With the release of Suzume No Tojimari just around the corner, Makoto Shinkai fans in India are on a hype train this month for reasons more than one.

The first one obviously being the release of one of the most anticipated anime film by Makoto Shinkai in April, and the other being the legendary director gracing the fans with his presence along with the rest of the film’s team.

It was revealed by PVR Pictures that Makoto Shinkai will be visiting Mumbai for 2 days for the promotion of the film along with a few events for the fans on April 19-20, 2023.

A special autograph session will be held on April 19 and a screening at PVR Andheri followed by Q&A with him on April 20.

The news about his visit to India was first broken casually by Shinkai on his official Twitter account on April 6, 2023, in reply to the postponement of his Twitter spaces, stating that he will be visiting Thailand and India starting next week with the film’s team.

“I am relieved to be back in Japan, but I have caught a mild cold. It’s nothing serious, but since I will be visiting Thailand and India with the Suzume team from next week, I have to postpone SPACES just in case.
I was also looking forward to delivering it for the first time in a while, but… sorry about that! I will do it again soon!“

This is not the first time Shinkai is visiting India. He had come during the premiere of Weathering With You anime film in 2019.

Makoto Shinkai, is a Japanese animator, filmmaker, author, and manga artist.

Shinkai began his career as a video game animator with Nihon Falcom in 1996, and gained recognition as a filmmaker with the release of the original video animation (OVA) She and Her Cat (1999).

Beginning his longstanding association with CoMix Wave Films, Shinkai then released the science-fiction OVA Voices of a Distant Star in 2002, and followed this with his debut feature film The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004).

Shinkai’s second feature film, the romantic drama anthology 5 Centimeters per Second (2007), gained critical acclaim, as did his subsequent releases, the dramas Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011) and The Garden of Words (2013).

Shinkai’s 2016 fantasy romance Your Name was a critical and commercial success, becoming the third highest-grossing anime film of all time.

Suzume No Tojimari is his seventh feature film, and it released in Japan on Nov 11, 2022.

It will release in India on April 21, 2023.

Shinkai directed and wrote the screenplay for Suzume no Tojimari. He’s also the author of the original story.

Other staff members of the movie include:

• Character design: Masayoshi Tanaka
• Animation director: Kenichi Tsuchiya
• Art director: Takumi Tanji
• Studio: CoMix Wave Film
• Production producer: STORY inc.
• Distribution: Toho Animation

Nanoha Hara is voicing the titular character Suzume in the movie and Hokuto Matsumura will voice the other main character Souta Munakata.

Other cast of the film includes:

• Eri Fukatsu as Tamaki Iwato, Suzume’s aunt
• Matsumoto Hakuō II as Hitsujirō Munakata, Sota’s grandfather
• Shōta Sometani as Minoru Okabe, Tamaki’s colleague
• Sairi Itō as Rumi Ninomiya, Single mother raising twins, who Suzume encounters in Kobe
• Kotone Hanase as Chika Amabe, a lively girl of the same age as Suzume, whom she meets in Ehime
• Kana Hanazawa as Tsubame Iwato, Suzume’s mother
• Ryunosuke Kamiki as Tomoya Serizawa, a friend of Souta

RADWIMPS and Kazuma Jinnouchi composed the music for film, with Tik tok famed Toaka performing the theme song, “Suzume”.

Suzume No Tojimari film’s soundtrack comprises of two theme songs, “Kanata Haruka” and “Suzume,” twenty five additional songs and a brand new song created during the film’s production by Yojiro Noda, called “Tamaki”. RADWIMPS also released the official music video for KANATA HALUKA.

The officially announced story of Suzume no Tojimari is described as:

Suzume is a 17-year-old, who lives in a quiet town in Kyushu. One day, she meets a traveling young man who is looking for a “door.” Suzume decides to follow him and discovers an old door in the ruins in the mountains. As if drawn by something, Suzume reaches out for the door… What follows is Suzume’s liberation and growth as she closes the “doors” that cause misfortune in abandoned places around Japan.

Source: Press Release