to close doors, they eventually set off on a journey together that will take them from Kyushu through Shikoku, Kansai, and ultimately Tokyo.
During her travels, Suzume meets a number of people who assist her in the same way that she assists them. But when she finally reached the end of her journey, she was confronted with a particular reality that had been ignored for a very long time.