Bakemono no Ko

Hosoda is here again with another modern tale, expanding the themes from his last movie about coexisting with another species. At first glance, the movie feels like his 2006 feature The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in terms of atmosphere. They both start with a chill slice of life feeling that gains weight as it progresses. The difference is that TGWLTT is more likeable, whereas The Boy And The Beast takes a good 20 minute for you to get invested with the world and characters here presented.

The beast world is portrayed as a rustic place that still resembles bustling modern day cities, with ... people walking around conducting the businesses giving you the impression that former is not unsophisticated, but simply culturally different than the boy’s hometown Shibuya. That’d be perfect, but things are not as simple. There’s also more supernatural elements involved that I’ll talk about more later.

The cinematography is sweet. Vivid but not unnecessarily colorful. It’s satisfying but not awfully memorable. The soundtrack is well balanced, capturing the busy and frenetic environment while still managing to sound somewhat relaxing. The directing is a pro, filled with Mamoru’s trademarks lateral shots and some clichéd montages that still manages to be creative and exciting. The animation is also great, keeping up with the quality well-established in his previous film. The action sequences are fast without being exaggerated and the choreography reminds me of older Jackie Chan’s movies, although less comical.

The movie focus a lot on relationships. The main one between Kyuta and Komatetsu being by far the best. Wolf Children (I can’t help but compare these movies since they share a lot of similarities) was also about motherhood, TBATB is also about growing up and the way these two characters learn to become better together is the most entertaining thing the movie has to offer. There are also side stories involving other human characters. One of them exists simply for plot conveniences that could be cut out from the movie while another is more believable, creating a more stable bound to the human world for Kyuta enhancing the duality dilemma he suffers from. However, the most problematic one is hard to explain without spoiling, so I’ll try my best. Let’s say there’s a key plot event that takes place in the second half of the movie that could’ve been improved a lot if a certain rivalry was better established. It comes out of nowhere and harms the movie so badly that it becomes hard to actually care about it. That was actually worsen by the fact that everything that comes after it plays out so conveniently and predictably. The supernatural excess doesn’t help either. The movie is way more fantastical than it should’ve been in my opinion. There’s an specific element that feels out of place, making the movie’s flaws even harder to ignore. To put it simply, the third act is not good, it’s just messy. Oh yeah, I also think the tone of the movie could be more consistent, but maybe that’s just a nitpick.

The reason why I keep comparing The Boy And the Beast with Wolf Children so much is because if feels like a big step back for Hosoda. He was known for not knowing how to finish a film, (as obviously seen in The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) and WC was his only film that was satisfying in its entirety. The fact that TBATB have such a problematic third act is disappointing to say the least. I apologize again for turning this review into a filmography analysis, but it was an easy way to illustrate my point.

With all that said, if you are curious about the movie, go watch it. It’s not that bad if you don’t compare to Hosoda's previous efforts. It is charming and entertaining on its own way and it has several qualities too good to be ignored, just don’t go in expecting to watch an animated masterpiece.

Three years after Wolf Children, Hosoda comes back with a new epic featuring more drama based around the animal side of man: unfortunately, it's not as good as any of his past work, not because of the stagnant themes but for the sheer mediocrity of it.
MADHOUSE has had their own problems in the last years because of budget and staff cuts, however none of them compare to what has been going on in the writing and directing department.
The pacing problems found within Summer Wars make an unexpected comeback, between the uninteresting, CGI-ridden visuals, rotoscopied backgrounds and lame characters that are trying way too hard to ... copy that Miyazaki feel.
Boredom aside, the soundtrack and mastering are great.

I'm now glad I forgot to see it at the cinema when it was showing.

Wasted potential. This film attempts to be both a fantastical set-piece and a grounded view on fatherhood and family and in trying to do both in the way that it did - manages to fall short at both. For every fun, exciting moment the film has in the fantasy world, it has another scene that either bores or dulls the prior experience. It's not Impossible to make a fantasy movie with a down-to-earth story. This just happens to fail at making either side very engaging.

I blame the director for choosing to go about this the way that he did. the first quarter of the film ... is actually pretty great - energy and emotion is rather high - some mystery is set up and an early fight scene sets the pace for the movie, the visuals are also always consistently amazing - - sadly, the second quarter drastically slows down, which would be fine, but then the third and even a majority of the fourth quarter never picks up again, and it leaves the viewer in an awkward, disengaging pace throughout what should be a very stimulating concept.

It's a shame because there are moments where it really should have picked up again, but the moment is always far too brief - there are two fight scenes in this two hour film, all together they last maybe 3 minutes? This isn't including the climax of the film, which awkwardly trips to its ending through a couple of scenes - again, something cool will happen only for it to last 20 seconds, then the main character will run into a train station and start a disengaging dump of dialogue, mere moments before we're supposed to be building up the growing tensions of the climax of this film.
.. frustrating
The final climactic moment of this film sets itself up for 3 or so minutes, only for the actual conflict to literally be completed with one swipe of a sword. All this build-up, both emotionally and pacing-wise never really pays off.

One of the biggest problems I have with this anime is how it brings nothing special to the table. Everything is generic, cliche, has been done before. The generic story of a boy that meets an older role model and grows up to be just like him, or the "they're so alike and that's why they'll grow up close but they'll never tell each other that."

The anime is about a boy, homeless, and eventually a mysterious individual asks him to follow. This mysterious individual was clearly not human and thus suddenly it's okay to follow the individual which lead him to a new world ... full of "beasts" which consists of what may come off as furry fandom stuff to some. The boy stays here since he has a home in spite not getting along with the individual that insists he acknowledges he is his master.

The new world gives the boy shit because humans are not exactly welcome in this world... in spite hinting very early on there is another human in this world that seems quite popular. The beasts bully the main character and the main character doesn't like that. The other human breaks up the fight, this feminine looking girl that seems to have good intentions kinda.

Eventually, the boy becomes interested in being a strong sword fighter, because why not. This helps the role model character who is a good sword fighter get better as well allowing him to eventually beat his rival in battle. This upsets the other human because he, which surprised me and my friend he was indeed a he this whole time, considers the beast his father and it's not okay his father ever loses a battle because that's weak and stuff. He attempts to kill the main character's role model and that upsets the main character, so they get in a battle.

Eventually, the main character wins the battle... the end.

This is pretty much the movie. Some unimportant stuff was left out, like the part he finds his real father who claims was looking for him all this time in spite never once going to the police (he even says that! What!?). He also meets a love interest, because we gotta have that even if it adds nothing to the story other than inconvenience to the main character when he fights (she barely new the guy and suddenly she is willing to die with him!?).

It's worth a watch I guess, but damn I feel there is a lot better stuff to watch instead.

I have seen the movie a couple of times and each time I had the same reaction. The first half is very strong, fun, and entertaining. However, somewhere around the middle the movie starts to lose momentum and become less interesting. Maybe it is the predictability. Maybe it is the almost unnecessary boss fight. Maybe it is the constant allusions to Moby Dick. idk

The animation is great. Training and the combat scenes have so much kinetic energy and impact that that alone will be a reason to recommend.

Either way, I am sure I will watch the movie again at some point when I forget the ... negative aspect. I will think, "Why didnt I like this?.....oh right"

The first half of this movie was great, unfortunately the other half is just plain meh

Story 5 | Art 8 | Sound 7 | Character 6 | Enjoyment 6 | Overall: 6.4

Story
So bakemono no ko starts really strong, the introduction of Ren who felt like he was abandoned, how he feels lonely, and somehow discovers a beast that would take him to a magical world as an apprentice, they both have their flaws Ren being a brat and Kumatetsu being overconfident about its strength. In just one hour they show us ... true father/son bonding along with enough development to carry the second part of the movie but something happened...

Unfortunately the other hour of the movie show us nothing, 0 character/plot development, What is a villain? What is development? how to end a movie? awful, everything was just bad, Unnecessary cliche elements(the girl and the unseen dad) took half an hour of the second part of the movie, that could been used for the villain development or for any other possible ending.

Art
Appealing artstyle, good fighting scenes, every background was perfect. Best feature of this movie

Sound
Voice characters were great in this one without taking in consideration grown up Ren, the ost was just good.

Character
Kyuuta and Kumatetsu were great characters, so likable even at the beginning when they didn't have their development, just relatable and not cliche at all, we got to see them grown together and really portrayed the father/son relationship that I'd never seen in anime.

The supporting cast was ok with little interaction the monkey and the pig character were likable and helped understand us a little bit more about the main characters.

The "girlfriend" "dad" "villian" and every other character that appear were bad, no development, no real reason to be there, didn't give us anything relevant to the story/character development just trash

Overall
As I stated before this could have been better, really disappointed about this movie, I know they didn't have the budget to gave us a longer movie and need to rush some stuff, but they just could have rid of the things that were unnecessary, and came up with something good.

A heartwarming tale about a young runaway raised by three gay dads who discovers his heterosexuality and unlocks his true potential.

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Yeah, like, I'm a huge fan of Hosoda-- Girl Who Leapt Through Time is one of my all-time favorite movies and Wolf Children is great too-- but this one's really poorly written and the constant furry homoeroticism really started to get on my nerves after a while. It's a perfectly fine adventure movie, but there really isn't any substance behind it like with Hosoda's other films.

Geez, that final battle was pretty bad though. The animation is consistently very good, but you gotta have more ... than good animation when you're thinking about an action scene, and completely blowing the suspension of disbelief is not the way to do it. What the heck was that thing?