The Boy and the Beast (movie recommendation)

 

This post is part of 52 anime challange - I'll be recommending one anime/manga per week that I've recently watched. I won't be writing about stuff that I've watched long time ago and that I don't fully remember.
Also, check out my video about Hosoda's style.

 

This Hosoda's movie stands in contrast to Wolf Children. This time, we’re presented with a story about a father full of flaws, who despite his own problems is able to raise a foster son and a student. Interesting and exciting cinema in terms of action, accessible to almost the whole family and people completely uninterested in Far East animation. On the other hand, the shallow characters and the poorly written story are a little annoying, but you’ll notice them only after a deeper analysis.

Description (no opinion):

After the death of his mother, 9-year-old Ren is left alone because his father has no parental rights, so he has to move in with his other relatives. Unable to accept his fate, the boy runs away from home. Sitting alone in Shibuya, he meets a mysterious person in a hood who offers him to be his apprentice.
Ren follows him - and in no time, he finds himself in another world filled with anthropomorphic beasts with animal features. The hooded man (Kumatetsu) becomes his master and takes him into his house to train him in the ways of the sword.

Three Great Fights and Follies Between Part 1:

Time passes very quickly and pleasantly while watching this movie, it extremely rarely gets tiring or boring, although it undoubtedly does happen. This is due to the specific structure of the work, which is somewhat similar to Summer Wars, but I would compare it rather to mainstream action cinema.

The film is structured in such a way that the fights take place around 20-30 minutes, 1h 15min - 1h 25min, 1h 35min - 1h 45min. I know, I know - that’s a lot of information to start with, but it's important in terms of understanding why the film is good but it can’t rise above that. But let’s start from the beginning.

The Story of the Imperfect Father:

As I mentioned in the description - Ren gets “adopted” by his master, from now on he has to take care of the house in exchange for a roof over his head and food and the opportunity to learn how to fight. The similarities in the characters of the two quickly come to the surface. Both Kumatetsu and Ren are extremely stubborn, cocky, and relentless, which makes them difficult to get along with at first. Over time, however, these similarities begin to bring them closer together.

It is worth mentioning that Kumatetsu is by no means an altruistic character, at least at first. He takes on an apprentice, a human child, as this is one of the requirements to become the "Grandmaster" who seems to be running the city, though the world is never described in depth, so we can only guess that. To obtain this title, in a few years, when the old Grandmaster will be retiring, he must face his rival and win. Therefore, during this time, he must devote himself to training if he wants to achieve said title.

Where does Ren fit into all this? He is the missing piece in the heart of the beast - both have problems and vices, but together they are far stronger than anyone else. It's a shame that it is not explained - why and how their relationship works. Because all the viewer gets is two characters screaming at each other all the time, but somehow they like each other. One can infer that each of them was missing a similar hurt and lonely person. However, with this approach, a pleasant story about a (im)perfect father turns into a story about a dysfunctional relationship between a foster father and his son.

Man in a World of Beasts:

At one point we get a lazy timeskip - Ren is an adult, and Kumatetsu is getting stronger thanks to the support of his apprentice. But at one point, a 17-year-old young man accidentally returns to the world of humans. In the library, he meets a high school student, Kaede, who helps him with his studies and encourages him to go back to school.
From now on, he freely travels between the two worlds, fulfilling both his duties as a student and spending time studying together with Kaede.

After 8 years in the other world, Ren has no doubt that he belongs in the human world, though he has never tried to return to it before. Of course, there is conflict with his master and his real father, but at no point is there any doubt in his mind where he belongs. This isn't "Wolf Children" with teenagers having to choose a life path and following either human or wolf nature. This entire subplot is used only to push the story to a happy ending without much thought.

Three Great Fights and Follies Between Part 2:

And now I'm coming back to my main point and complaint about this movie - the beginning is interesting, the artwork is beautiful, great music plays in the background and 20 minutes flies by. Then we get a first fight (20:00 - 30:00), to make sure that the viewer doesn't get bored.

Then we spend time showing the master's house and how the characters don't get along. We can see unnecessary world-travel exposition that doesn’t influence characters or the plot. After that we have a montage again of how Ren begins his training (ACTION, ACTION, ACTION, because there has to be always something going on).

Back to the human world, fight (01:15:00 - 01:25:00), short break, fight (01:35:00 - 01:45:00) and a 5-minute ending. And that’s all.

Three Great Fights and Follies Between - Summary:

Putting it all together - "Bakemo no Ko" struggles to be anything more than movie aimed at mainstream audiences (I don't feel superior, I just think this Hosoda's work is trying to reach the largest audience possible), an action-packed story that fails to carry its own weight.
There wasn’t enough time for world exposition, or rather it was wasted to show other "grandmasters" instead of using this time for meaningful world building. Ren and Kumatetsu do not develop in any way. The change we see is "we argue, but we accept each other and we need each other," which can almost be described as a toxic relationship, despite the creators telling us it's not.
Ren is human from start to end, he wants to return to the human world, he has (almost) no doubts and the only thing keeping him in the beast world is Kumatetsu (as I said - toxic relationship).

Without thinking too much about this movie, you can have a lot of fun. There's action, there's fun, there's humor - everything is in its place, but after the credits roll there're no thoughts, emotions or desire to go back to this movie. It defends itself mainly with pretty visuals and well executed action scenes.

Art/Music:

Hosoda once again delivers high quality animations, even better than his previous movies. Though there is more emphasis on combat this time, lots of VFX/particles. Everything looks great and I cannot have any complaints.
In fact, I'd say visuals are one of the film's greatest strengths, and if it weren't for the brilliant execution of the technical site of the movie, the story and characters wouldn't be able to carry it.

Summary:

"Bakemono no Ko" is not a bad movie. Quite the opposite - it's a good movie, but very empty. It's a perfect movie to watch with friends, it’s full of action and exciting visuals. It's also a good film to watch together with a younger audience (to some extent). However, watching it carefully on your own, rather makes you think about the shortcomings in terms of characters and story.
In conclusion - watch it and don't think too much and you will really enjoy yourself.