The Boy and the Beast

   The Boy and the Beast is Mamoru Hosoda's latest film (I have previously written about Wolf Children in a past module) that was released on July 11th 2015. The subbed and dubbed versions were however released around early March, which finally gave me the opportunity to watch it after our previous submission for research and development. Having purchased the art book and storyboard book sometime last year, it has since been one of my main influences and inspirations for this project when it comes to its characters designs, animation quality, background designs, and even storyboards.

   An action adventure fantasy (Like his past films), the story follows Ren who has recently lost his mother. Not knowing the whereabouts of his father and not wanting to live with his legal guardians, the nine year old flees into the streets of Shibuya, resenting life and everything else that came with it. Moving onto the more interesting bit, the Lord of the magical Beast Kingdom has decided that he will return in order to reincarnate as a deity and names two potential successors, with one of them being one of the main protagonists of this film, Kumatetsu, the powerful but unfortunately lone and lazy bear-like beast. Ren and Kumatetsu eventually cross paths one another, and while they are off to an incredibly rocky start, begin a very close master and disciple relationship as the story progresses...

   It is interesting to note that the characters of Mamoru Hosoda's films are always flatly colours WITHOUT a single layer of shading (With a few very rare exceptions) regardless of how dark or brightly lit their surroundings happen to be (Which should result in some very drastic shading or lighting depending on what sort of setting it is). Again, this most probably results in numerous colour palettes created for a bulk of the film's cast, especially for Ren and Kumatetsu. 

   This still keeps the task of colouring simpler when one thinks about it, because even if shading was to be added to these characters, surely their entire colour palette needs to still be changed, when they are placed in a setting with dramatically different lighting. But in all, I do indeed find this style of plain colour to be appealing, I just find it amazing how it can be effectively done especially one needs to carefully consider what colour palettes should be used, no matter how subtle the differences are.

   To further add to this, the film's beautifully painted backgrounds are somehow able to go so well with the flatly coloured characters, neither stands out too much with one another and somehow blends so naturally with one another (But then again many animated works from both the west and east have proven that more detailed backgrounds can indeed go well with characters that are designed and coloured in a far simpler style, it could also be said that the animation style might have a part to play in this as well).

   It has always been a challenge effectively blending CGI and traditional 2D animation (And quite frankly, there aren't too many examples-- or have I yet to find that many that are able to do so). While it definitely is much easier to use CGI, especially for crowd scenes. This film really does try its absolute best to make it work, by blurring the backgrounds and its characters, you unfortunately can still make out the unnaturally fluid movements of the CGI characters in the back. Still, it isn't necessarily as awful as some other examples and doesn't deter too much from the overall beauty of this film (The pros most definitely outweigh the cons). So long as they aren't just lazily throwing CGI in there without even attempting to blend it in properly (It kinda worked for the Animatrix, but not here, no). 

   There is a lot and I mean A LOT of fighting that actually takes place in this animation, but what I found absolutely interesting about that is the fact that it feels and looks really different to the usual dynamic, over-the-top fighting you see in other japanese animations. And no, this isn't even about the quality and intricacy of the animation (Obviously since japanese anime films will of course have a higher animation budget than most television series) itself... I still can't quite put my finger on it but I suppose it is the slightly more realistic look it is given in comparison, even during the crazier fight scenes. This might be a bit of a criticism however, that I feel like the fight scenes still lack the impacts seen in so many other animations? It is clean, detailed and pretty realistic (Much like Satoshi Kon's own works), but there is something lacking, even during what should be the most brutal of fights... eh, who knows, I should probably rewatch it again someday to see if I actually missed out on something.