Why is there a MONSTER in "IN THIS CORNER OF THE WORLD"?

In this corner of the world is a heart-wrenching movie about a girl named Suzu and her relatives living in Japan before and during the Second World War. It's a very warm and touching story that I would highly recommend to anyone. It is also widely acclaimed among YouTube reviewers. I wasn't going to make a symbolic interpretation of it since it's not that densely packed with interesting symbolism, but I watched this guy's review and how confused he and his audience were about one particular scene from the beginning of the movie and I decided that I could try interpreting just that single moment because I had to go and rewind the movie more than once just to figure out what was happening. One character in particular seems completely out of place which is especially unfortunate considering it's one of the first major events of the movie. When Suzu is still young she gets lost trying to bring an order to a store for her family. She finds a strangely cloaked man who offers to help her find her way by taking her inside his basket. It turns out that this friendly man is actually a monster and a kidnapper with another boy already inside the basket. This troll-like monster really doesn't fit into the story all that well as there's no other fantastical creatures in this movie. Plus the film is supposed to be gritty and realistic so having such a creature really misrepresents the rest of the film and is completely out of place. Mind you that the action takes place in Hiroshima in the 30s. Okay so we have a strange guy that doesn't seem to fit the story in any way and this monster carries children across a bridge. Could it possibly be Saint Christopher? Let's hear what Jonathan says about him. In the Greek tradition the icon of Saint Christopher was actually placed above the exit door of the church so that it would be the last thing you saw going out into the world. And in the west Saint Christopher was placed on bridges where he would represent the uneasy space of the transition in between space. I think Saint Christopher is crucially important to understand right now. Basically I think that Saint Christopher is the patron saint of the end of the world. Well these characters were certainly facing an end of the world. I think we could safely say they were facing the biggest end of the world we have had so far. But what was the meaning of this monster and that scene there? Let's listen to Jonathan again. So the hermit says that Saint Christopher should stand next to the river and cross those who need to cross on his shoulders. I want you to notice how profound the story becomes here. We often think of the ark built by Noah as a holy thing. In a certain way it is. We often imagine the nave or even the whole church as a holy thing and in many ways it is. But in another very very important way the ark is a boat full of beasts and the church is a hospital full of the sick. So Saint Christopher stands on the edge of the world. He stands on the bank of the flood. When the Logos to Christ Emmanuel who is the Logos implicit the seed of God in all things comes to the edge. Well it is the monster like an ark who can carry him across. So how did the monster carry those two children across the bridge over the flood that end of the world to the other side? What is that? A monster. Huh that's what he told me. Major spoiler warning here. Then I fell into his basket and met an older boy. The guy is a kidnapper and we're being kidnapped right now. This basket is the first time Suzu meets her future husband Shusaku and where he falls in love with her. This gets them both safely to the other side of the flood as a few years later they get married and that marriage, that love is the ark that lets them stay strong and survive the horrors they were about to experience. Marrying Shusaku not only removes Suzu from Hiroshima the blast area but also lets her endure the loss of everything she had before. Suzu this is the bridge where I first met you. That is why the scene with the monster at the beginning is not out of place but is rather the key to interpreting the whole story and it all happened at the edge or in the corner of the world. Shusaku thank you. Thank you for coming to find me in this corner of the world.