This March marked the 12th anniversary of one of Japan’s most destructive earthquakes. A 9.1-magnitude tremor, the strongest in that country’s history, struck off the north-east coast of Honshu, causing a deadly tsunami and killing an estimated 15,500 people. ‘I would say the 2011 earthquake changed Japanese society profoundly,’ says filmmaker and animator Makoto Shinkai, when we meet in Berlin’s Adlon Hotel. ‘It changed my mindset and changed the way I directed my movies.’

Since then, Shinkai’s breakthrough films Your Name (2016) and Weathering With You (2019) have touched on ecological topics, while his latest effort Suzume deals directly with a world rocked by natural disasters. The film, which has already become a huge hit in Japan, follows the titular 17-year-old girl (voiced by Nanoka Hara) who lost her mother in the 2011 earthquake. One day, she meets Souta who is on a mission to close off portals across Japan that are letting in evil spirits which manifest in the form of cloud-like crimson bursts of energy.

What follows is a beguiling mix of magical realism, adolescent fantasy and sobering reflection on ecological catastrophe. Above all, Suzume is a road movie that begins as this spirited young girl seeks her identity after literally being uprooted from her home. ‘Like many people at that time, she moved from the eastern part of Japan to the western part of Japan,’ says Shinkai. ‘So now she lives in Kyushu. And she starts this journey to find her roots, starting in the west and going all the way to the east.’

Given a 5.6-magnitude tremor struck Kyushu last November (not to mention the earthquake that devastated Turkey and Syria recently), the film feels uncanny in its timing. In truth, Shinkai has created a testament to Japanese resilience.

‘The cities that Suzume visits were all struck by some kind of a natural disaster,’ explains Shinkai. Among them was an earthquake that wrecked the city of Kōbe in 1995. ‘It was completely restored afterwards; it has recovered with people back there and able to live a normal life.’

Shinkai, who started his career as a video-game animator, knows that Suzume still needs to entertain. Hence its surreal digressions, including a mischievous talking cat who manages to turn Souta into a three-legged stool. The director makes no apologies for trying to embrace younger audiences.

‘If you’re young, you need your school friends or family but you also need something else that holds you together, that supports you emotionally. That may be animation. It had a great meaning for me when I was young. I gained so much through animation.’

Suzume is in cinemas from Friday 14 April.