My Impressions of The Boy and the Beast

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I recently watched The Boy and the Beast. I don't think I can go into too much of the details to make it a full review of the movie, but here are my thoughts on the Japanese animated film.

To start off, this was directed by Mamoru Hosoda. In the last 1-2 years, I watched his recent two films, Summer Wars and Wolf Children. It may seem to be a bit late as they were released in 2009 and 2012 respectively. I still haven't watched an earlier film released in 2006, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Without giving away any spoilers, the story of The Boy and the Beast is about a young boy called Ren, who lost his mom to an accident and abandoned by his dad, runs away from home and follows an unknown swordsman to an alternate dimension. This unknown swordsman, Kumatetsu spontaneously decides to call Ren (who he later renames to Kyuta) his apprentice. This is a big deal as the alternate dimension where Ren ends up is the world of the beast. He is the first human apprentice. That's the basic gist of it without giving away too much of the other plot details. It's kind of like a coming of age story following Ren from childhood to around 17 years old.

The animation for the film was done well, and it had a lot of colour and expression. I like the animation style due to the director's previous films. Another animation studio that I really like is from Studio Ghibli. It's interesting to see different styles from different directors, and the kind of story that they tell. The music match each scene, and didn't compete with the dialogue. One thing I don't like in films is when the soundtrack overpowers the scene. I like the world building for the beast world, and how it is connected to the human world. Kumatetsu looks like a free character, but he can be tough and scary like what we think of a beast.

Overall, I enjoyed the film and am looking forward to the director's next work. 

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