Review: The Boy and The Beast

I have experienced my first non-Ghibli anime experience in theaters, and it was pretty darn great. Much like the adventure of Chihiro into the spirit world in Spirited Away, in Mamoru Hosoda's The Boy and the Beast, we find our protagonist Ren traveling a magical pathway between two worlds.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

Coming from a world much like our own, modern with Starbucks, streetlights, and even the famous Shibuya crossroads, Ren runs away from a troubled past into a narrow alley maze leading him into the world of the beasts. Shortly after arriving some of the more vicious beasts threaten to kill him, and he is reluctantly recruited to be the apprentice to our bear-like difficult hero Kimatetsu, who calls Ren "Kyuta" playing off the Japanese word for his age (9).

The two being very difficult, constantly bicker at each other, and Ren, constantly failing to live to Kumatetsu's expectations while training, finds out that his only way to learn from Kumatetsu is to mimic his moves while he's not looking. Hosoda's tale moves on to show a quick growth between Ren and Kumatetsu on both sides, where Ren grows to be a respectable fighter in the Beast world, and Kumatetsu becomes a trainer that pupils want to follow.

At age 17, Ren accidentally finds his way back to the entrance into the human world, where he finds a library, and struggles to read the words in the novel Moby-Dick. Kaede, a Kind young schoolgirl helps tutor him, causing Ren to grow fond of the human world that he left, and try to reconnect with what he left when he was young. Troubles from the beast world flow into the human world while our story moves forward, and Ren struggles to protect both of his worlds and his friends in them.

This movie was very slow to start, like most anime movies, lots of dialogue, but necessary to connect you to the characters and make you care for their every action. As the movie plays you really feel the growth of every character, making you cheer for them and hope to see for more of each character's life. The strength of this movie clearly lies on the character's and the drama that all comes up on the end.

Overall, the movie was a feast for the eyes, it had amazing cinematography, and the story was memorable with an ending that makes your heart tremble. The slow start really affected my overall feeling of the movie, but in the end, I was happy I saw it.