I had a lot to reflect on the other night, walking out of a movie theater here in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I’d braved the cold winter air and rising Omicron rates in order to check out Belle, the newest film by Hosoda Mamoru, one of the most internationally beloved anime directors working today.
(On the pandemic front, I had bet that a subtitled showing of an anime film on a Tuesday would mean a pretty empty theater. I won that bet.)
Belle has garnered overwhelmingly positive reviews and major box office buzz back in Japan, where it raked in the second most yen for 2021. All this helped me overcome some wariness left over from the last Hosoda film I’d seen – 2015’s The Boy and the Beast. (バケモノの子.) All I knew about Belle was that the film used the French fairy tale Beauty and the Beast as a motif, and that it was supposed to present themes relating to digital fame. That, and of course, I’d seen the striking designs on the main character’s digital avatar, present in every bit of Belle promotional material. (Striking designs created by longtime Disney character designer Jin Kim, in an impressive bit of international cooperation.)
I have to be honest here, though. What I was really hoping for was to finally see a new classic anime film, something of similar quality to Hosoda’s own Wolf Children. (おおかみこどもの雨と雪, 2012.) I saw that movie in a theater in Tokyo back in 2012; it immediately reignited a then-waning appreciation for just how good films in the anime medium can be. Belle, alas, isn’t quite that movie. What it is, however, is interesting and timely, if perhaps narratively unfulfilling.
Straddling the Digital Divide
The first thing anyone familiar with Hosoda’s work will notice in Belle (in Japanese titled 竜とそばかすの姫, The Dragon and The Freckled Princess) is the return of many of the director’s themes and settings.
In Belle, Suzu is an isolated, socially anxious high schooler living in a rural setting in Kochi Prefecture, Shikoku. A tragedy at a young age has left her depressed, detached, and avoidant, unable to properly pursue her only true passion – singing. Then, one day, Suzu’s only close friend suggests she create an avatar on the mega-popular online metaspace, U. Suzu uses the VR tech interface of the app to become the singer Belle – and finds herself, almost by accident, an anonymous online star overnight. Then, a chance encounter with the mysterious and powerful avatar known only as the Dragon (or Beast, in the dub) gives her a new mission and purpose.
Ever since his days working on Digimon, it’s been clear that Hosoda has a keen sense for online culture many of his industry forebearers lack. Up till now, Summer Wars was the clearest example of this; that 2009 movie also focused on a lively social media world of anthropomorphic avatars. Belle‘s opening moments, where we’re introduced via narration to the online world of U, have so much in common with similar scenes in Summer Wars that it almost feels like a retread. Thematically, however, the return to this almost identical setting is made worthwhile because of the cultural changes surrounding the internet over the past decade. Summer Wars had a sense for how children used online spaces to craft identities divorced from their painful real lives; Belle adds to that the more modern emergence of capricious online fame and social media stardom.
(Fun fact: want to know what anime Hosoda first cut his teeth on as a key animator? None other than episode 5 of the ridiculous 80s sleaze-fest Crying Freeman.)
Belle and the Online Beast
Layered over this is a concern that’s more prevalent in Japan than, say, America – that of online anonymity. In Japan, the majority of online social media is still the domain of usernames. Only a small percentage of Japanese people on online platforms use real names; even less would use an actual picture of themselves as their user pic. The desire to stay anonymous is in part why Facebook failed to fully take off in Japan, even at its height of popularity in much of the rest of the world. Around the era of Summer Wars or even Wolf Children, Facebook still lagged behind the anonymous domestic platform, Mixi. [1.]
Not much has changed regarding anonymity in the years since, yet that desire is now on a crash course with visions of online fame. In 2019, a survey by insurance company Sony Life showed 30% of junior high school boys wanted to grow up to be YouTubers or online content creators; YouTuber, by far the most popular future job choice for young boys, still held a strong 3rd place among assumedly more realistically-minded high school boys at 12.8%. [2.]
It’s worth noting that Belle is more oriented towards Japanese girls than boys. Here, too, modern youthful aspirations play their part. In the same survey, the most popular choice for junior high girls was singer/actress/voice actress/performer. For high school girls, the same category also managed a significant 3rd place. Idol bands, whether Japanese or Korean, are still all the rage; there’s an entire genre of anime and manga based around stories of idol stardom wish fulfillment. Belle, then, deals with both of these modern phenomena: online and idol-style performing fame.
This also occurs within an environment where being found out as a YouTuber can be hazardous for one’s career. Many job contracts in Japan forbid secondary revenue streams, and public service jobs are even stricter thanks to the Local Public Service Act. This January, Wakayama prefectural officials docked a firefighter’s pay by 10% after an anonymous tip-off to his modest gaming channel. The man had never even shown his face on camera – officials combed through hundreds of videos to fully identify his voice. [3]
A Fairytale for the VTuber Age
The two urges – one for anonymity, one for fame – are embodied in the rise of the Vtuber. Emerging onto the Japanese online scene in 2016 in the form of CG anime girl Kizuna Ai, these motion-capture avatars are now all the rage internationally. Often steeped in anime-style visualizations, Vtubers can become major online celebrities in their own right. And yet they mostly function as livestream characters for their real-life counterparts to disappear into; the Vtubing profession has even been compared to Kayfabe in professional wrestling. Vtubers will essentially become their characters, acting as though their reality is their own. This creates a sense of believability and escapism for their audience and a perfect excuse for anonymity for the user behind the Vtube character.
Belle portrays this era, where major anonymous online fame has become possible, via the avatar system within the world of U. In-app, Suzu becomes Belle (Suzu, in Japanese, means bell), a beautiful avatar that even resembles the most popular girl in her real-world high school. Through this anonymous representation, she can escape her crippling anxiety, even regaining the use of her singing voice. Thanks to music, graphics, and staging production supplied by her best friend (in an extremely hand-wavey fashion, admittedly), Belle then rockets to worldwide online fame. Fame, of course, brings with it the harsh reality of being the target of online callousness.
More than that, however, it brings with it an overwhelming desire by the online public to unmask the anonymous starlet. Just as many long wondered about the voice behind Kizuna Ai (an identity finally revealed in 2020), just who Belle might be is made a topic of frenzied discussion. The same is true of the bruising, rule-breaking Beast of this tale; his own identity becomes the main mystery of the film. Suzu/Belle herself is almost immediately (and somewhat confusingly) obsessed with finding out the Beast’s true self.
Heady Themes, Imperfect Presentation
These are all fascinating themes, presented in this film with a sense of actual understanding on the part of the production. So often, films and television will attempt to tackle internet culture stories, only to fall flat on their faces. (Other times, they’re literal ads for online platforms – looking at you, Ralph Breaks the Internet.) For better or worse, you can tell that Hosoda isn’t just an online poseur. And the heady subject matter doesn’t end there. The movie also focuses on depression, anxiety, loss – and, in an almost too-real turn, abuse.
But here’s the problem: The overwhelming sense Belle left me with is that of being conflicted.
The movie has so many interesting themes, often presented in a visually interesting fashion. (The attention of Belle’s innumerable fans, physically embodied on the digital landscape of U, inescapably surround her in an undulated mass.) Yet as a narrative – as a movie, really – it doesn’t come together. The film is almost surreal in terms of its editing and pacing, creating a confusing sense of unreality that doesn’t seem as planned as it should. The Beauty and the Beast motif doesn’t really map onto the story very well; sometimes it feels like an afterthought, and other times the movie suddenly seems to be remaking shots from the classic Disney film. And as good as some parts of this movie look, the comparison in terms of direction and animation quality between these scenes and their counterparts from Disney does nothing to benefit Belle.
Too Much and Too Little
Both online and real worlds presented within Belle have their appeal, but neither feel fully fleshed out. The online space feels weightless; its rules are never properly explained. Why characters can physically damage each other within an online context that feels more like YouTube than World of Warcraft doesn’t make much sense. U is presented as a surreal parade of multivariate avatars, something which brings to mind the dream parades of Kon Satoshi’s Paprika without half the visual flair. Despite the occasionally inspired bit of shorthand to describe online phenomena, this makes it hard to care about much that happens in this world.
I found myself preferring the real-world scenes. Here, though, we aren’t given enough time with individual relationships – thanks to the focus on the world of U. There are occasionally great character moments, but also some that come off as unintentionally funny. A group of older women in Suzu’s choir comes off the worst here.
The most mixed aspect of all is the relationship between Belle and the Beast. The film does a good job setting up an eventual reveal about the Beast; when we find out more about the character, it’s a well-earned punch in the gut. But as to why Belle is so obsessed with tracking him down, or even giving the characters enough time together – here the film once again falls victim to having too much on its plate. Belle feels both overlong (in part thanks to a false climax) and narratively thin.
Conflicted Feelings
This has all led me to a fairly sad conclusion: the only Hosoda Mamoru film I’ve truly loved is still Wolf Children. Even Summer Wars and Girl Who Lept Through Time, both of which are very good, just don’t completely work for me as full narratives or in terms of emotionality. Those three movies are his best, and all share one thing in common: they weren’t written by Hosoda himself, but rather by scriptwriter Okudera Satoko. Their work together ended when Hosoda decided to handle writing on Boy and the Beast by himself. In my opinion, his movies still haven’t quite recovered.
(Another interesting Hosoda film is actually a franchise work, One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island. It’s memorably energetic and surprisingly creepy for a non-canon film from the mega-popular fantasy pirate series, but not much more than that.)
Unavoidable Comparisons
Is my preference for Wolf Childen because it most resembles a film by my favorite anime studio – Ghibli? Wolf Children almost feels like the film Hosoda could have eventually made for that studio, had he not left as director of Howl’s Moving Castle in protest of Miyazaki Hayao’s domineering. With Wolf Children, Hosoda accomplished a Ghibli-clone with a far greater degree of success than his current competition as filmic anime’s top dog, Shinkai Makoto. (Shinkai’s own Children Who Chase Lost Voices goes beyond being inspired by Ghibli to outright aping framing and imagery.)
Comparatively, Belle feels totally and completely Hosoda’s, without a hint of Ghibli’s narrative style – for better or worse. It has so many of his hallmarks – a digital world of avatars (Digimon, Summer Wars); overpowered or super-genius children (Summer Wars, Boy and the Beast); somewhat uncomfortably anthropomorphic animal characters (Summer Wars, Wolf Children, Boy and the Beast.); beautiful renditions of recognizably Japanese countryside locations.
(Shinkai also loves to portray the beauty of the Japanese mundane, but unlike Shinkai’s hyper-beautification of real spaces, Mamoru hews to a more realistic representation.)
Take Your Own Journey to U
The film also focuses on the turmoil found in the inner lives of children and adolescents, which is perhaps Hosoda’s most prolific preoccupation. Hosoda has a unique eye for the sort of quiet and not-so-quiet suffering children can go through, often caused in his films by the absence of a parent. If we’re only focusing on Hosoda’s meshing of this theme with his presentation of online escapism, Belle could be considered his masterpiece.
But a movie is more than just themeing. And, as a narrative, Belle just falls a bit short. It has some great visuals and wonderful sound design. (The soundtrack is fantastic, fittingly for a movie so focused on the liberatory power of song.)
Belle also left me with a lot to think about, especially as someone who creates content online. The problem was that it just wasn’t that enjoyable of a moviegoing experience. Your mileage may vary – so it’s likely worthwhile to check it out to discover if the world of U does it for you.
What to Read Next
Studio Ponoc: The Ghibli Successor in Waiting
The Ultimate Ranking of the Studio Ghibli Universe
Sources:
[1] Mac, Royo. (2012.) The Social Network Wars in Japan — Mixi, Twitter, and Facebook. Medium.
[2] Baseel, Casey. (Aug. 21, 2019.) What do Japanese kids want to be when they grow up? For 30% of boys, YouTubers, survey says. Japan Today.
[3] Bateman, Tom. (17/01/2022.) Japanese firefighter has his pay slashed after officials discover his YouTube gaming channel. Euronews.
