The Boy and the Beast (2015)

The Boy and the Beast (2015)

 

6/10

Starring the voices of

Eric Vale

John Swasey

Bryn Apprill

 

Directed by Mamoru Hosoda

 

The anime The Boy and the Beast is predictable, and it is still an easy-going anime anyone can sit down and enjoy. I liked the voice casting, and I enjoyed the dub more than the sub, and the animation is not setting any groundbreaking thing.

It follows a runaway young boy named Ren who gets pulled into a world of beasts and lands as the reluctant student of Kumatetsu, a lonely, undisciplined warrior nobody else wants to follow.

In the Beast Kingdom, the grandmaster has decided he will retire in order to reincarnate as a deity and names two potential successors, Lōzen who is popular with many disciples and Kumatetsu, who is lonely, brash and has nobody wanting to study under him. The Grandmaster suggests that Kumatetsu find a disciple, believing that this will bring out a side of Kumatetsu that will make it easy for him to succeed.

So one day, while wandering the streets of Tokyo with his friend he meets Ren and suggests that the boy becomes his disciple.

Kumatetsu asked for his name, but head strong Ren refused to share his name and so he called him Kyuta. Now, neither of them can teach or be taught and that's the whole film.

A master who can't explain what he does and a kid who won't listen, and as you would expect in films like this, they both find a way to make it work. The training, the fights, the two of them screaming at each other in the street. It all followed a familiar beat but that ending, it was like a stab in the back for all that was building towards it.

Ichirohiko is the film's real tragedy, a human raised his whole life believing he's a beast, then there is this darkness in humans which then takes over him.

But where was this darkness brewing from?

Well the movie gave glimpse, but none of the glimpse made his character transformation sink in.

His character needed more screen time instead of being pushed to the side. Now we know the focus is Kyuta and Kumatetsu, but then why resolve their arc in Ichirohiko's.

And then there's Moby Dick reference, as in it just did not fit.

You see, Kyuta reads the book on screen, and when Ichirohiko turns we see a whale like darkness.

The film hands you the metaphor of something, does not explain it, then it just leaves it there. A giant whale explodes out of the pavement in the final act, and it looks incredible, and I still don't know why it mattered.

And it is not because the film trusted me to work it out. Because it never finished the thought it started.
Look, it is an ok watch, but it is no must see.