Suzu is a 17-year-old high-school student living in a rural town with her father. Wounded by the loss of her mother at a young age, Suzu one day discovers the massive online world "U" and dives into this alternate reality as her avatar, Belle. Before long, all of U's eyes are fixed on Belle, when, suddenly, a mysterious, dragon-like figure appears before her.
- Released: 2021-07-16
- Runtime: 122 minutes
- Genre: Animation, Drama
- Stars: Kaho Nakamura, Takeru Satoh, Tina Tamashiro, Shota Sometani, Lilas Ikuta, Ryo Narita, Toshiyuki Morikawa, Kenjiro Tsuda, Mami Koyama, Mamoru Miyano, Sachiyo Nakao, Fuyumi Sakamoto, Ryoko Moriyama, Yoshimi Iwasaki, Michiko Shimizu, Kōji Yakusho, ermhoi, Ken Ishiguro, Sumi Shimamoto, HANA, Mitsuru Miyamoto, Asami Miura, Taichi Masu
- Director: Mamoru Hosoda
Comments
- ariandesiree - 22 December 2022
Terrible.
There were plot holes galore. Such as near the end - why didn't one ANY ONE of the adults go with the main character on the train to Tokyo?! What happened to those abused kids? Who were those pseudo VR cops and what was their deal? Just who was that other singer who had white hair who didn't like the MC but rallied for her when she gave her tearful concert after she'd been doxed? (Which, by the way, is super bad kids. Do NOT dox yourself to earn someone's trust on the internet.) They mentioned the creators of the VR world at the beginning like they would show and then they never did and were never mentioned again. HOW did the Beast have that huge castle? Where'd he get it? How did so many people who had never heard the MC sing just KNOW she was Belle??? It all makes no sense and I'm honestly shocked at how many people love this movie. I'm upset I spent money to rent it. - Drawmort - 12 September 2022
Exaggerated feelings in a world full of beautiful details.
Belle is a story with many teachings. The first one is how far the animation technique advances in Asian lands when it's done seriously. The backgrounds and settings have incredible details, worthy of the best Japanese animation studios. In the virtual world shown by the movie, the overall design is somewhat lacking, but the fluidity of movement is very good. The characters are not so visually elaborated to maintain the essence of the anime and so that the film has that instant identity connection with the Japanese lands.
As for the story, there are several messages and teachings that this film wants to show, among them are the cruelty that the virtual world of social networks can be, therefore, the duality that each person needs to resort to anonymity and hide behind in a certain way of that cruelty. Then, it also tackles deeply emotional issues like grieving the death of a close family member and child abuse.
The way the film seeks empathy from viewers is through singing and the exaggerated emotions of its characters. This is when we come to the only negative point of the film. In my opinion, the plot falls a lot in the exaggeration of the feelings of the characters. It's an exaggeration that is really unnecessary, because the topics mentioned already have their emotional charge enough. So that extra part turns the movie into something very cheesy and pompous.
Other than that, it's a great piece of work, packed with spectacular visual details and a couple of pretty helpful takeaways.
