Suzume's ending revolves around a subtle nod to Studio Ghibli

Fans of anime writer-director Matoko Shinkai may notice occasional references to the Studio Ghibli films in his latest work – and they’re very intentional. But these references aren’t just homages to Japan’s most famous animation studio: they serve a very specific purpose.

Unlike Shinkai’s previous two films your name And weathering with you, his latest, suzume focuses on the impact of a real disaster: the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. These films’ little references to Studio Ghibli—cultural touchpoints viewers are likely to recognize—specifically root the world of suzume closer to our reality before the film’s connections to the 2011 disaster are fully revealed.

One of suzume‘s Ghibli nod is evident – someone on social media spotted Daijin, the trapeze cat riding alone on a train, and compared the picture to it whisper of the heart. Another is more subtle: Serizawa, a friend of the chair-turned-human Sōta, drives the protagonist Suzume and her aunt Tamaki to their final destination during gameplay Rouge no Dengon

out of kiki’s delivery service on his cell phone. But the film’s best Ghibli nod is the subtlest. In fact, it really might not even May be a complete reference – and yet it resonates so much more when you read it as one.

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

Suzume, a young girl with long dark hair in a ponytail, looks surprised

Throughout the film, coincidental companions Suzume and Sōta travel across Japan to close magical gates. It’s not too much of a leap to compare these portals to the magical target-switching gateway seen in Hayao Miyazakis Howl’s Moving Castle. This feels especially true when Suzume first steps through one of these doors and sees a lush meadow full of wildflowers – a landscape that could easily fit next to the gorgeous field Howl shows Sophie in Miyazaki’s film.

Viewers learn that this is a doorway to the afterlife, and the reason Suzume can see it through the doorway is because she kind of wandered into the realm when she was a little girl. Flashbacks reveal that Suzume actually entered a mysterious door as a child and was greeted by a figure she assumed was her dead mother. Afterwards, she found a chair she thought she had lost, the one that Sōta was eventually cursed to.

Suzume learns that if she is to rescue Sōta, she must return to the door she originally entered through, so she returns to the ruins of her hometown. This sequence is reminiscent of the climate scene in Howl’s Moving Castle, in which, after Howl’s castle is destroyed, Sophie finds his magic door resting on some rocks among the ruins. Sophie opens this door and stumbles into Howl’s childhood and a past version of the meadow he showed her, and then watches as he meets his fire demon Calcifer and makes the deal that costs Howl his heart.

As the scene begins to fade, Sophie calls out to Howl, “Find me in the future!” and Howl and Calcifer both look her way. It is heavily implied that this is the reason Howl seeks her out later in his life and also the reason Sophie is ultimately able to save him.

Sophie, a young woman with silver hair wearing a blue Victorian dress stands in front of an old door. She presses a hand against it. In the background some ruins.

When Suzume enters her own magical door and finds herself in this meadow of wildflowers, it feels like an echo of Miyazaki’s film. Suzume enters the afterlife to save Sōta just like Sophie entered the past to save Howl. Of course, suzume offers more Giant Earthquake Worm fights, just enough that the immediate comparison pales. But after Suzume saves Sōta – and regains her own will to live in the process – she looks out over the field of wildflowers and notices a small figure in the distance. yourself, as a child.

In Howl’s Moving Castle, the return to the past connects the two protagonists of the film and interweaves the beginnings of their two stories. But suzume is not the same kind of romance film as Howl’s Moving Castle. It focuses on Suzume’s growth, her journey from apathy and self-destruction to someone who actually wants to live. Though she steps through the door to save Sōta, she is actually saving herself. Looking back on the past and seeing the younger, despondent version of herself, she tells the crying little girl that everything will be fine. It ties their story together perfectly and brings the ending back to the beginning – just like Miyazaki’s film does in its own way.

suzume is now in cinemas.