mich2598's Blog

Anime Relations: Ryuu to Sobakasu no Hime

Loading Re-Entry & Splashdown - James Horner, Apollo 13: Music from the Motion Picture

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“Hello Kei this is Suzu. It’s good to see you again”

Belle is directed by Mamoru Hosoda and is in a nutshell, a modern version of Beauty and the Beast. It was released in July 2021 and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival where it received a 14-minute standing ovation. As of January 2022, both critics and audiences on rotten tomatoes rate it at 95%, so that must mean it’s brilliant.

In Belle, there is a virtual online platform called “U” which uses headphone-based biometrics to create your online avatar. The best way I can describe it is Its kind of a combination of TikTok, YouTube, Twitch, and VR video games.

Suzu is a shy high school teenager living in rural Shikoku, and within U, her avatar is Belle, a popular singer with millions of followers - even more than U’s equivalent of a female Phillip DeFranco. All is going well until one of her concerts is interrupted by a group - who may as well as be U’s equivalent of moderators - that is chasing a user called “the beast”, known for his martial arts skills, and very bad temper. As Belle, Suzu becomes intrigued by who he is and aims to find out his identity and why he is the way he is.

Now a bit of a disclaimer the only Mamoru Hosoda movies I have seen before Belle were The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars. Both movies were high concept stories headed by a teenage protagonist and Summer Wars in particular is partially set in an online world similar to U in Belle. So when I first heard of this movie on r/anime many months ago, my first thought was “oh no has Mamoru Hosoda made a WarGames remake again?! (Looking at you, Summer Wars)”. After that I never heard much from it again and so I pretty much avoided spoilers. And in the back of my mind I will probably never get to watch it on the big screen. But then one day in January in Canada, I did. And I loved……most of it.

Now we shall get into some spoilers. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

First off, the animation to depict U is outstanding. This is some of the best I have ever seen in any animated movie, rivaling Toy Story 4 if I dare say so myself. The way the avatars move about in U’s 3D environment gives you a sense of aura of the virtual world of U and it makes you want to know more about how U works. This kind of world-building is something Mamoru Hosoda has clearly improved upon from Summer Wars and it clearly shows. Avatars can fly, float, can communicate with other users in chat rooms (depicted as speech bubbles in a variety of languages), and some even have their own safehouses, guarded by AI programs. Whenever you see character avatars move in U, it’s as if the audience has been given wings to soar freely through the sky.

The real world though is where the animation goes from brilliant to just good enough. Makoto Shinkai set an incredibly high bar for depicting the landscape of rural Japan in 5 centimeters per second and Your Name, and so far it’s been hard to top, and Belle is no different here. Much of the backgrounds feel pretty standard fare even though they are based on real locations in Kochi Prefecture, Shikoku. The animations of the people are a bit better. The reactions of the characters, whilst they have that overtly anime execution, feel like they certainly reflect how people in real life would be feeling deep inside of themselves. And I think that’s what gives the characters in the real world some charm to them that we can identify. The movie does not simply tonally die whenever it goes back to the real world. I think this can be best demonstrated by a particularly funny scene in the train station where me and everybody else in the theater were struggling to bust out laughing because it’s definitely what you can expect if you .

The greatest strength of Belle is that it manages to depict Suzu and her struggles in a way that builds up her character as the movie progresses. The truth about her gloomy personality is never force-fed to you with spoken exposition but shown through flashbacks, each of which serves a purpose. So by the time Suzu sings as Belle, you are completely invested in Suzu as a character. You know why she sings in U, why her personality in the real world is awkward and gloomy, and by the time of the final climax, why her mother chose to save the child.

I should mention that apparently, Mamoru Hosoda really doesn’t want this movie to be labeled a musical. But let’s not kid ourselves, it kind of is a musical as the songs serve to progress the story and drive the plot. It is not just a character trait that gets left behind in the middle of the movie.

Throughout the movie, Belle is in conflict with Justin, the lead “moderator” of the beast hunting group, and has the ability to unveil someone from their avatar, which takes advantage of U’s biometric software. It destroys a user’s avatar (known as U as AS) to reveal one’s true bodily self as the avatar - the destruction of one’s own form to reveal what lies beneath. In real life, revealing your real self from behind the online persona you have built up so far to the wider world is often considered a big leap that's really only been done by YouTubers and streamers. And even then some don’t do it fully, only revealing themselves on camera but not giving their real names.

This is a recurring theme in Belle. Why would someone give up their own anonymity, especially to save the life of a stranger that they have never met? But in the end, it pays off for Suzu in that it comes full circle back to the day her mother chose to save the child. If no one is going to do it, then who will? That perhaps may be why Suzu is defined by her kindness, even to complete strangers who only know each other through a virtual internet world.

Many of the supporting characters, especially the other students, have their own well fleshed out personalities. You have the childhood friend crush Shinobu, the awkward athletic guy Kamishin, the popular girl Ruka, and the nerdy best friend/manager Hiro.

Hiro is (almost) always there to help out Suzu, whether it’s being her manager handling her user donations by sending them to charities anonymously or using her knowledge of U to search for the identity of the Beast. But when Suzu decides it is time to unveil herself as a last resort to find kei - the beast - within U, she becomes hesitant to help. Hiro is the true self insert character of the movie - by the transition into the third act they have come very far in identifying the beast, but why would she go along with destroying the online anonymity of her best friend, especially in that pinch of a moment where it could be Belle’s final concert, a last desperate attempt to reach out to Kei? Most YouTubers who reveal themselves on camera don’t even (initially) reveal their full names. And it takes a lot of courage to do so in the first place. I for one whenever I watch YouTube, its usually YouTubers who mostly reveal their true identities in small bits of a time spread out over a period of a few years at most, Chris Broad, creator of Abroad in Japan being the one of the few possible exceptions, along with 2 of the former hosts of DigitalRev, Kai Wong and Lok Cheung.

On paper, Shinobu is a Jack Nicholson type sardonic character mixed in with a touch of upper classman but not really. He’s good at basketball, and he’s rumored to be the most popular boy in the school. When they were young, Shinobu saved Suzu from bullies, and from then, Suzu has harbored a crush on him. Shinobu, however still looks out for Suzu all these years later because of he feels a need to comfort her after the loss of her mother. And in true to form of your average awkward high school relationship, Suzu takes his approaches to be romantic gestures that she inevitably has trouble responding to, often making up excuses on the fly of running away to get out of a potential conversation or to change the subject.

When it’s finally revealed in a live video call that the beast is in fact Kei, a troubled boy who is repeatedly abused by his father along with his younger brother, Suzu makes it her immediate mission in life to track them down and protect them. And here the hero’s journey reaches its final stage. Suzu dashes her way on trains and busses to a suburb in the outskirts of Tokyo, where Kei and his younger brother await. Finally seeing each other in their true selves, they embrace each other……except the abusive dad arrives to take the two brothers home from Suzu. Resisting his attempts and scratching her face in the process, Suzu finally turns to Kei’s father and stares at him right in the eye, unmoving and no longer afraid to face the dangers that may come before her. The father attempts to punch Suzu but finds himself repeatedly unwilling to do so, seemingly unable to go through with another act of child abuse, this time on someone who is a stranger to him. In the face of Suzy’s unwavering determination to not bow down or cower from any action he may do, he falls down and runs away. And with that, Kei thanks Suzu/Belle for freeing him and his brother from their unhappiness. She departs, and it seems like it’s over. But not really.

When she gets back to the town of Ino, her father and her friends are all waiting for her at the station, proud that she stood up and saved Kei. Suzu does not feel like a hero, but she is proud and more importantly, she is now completely confident to sing as Suzu and not as Belle.

And so with the sound of BelleSuzu, the curtain falls.

CONCLUSION

On paper, Belle is just another movie set in a virtual internet world. And once again, like Summer Wars, family is at the heart of the film in that it’s what defines both the protagonist and the antagonist. But Belle is more than that. It’s also not just a Beauty and the Beast remake. It is a public service announcement of the dangers of child abuse and bad parenting, and a lasting legacy of that may be.

I rate it a solid B+.

So all in all, I don’t think it’s Mamoru Hosoda’s best work since he has done better, but if there’s one thing to take away it’s that I need to get on with watching Mirai, Wolf Children, and The Boy and the Beast.

And now for a closing remark ripped straight from one of the greatest PlayStation 2 games ever made (thank you PCSX2).

Suzu Naitou, formerly known as Belle. That's right. This girl was once the most popular singer in U, and......the one who rescued the beast.

“I should have been crucified that day. But I wasn’t. I dragged Justin’s glove to me, and unveiled myself to the world on my own will. A barren, empty silence. I felt an unbearable sadness whenever I witnessed the beast. He was a person inside. He was the one who saved me.

It may be true that people have no need for their true selves. But would getting rid of them really change anything? The world won’t change for the better unless we trust people. Trust is vital in a peaceful world. But that will never happen. I’m still a girl in rural Japan. Right now, I’m with my dear friends. I want to see for myself what one’s own self really means and what its volition really is…I may not find what I’m looking for but I still wanna try.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve come to believe and I think that’s enough.

Will the beast see this video? If you do meet him, give him a message for me.

Yo, Buddy. Still alive?

And thanks friend, see you again.” - Larry "Pixy" Foulke Suzu Naitou

“Belle. A girl who soared through U, inspiring both optimism and admiration. Her presence filled the internet for all but a few short months before she disappeared. Apart from that, little else is known about her. I was never able to find out what kind of a person she really was. But whenever they talked about her, they always had a slight smile on their face.

That, perhaps, may be my answer.” - Brett Thompson

Anime Relations: Ansatsu Kyoushitsu 2nd Season

Season 2 Episode 15:

Some Preface:

Koro-Sensei told the story of the human memories he had hidden away in third-person, signifying that he no longer acknowledges his former life as being a part of him.

"The only truth he could ever rely on, even as a child, was that if you kill people, they die."

My god, it all makes sense now. The Reaper the class encountered was not the true Reaper. Koro-Sensei is the Reaper. I had my concerns when "Reaper 2.0" as I will call him, seemed so underwhelming in its formidability. The Reaper, having grown up in the slums, poor and out of options, began to kill for his own survival. Those who were knowledgeable, he killed them with strength. Those who were strong, he killed them with intelligence. He gained his name once his kill total exceeded 1000. At one point, he took on a pupil, but the latter betrayed him to the authorities, taking on the name of the former Reaper. That is the Reaper the class encountered early on in Season 2. For months, Dr. Yanigasawa subjected him to a variety of experiments, all intended to create anti-matter within life, with the human body acting as a particle accelerator for such changes. It is here that he met Aguri Yukimura, an assistant to Dr. Yanigasawa and the then-homeroom teacher of Class 3-E. Initially, intending to use her as a pawn in his escape, he becomes acquainted with Aguri, teaching her many subjects and she becomes a better teacher. Eventually, things came to a head about two weeks before the moon was partially destroyed into its current cresent form...


Season 2 Episode 16:

One year after his imprisonment, he receives his tie from Aguri, and she tells him that he would make a great teacher, succeeding where she had been failing. sometime after that, it is then revealed that the moon was destroyed not by The Reaper, but by an anti-matter rat in which it is revealed that Yanigasawa's tentacle serum is in fact unstable, and in the form as they subjected The Reaper to, he set is explode by March 13, coincidentally graduation day at Kunugigaoka Junior High. With that, The Reaper finally shows his greatly enhanced tentacle powers and destroys the facility, but not before Aguri, who survived the building's destruction pleads with him not to leave. As she does so, she is mortally wounded by a still functioning spear launcher trap.

As The Reaper wraps Aguriaround his hands, she compliments his tentacles, telling him as the foreshadowed scene in episode 2 once said, that he would make a great teacher to Class 3-E.

"I could have used that time to heal someone instead of killing those people"

Devastated by Aguri's death, The Reaper leaves, but not before taking the tie and leaving behind the note that Akari/Kaede would later find as he leaves.

Wanting to fulfill a new leaf and repent, he wishes to be weak and flawed, and the tentacles fully transform into Koro-Sensei. He decides to fulfill his promise to Aguri and becomes Kunugigaoka Junior High's Class 3-E homeroom teacher.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"When the tentacles asked him what he wanted to be he told them he wanted to be weak and able to be approached by others and see what it's like for people that are weak. Think about it: If you were a kid in middle school and you had the choice of a terrifying tentacle creature that feels little remorse or a squishy cartoon octopus that truly cares for you as a teacher which would you choose?"

- Casey Allison, KA


"Itona-"The Tentacles asked me what I wanted to be. I said I wanted to be strong"
Kayano-"The Tentacles asked me what I wanted to be. I said I wanted to be a killer"
Korosensei-"The Tentacles asked me what I wanted to be. I said I wanted to be weak"

Some things you may not have priced together: (the facts with * are important to remember)
-Aguri is the reason why Korosensei loves boobs
-Karasuma (and probably Bitch-sensei too) didn't know Korosensei's full story, just about the experiments
-Korosensei stitched the moon onto the tie*
-Korosensei knew they would feel weird which is probably why he drew jokes and pictures ect on the board to cheer them up
-March 12th is when the moon blew up and korosensei's birthday, March 13th is the day after.***"

- Crystal, KA


With that, everyone becomes emotionally and psychologically down by the truth that they all needed to hear. No one plans assassinations during the winter break, and no one is cheerful on the first day back. Karasuma, who perhaps knew the truth the whole time, tells Koro-Sensei that he should have prepared for this coming: His students no longer have the faith to study, conduct assassinations against him nor have motivation to do anything.

Anime Relations: Ansatsu Kyoushitsu

If I was to describe Assassination Classroom in a single sentence, it would go like this:

Come for the comedy and weird premise, stay for the plot and characters.


Akabane Karma is looking to be a very good candidate for my favorite character in this series, with Nagisa Shiota coming in second place or tied for first.

There's also one thing about this show that I rarely praise about TV shows in general. Assassination Classroom (so far) never gets boring or stale. There are no bottle or filler episodes, and there are no wasted characters. Every character that has had a time of featured emphasis plays an important role in the development or exploration of other characters, with Koro-sensei always teaching the featured character life lessons that will become crucial during the times of crises.




WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

Koro-sensei has a mysterious past. So far the only thing that has been deduced is that he is perhaps an artificial life-form made on earth, not unlike Itona. The few flashbacks seem to indicate that he was made in a lab and chose to specifically teach class 3-E to keep a promise to a woman in the lab who eventually died. The trip to Kyoto also seems to hint that he was perhaps once a human. Perhaps season 2 will answer some lingering questions once for all as to the truth of Koro-sensei.

Karma can be summed as a sadistic badass who is also very intelligent and extremely cocky to no end. He seemingly has no regard for his own well-being and his strengths as an assassin appear to be intimidation and subterfuge tactics that his wear his opponent down until the right time to kill. His fighting skills in conjunction with his sly wit combine to make him a complete sadist. It is also endlessly enjoyable to watch him in general, which makes him probably one of the best supporting characters I have ever seen on any TV show.

Nagisa is a trap character, and that is very obvious. I mean, from the chest down its pretty much a male character, but the face and hairstyle make him look like a girl. The character design can be summed up as kind of like part-male, part-female, and part-trap. Whilst I don't care much for the "Traps are gay" anime meta feud war, this is a main character where the trap characteristics are what hides his strengths. Do not piss him off. He will give off an aura of intimidation or anger like you never saw it coming. Karasuma likens the presence of Nagisa's bloodlust aura to a python. Stealthy, underestimatable, unpredictable, but with a strong sense of people reading and respect for others, it slowly becomes easy to tell that Koro-sensei and Karasuma both regard him as perhaps the most formidable and talented assassin of all the students. Where he lacks in firearms proficiency, ranged attacks, and group effort based assassinations, he more than makes up for it in unpredictability and surprise attacks. He can utilize and or hide his bloodlust that can render his targets unnerved and weak. Even he does not acknowledge the true extent of his potential, the signs of which were shown in the first episode during the suicide grenade attack.

Overall, its so far a very enjoyable watch. Likeable, engaging characters and a plot that can seemlessly transition from slapstick comedy to hard-edged action drama to the point where the latter is very comparable to the film Die Hard. Unlike John Mclane, who has a sardonic sense of humor and is a physically vulnerable main character despite the shit he has gone through and survived, these characters are one step ahead in character development. They have gone through the shit, thought they succeeded, only to learn they had failed and that instead they will have to apply their skills to a far greater danger that threatens to emotionally break them down to the point of scattering their mental elements.

As always, it is the delivery of scriptwriting tropes and overuses that can make plot developments unique and engaging. In fact, I could actually compare Nagisa to Indiana Jones. Hear me out. In every Indiana Jones film, there is always a point where eventually Indy finds himself in the worst possible position and it seems to the audience that all is lost. He eventually pulls himself out of it (albeit with help from Short Round in the second film) and succeeds, ending the climactic second act action scene. In the first film, during the truck chase, the last German soldier on the truck gets the drop on Indy and pummels the gunshot wound and eventually throws Indy out the front of the truck, nearly crushing and/or running him over at 40 miles an hour. In the second film, he becomes a slave to Mola Ram. In the third film, he has to place his trust in his faith and his father's grail diary to reach and correctly choose the Holy Grail. In the fourth film, he gets mind-raped by Spalko and gets into a fight with the main henchman within a circle created by the crystal skull that is protecting them from man-eating ants. In the last story arc, it is Nagisa who is put into that position. When Takaoka seemingly destroys the cure for the virus, you instantly know that this is a man who has no intention of losing. He will not allow fair fights and would rather break down people emotionally. That is how he would win. Just like when The Joker in The Dark Knight gloated to Batman that he had won due to Harvey Dent's actions despite Batman finally apprehending him, Takaoka is someone who has no motive, has no end-goal. He just wants to watch Nagisa "burn", even in his death. Nagisa is on the verge of going into a murderous rage and to all students, it does seem that all hope is lost now that the virus is destroyed. It is here that his characteristic hidden bloodlust is transformed into mental instability. Eventually, Terasaka pulls Nagisa out of it by throwing him his stun gun, which convinces Nagisa to not give in to his emotions. He finally succeeds in recalling and execute Lovro's surefire assassination technique, the like of which is a method that clearly takes advantage of all of Nagisa's strengths as an assassin.

I have perhaps rambled on for too long. I have been told that I tend to fill in massive bouts of unnecessary information to bring my points across. To anybody reading this, if you can suggest I should start an actual blog in my spare time, I would actually consider it.

EDIT: I feel like adding a paragraph comparing Takaoka to The Joker as the latter appears in The Dark Knight, but since I'm tired out and no longer motivated to add anything significant, I will just leave it here.

EDIT 2: Come to think of it, there are times where I really wish that they could shoehorn in these lines taken from Batman Begins:

Takaoka [Ra’s al Ghul] - “Have you finally learned to do what is necessary?”

Nagisa Shiota [Batman] - “I won’t kill you. [Break] But I don’t have to save you”

Anime Relations: Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova

Hmm, the manga is definitely as i've expected, full of more side-stories. But the original manga is far wider in scope in characters, character development and plot depth than I have so far seen even compared to all of the Girls und Panzer Manga I've read so far. The story is deeper, more realistic, and while it does have its comedy moments - Hyuga being overjoyed over anything related to I-401 as always - the manga is outright fantastic.


Some additions so far:

WARNING: SPOILERS INCOMING FOR ALL YE WHO READ THIS

• The personnel of US Force Japan was left behind due to the blockade by the Fleet of Fog. Most of its personnel ended up marrying with Japanese wives and starting families with them. Cruz Herder is one of them. He is a supporter of the Japanese navy faction and can utilize a force of commandos to gather intelligence and conduct special operations.
  
• There is a new character, Maruri Hibiki. The first and former sonar operator of I-401, she is now an ensign in the Japanese navy, advising on combat against the fleet of fog. She secretly has a crush on Gunzou Chihaya, and it is implied that she left I-401 because of that.
  
• The different factions of the Japanese government are explored in much better detail. Ryuujirou Kamikage's conflicts with the Japanese Army government faction is always an interesting side story to explore.
  
• Shouzou Chihaya has been revealed prior to the point of the end of the anime where I-401 delivers the vibration warhead to the United States in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. He is Musashi's captain and it becomes clear thanks to U-2501's Captain that Shouzou Chihaya has defected to the side of the Fleet of Fog. I am guessing that he is stationed in Europe, overwatching the continental civil war occurring in Europe.
  
• Daisaku Komaki is a captain in the Japanese navy, and commander of its newest and most technologically advanced submarine, the Hagukei. In the manga, it is the Hagukei who delivers the killing blow with the corrosive torpedo in the Battle of Port of Yokosuka against the combined unit of Kirishima and Haruna. The plan in the manga is purportedly that they meet up with I-401 at Iwo Jima (mistakenly called Iwoto Island in the anime), but with the encounter with U-2501, I-401 arrives first and as with the anime, finds Takao and her ship form already there.
  
• Toujuurou Osakabe has a completely different look in the manga and apparently he has the anglicized first name of Lawrence. It seems that the survivors of the design children was not limited to Makie however. The Prime minister of the northern part of the country (aka the island of Hokkaido) is apparently secretly a design child as well, but one that unlike Makie, is supposed to not feel empathy.
  
• The "Facility no. 4 incident" was always, the mysterious fire that years ago, killed 23 students of the maritime academy where most of I-401's crew originally came from. It is revealed in the final pages of Chapter 23 that Gunzou Chihaya does have one weakness: he longs for his and Sou's childhood friend, Kotono Amou, who died in that fire.To Gunzou, she was the only person he truly loved. When Hyuga finally bothers to investigate Kotono Amou via hacking the maritime academy's database, she and Takao discover to their shock and horror that Kotono Amou perfectly resembles the mental model of Yamato.
  
• The final sidenote at the end of Chapter 23 reads, "Kotono Amou, Yamato, and the "Facility No. 4 Incident"...The truth behind humans and the for is in the darkness..."
  

Anime Relations: Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova

- Oh god, it actually is turning into a harem! I mean, Hyuga suggested that they call their group the Blue Fleet...Congrats, internet, your sarcasm was true.
- For a fast battleship that wasn't very good and was converted into a seaplane carrier that still wasn't very good, Hyuga is...interesting [cue Fubuki frozen stare face]
- Takao looks hot AF, but on the other hand...body pillow of Gunzo is really disturbing for my taste [cue Michael Palin going "My brain HURTS!"]
- Speaking of which, according to what I find from KA comments, THE PUNS! XD

Anime Relations: Aoki Hagane no Arpeggio: Ars Nova

- Loving the OP and ED! I feel like it's fitting my taste in music perfectly for this time
- Hang on, did they rip off the design of Vertical Launch System from the alien ships in the movie "Battleship"? Because it certainly looks like it.

Visual signals for VLS torpedo launcher for the Takao-class heavy cruiser:
White: Standby
Yellow Armed and ready for targeting
Red: Target locked, ready to fire

- screw you, Kancolle! This show reminds me so much of High School Fleet but without moe girls

- DSHK (very fitting if I say so myself) from KA comments:

"A weapon without its wielder is useless. A battleship is a formidable weapon but without a captain it's useless...2 minds is working together is better than one"

Come to think of it, Iona did say the fleet of fog exists as weapons of war AND to follow orders...