Belle

• 竜とそばかすの姫, Ryū to Sobakasu no Hime, literally The Dragon and the Freckled Princess
• Written and Directed by Mamoru Hosod
• July 15, 2021 (Cannes) / July 16, 2021 (Japan)

Voice Cast

• Shinobu-Manny Jacinto
• U Announcer-Asami Miura
• Suzu/Belle-Kylie McNeill
• Ruka-Hunter Schafer
• Kamishin-Brandon Engman
• Hiro-Jessica DiCicco
• Yoshitani-Barbara Goodson
• Okumoto-Ellyn Stern
• Nakai-Wendee Lee
• Hatanaka-Martha Harms
• Suzu’s Father-Ben Lepley
• Kei and Tomo’s Father-Kiff VandenHeuvel
• Reggsination-Frank Todaro
• Gogo Doggo-David Chen
• Suzu’s Mother-Julie Nathanson
• Jellinek-Andrew Kishino
• Fox-Aaron Phillips
• Dragon-Paul Castro Jr.
• Young Suzu-Victoria Dean
• Swan-Noelle McGrath
• Kita-Jessica Gee-George
• Angel-Bentley Griffin
• Peggie Sue-Cristina Valenzuela
• Additional Voices-John Eric Bentley, Tom Bromhead, Tiana Camacho, SungWon Cho, Larissa Gallagher, Heather Gonzalez, Xanthe Huynh, Anjali Kunapaneni, LilyPichu as Lilypichu, Kyle McCarley, Zeno Robinson, Stephanie Sheh, Michael Sinterniklaas, Rachel Slotky, Laura Megan Stahl as Laura Stahl, Aoi Yûki

When a shy high school student living in a rural village enters the virtual world of “U” she becomes the online persona of Belle-a globally beloved singer.

A movie about living in the age of social media? That was the promise and the story certainly ventures into that but the narrative hits on so many other things. Somehow it never comes off as unfocused. With a name like ‘Belle’ it STILL took me a little bit before I realized the story was a bit of a riff on Beauty and the Beast without Belle being trapped in Beast’s castle. There are so many visual similarities that Disney might want to consider some legal action.

The Beast, an avatar that has been wreaking havoc in U since first appearing, shows up at a concert Belle is giving for practically everybody since the majority of U’s 5 billion users will be there. Was this jealousy or acting out on their part? That remains fuzzy.

The setting of the story is the near future with action centered around a social media platform called ‘U’ that is much more of a virtual reality world. This system reads your biometric data and creates a true version of who you are in the virtual world. If anything it is instant psychoanalysis that reveals so much about the person and much like actual social media removes the psychological inhibitions of the real world.

The young Suzu Naito who becomes Belle is distant from her father after her mother died trying to save a stranger’s child. She even holds bitterness towards her mother and these feelings have been eating away at her life as well as her relationships. Coming to terms with her mother’s sacrifice is the element that runs through the whole film but that is not all

As I said earlier Belle has so many different things going on. The story moves from one topic to the other to the other and essentially leaves one behind when it does something else. Normally something like this would quickly fall apart. Somehow the movie manages to keep it all together. It never feels unfocused, but rather these are allowing Belle to focus on the entirety of the main character’s experience.

There are also allusions to authoritarian government and even the superiority of no government as opposed to ANY government. The arbiter of truth and justice in the virtual world is pulling out all the stops to find The Beast and he doesn’t care who or what gets in his way. Belle also ventures into child abuse with it being revealed that the individual that is The Beast and his sibling are abused children. From there it tries to parallel what happened with Suzu’s mother with Suzu putting her life on the line for a stranger much like her mother did. To accomplish this Belle can best be described as wrapping up one topic before going on to the next with the girls pain over her mother connecting everything.

The animation is absolutely stunning. The real world elements have that stereotypical Japanese level of authenticity that others rarely duplicate. It is artwork. The virtual world elements feel like high-quality animated computer graphics meant to look like more conventional animation. What we see plays with reality and it can often be fanciful.

The story certainly takes its time. It stretches things out a touch with some subplots. There is Hiroka finding romance which feels like a lazy way of demonstrating Suzu’s positive impact on others and the thread of Shinobu who has been Suzu’s protector. Once Suzu comes into her own he then feels free to express his feelings and date her. Unnecessary to show she is emotionally healed since that was shown by her aiding the kids and the actions to do so.

Given the various things that Belle touched on I’m surprised how well it all came together at the end. It’s a beautiful piece of animation with plenty to say and worthwhile viewing.