Anime about a Teenage Girl, a Human Chair and a Talking Cat. Great Fun!

Is this Makoto Shinkai's greatest film yet ? Probably, but for certain it is his
most spectacular visually, just mindblowing and the film has become a huge
success (in Asia at least, in South Korea it was Top 3 at the Box office).
Shinkai directed, wrote the story and the script and made the storyboards.

Suzume is epic with it's ambitions, with it's 2 hour 2 minutes playtime, visuals
and slick soundtrack (with many a J Pop star?) and with it's inclusion of a
serious theme as Japanese earthquakes and the great Tsunami that hit Japan.
The film is exciting with the drama, action and delightful comedy even though
the second part has it's share of sentimental melodrama.

Shinkai can sometimes be a bit too syrupy and melodramatic for my taste,
and that's why i prefer i.a. Miyazaki's films. Not much melodrama there.
But, in Suzume the visual brilliance and the fun comedy elements still
makes the film a very entertaining watch.

Story:

Suzume Iwato is a 16-17 year old highschool girl who lives in a coastal
hilly provincial town. One day she meets college student Souta Munakata
she follows him to a door, a portal to The Ever-After and from where the
creatures, big worms happily flee to cause the many earthquakes that
plagues Japan. It's important to keep the door closed at any time, but
the Seal (looking like a Cat) has abandoned it's duties and run away.

Souta is human but he's also a "Closer" whose duty is to close open
portal doors around Japan. But the seal, the "Keystone" is needed for
this and Souta and Suzume start to chase the mischievous talking
cat, Daijia. The Cat curses Souta though, into a talking three legged
childrens chair (with also the ability to jump and run) and Suzume and
Souta the Chair chases Daijia almost all over Japan.

This was very funny and imaginative and the first part rocks.
Souta has all forgotten about school and her aunt Tamaki who
worries a lot over Suzume (whose mother died in a Tsunami).
Tamaki is driven around searching for Suzume by a colleague of
hers, a man that's enamoured with her.
But that storyline fizzles out and goes nowhere.

Film in widescreen, japanese audio DTS-HD MA 5.1 with english
subtitles. Region all. BD-R
Extra: TV Spots and Trailers, trailers for other anime films