[TRIGGER WARNING - sexual ass*ult mentioned] --- i really appreciated all the movie references they had; i picked up on two (besides the glaringly obvious ones like tarzan) - there was tinker bell, then there was the shining, my bf noticed that the news anchors diving off of the buildings reminded him of something but he doesn't know what.

i don't know why but the scene where paprika was lying on the table with her hands pinned down with... pins, it reminded me of silence of the lambs, but i will need to rewatch that too to confirm. the sexual ass*ult scene made me very uncomfortable though; i completely recoiled from the screen and had to watch it from far away in my bed. i don't understand osanai's significance to the story aside from being a vessel/puppet to the chief, so it was very jarring to see what he did to paprika.

i also didn't understand why atsuko got married to tokita at the end; i didn't pick up on any romance tones between the two of them. i even almost hated tokita's character because he kind of jumpstarted the whole second half of the movie after he remade the DC Mini despite atsuko telling him to do something else to help. atsuko was also making a lot of comments about his weight, but i guess it was just banter between the two of them; i still didn't think it was romantic to say things like that, more like jest between co-workers. but maybe i just missed something subtle.

despite everything, all the muddiness in the story or the nudity of what looked like a teen (??), the animation was very fluid and detailed, and a few of the sequences creeped me the fuck out or made me shudder. i wonder how kon came up with all the different, diverse dream components. did he have weird dreams ? was it a collaborative dream effort between all the animators, where they contributed an element they remembered from their dreams ? the whole movie felt so surreal.

it was hard for me to watch the movie with subtitles just because of the sheer amount of things happening on screen, as well as the dialogue sometimes translating to nonsense. if i'll ever rewatch this, i'll rewatch it in dubbed so i can pay attention to the movie more. i just hope things won't get lost in translation on the second watch.

[TRIGGER WARNING - suic*de mentioned] --- one of the main character's (lyra) co-workers (aileen) took her own life because she was either cursed by one of the videos she had to moderate, or she couldn't handle the mental stress that the videos and content caused her. she was a relatively new worker too, so it's understandable why she couldn't get acclimated to the content.

the second time i watched the movie with my boyfriend, i was able to pick up on some subtleties that i didn't pick up the first time. i understood lyra's character more; she was traumatized at a young age because of her father, and that resulted in her becoming desensitized as an adult. this memory explains why she was able to work as a content moderator for at least a year without breaking or taking a break. i liked how this worked against lyra towards the end.

in the end, when it was revealed that lyra wasn't saved from the building, and instead was cursed to watch the same video that her co-worker watched, it made sense to me. while lyra was being "interviewed," she reiterated that she saw the people in those videos as "just data." aileen, the entity haunting lyra, wasn't satisfied with this answer. aileen knew that lyra stood by as she was manipulated, drugged and assaulted by their boss. aileen couldn't let lyra continue to live without the guilt; she had to show lyra that the people in those videos were real, and that the "data" can be someone she knows, but lyra refused to accept that.

to my understanding, aileen wanted lyra to show sympathy after she showed her two videos, but lyra didn't learn. i don't blame lyra for not being able to learn sympathy immediately, but she did get close with aileen while she was still working. lyra was almost like a mentor to aileen, but the both of them had a different outlook on people.

there was a moment in the movie that foreshadowed the ending. when lyra and aileen were talking on the rooftop, lyra took a picture of her, but deleted it because it was blurry.

all in all, i enjoyed how this movie was written, and how difficult it can be to navigate relationships as an adult, while also dealing with your own past and career.

i thought the movie was a metaphor for trauma: how suzume blocked out all her memories of the tsunami; how she used the door as an escape, how she held onto the chair and the memories it held of her mom/her home. i think the earthquakes reminded suzume of her past, and they unearthed something from the back of her head. i also noticed all of the ordinary people (people going to work, school kids, construction workers) ignored the worms or couldn't see it until it was almost too late. they ignored the earthquake sirens and returned back to normal. my sister found out the same night that the earthquake and tsunami that destroyed suzume's home was inspired by the tsunami that caused the fukushima nuclear disaster. there were hints in the movie but i didn't put it together. it adds a whole new lens to the movie.

a few of my problems lie in the fact that souta barely has a backstory, so there isn't much there to support his decisions/mannerisms. also, why make him a chair other than a funny gag ? i heard from my sister that we could've gotten a lesbian romance, but they had to censor that. maybe a girl from her hometown dredging up old memories could work better. there's a lot of cultural implications that i (as an american/non-japanese) can't understand. such as, why are people so supportive of a 16 year old running away ? at least she was texting and calling her aunt while she was running away. suzume worked at a bar while she was underage, which is questionable; i didn't realize it until my sister pointed it out.

lastly, i had a theory about daijin being suzume's mother because of what the cat said (ie. [to souta] "you're in the way." [to suzume] "don't you love me ?"). there's some evidence there but isn't explicitly proven by the movie. also what kind of gods are the cats ? what are their powers ? bc the aunt got possessed by one of them, and they were powerful enough to turn souta into a chair/keystone.