*Contains spoilers

Alternative titles: Ryuu to Sobakasu no Hime, 竜とそばかすの姫
Released: 2021
Genres: Drama, Fantasy, Music
Studio: Studio Chizu
Episodes: 1

I’m really happy to see that anime is increasingly being shown in theatres in the UK and not just from big franchises like Demon Slayer or My Hero Academy. But despite saying that, I didn’t really have a particular reason why I decided to watch Belle.

I think it was partly boredom and since I didn’t have much to do, and it was literally the only ad I was seeing across my socials I thought why not. I had no context or knowledge of what it was about, so I watched without many expectations.

So, with that, here’s my review of the anime movie, Belle.

Belle’s plot

Suzu Naitou is a shy high school girl from a small rural town. Living an ordinary, mundane life, she struggles to feel like herself. That is until she discovers “U”, a virtual world where you can take on an online persona. There, Suzu becomes a beloved global singer as Belle. In this virtual world, she has a fateful encounter that will help her discover her true self in a place where you can hide your real identity.

Belle is a coming of age story of young people navigating through changes while living in the world of social media.

Story

I think this film had some great ideas and I enjoyed the themes they explored. Not exactly original, but they had some interesting ways in which they approached different parts of the story.

The story started with an unassuming high school girl, Suzu. Socially awkward and insecure, she has the makeup of a typical kid still discovering and learning to accept her true self. Ironically, she does this through an avatar, Belle, that is visually the opposite of herself and even closely resemble her school’s Madonna, Ruka Watanabe.

As Belle, Suzu would go on to be the most popular vsinger in the online world, “U”, doing what she loved to do but couldn’t in the real world. But due to an encounter online, she’d been forced to make a choice: a stranger’s life vs her famous online identity.

Eventually, Suzu took it upon herself to save this person and reveal her real identity to the world and open herself up to ridicule. That’s the general premise of the film.

Despite the copy-paste, I enjoyed the Beauty and Beast section of the film. It definitely gave me some good Disney vibes.

But halfway through, the film avalanched from there. While the Beauty and the Beast parallel may have intentionally lead us on to think this is a romantic film, I’d rather they kept it to the cliché that it was than to turn it into the mindboggling plot it came to be.

They may have been going for the emotional shock factor that Your Name or Weathering with You were known for, but this did not give the desired effect. Twisting a ‘coming of age’ film into a ‘hero’ film that attempts to save children from domestic abuse (by another child no less) is not as tearjerking as they’d like to be.

Instead, it just made me think how incompetent the adults were in the film. Why would a group of adults let a kid go by herself to a town she’s never been to save two stranger kids from a violent parent? You’d think they’d at least go with her or get the police.

But no, this was all for the dramatic reunion of the two main characters that met online. At some point, the film lost direction and what was initially a simple, yet beautiful film came to be a compilation of ‘wtf’ moments.

That whole flashback about Suzu’s mother as part of the context of her character development felt shallow too. It’s like they were trying to put all the cliches together to save the story.

Belle’s underlying problem is that it was overly ambitious. A lot of things was going on but squeezing them all in a two-hour film meant that some potentially great plot lines just couldn’t be fleshed out well enough. It was trying to connect plot points that really don’t need to be there.

Characters

Suzu/Belle

Suzu had the most evident character development, which is to be expected. Through her online persona, she was able to do what she enjoyed and receive the external validation she may have been longing for. The key turning point for her development is shedding her avatar and exposing her real identity to the online community.

Honestly though, that’s a terrible move. The internet can be a scary and dangerous place, especially for impressionable kids like her. But putting that aside, I don’t think it was necessary to use a dramatic reason for her to reveal her identity. Acceptance and true self-love should be done for yourself and in your own time. I received the opposite message here. Or maybe I’m just selfish…

Ryuu/Kei

I appreciate the contrast between Kei and his online persona, Ryuu. Going through a lot of hardships in real life, he strived to be the strongest online, even if it was pretend. But through his interactions with Belle, he started opening up more and showing the vulnerable kid he was.

Throughout the film, he had the strongest chemistry with Suzu/Belle. I guess it had to be seeing as he’s half of the (Japanese) title. But due to the parallels to the Beauty and the Beast story, I was very thrown off about what their relationship dynamic came to be.

Shinobu Hisatake

Look, I’m not mad that there’s no happy romantic ending for the characters, but I wish this film didn’t lead me on… Shinobu is Suzu’s childhood friend and love interest and while he mainly stayed in the background for most of the film, he was one of the driving forces behind Suzu’s growth.

So, the Shinobu route would’ve been the next obvious course after Ryuu’s, but alas, his feelings towards Suzu were kept vague.

Art and animation

Visually, it’s one of the most uniquely beautiful anime film I’ve seen in a while. Having such a different art style than what I was used to did throw me off guessing what the story was about. The colour palettes were vibrant, pretty and extravagant. I wonder how much money was spent on Belle’s skins…

The direct reference to Disney’s Beauty and the Beast in Belle and Ryuu’s waltz further adds to the enchanting feel the movie gives.

As the majority of the film took place in a virtual world, I did expect heavy use of 3D/CGI effects in the animation. As a non-fan, I felt that I wouldn’t enjoy the film because of those elements. To my surprise, they blended quite well. Of course, I ended up finding something else to feel unsatisfied with…

Soundtrack

For anime that centres around music, the soundtrack is divine. I love Belle’s songs and each of them has quite an enchanting feel to them. I get goosebumps listening to Kaho Nakamura’s angelic voice. Among the tracks, my favourite has to be ‘Lend Me Your Voice’.

Watching it subbed, I did struggle a bit understanding the translations, so I checked out the music in the dubbed version. While I preferred the original versions, I think the English renditions did splendidly in evoking similar emotions.

Overall score

The visual and auditory experience for Belle is sublime. For these alone, I’d give it 20/10. But there’s a lot to be desired when it comes to its story. I guess they wanted to match the quality of the art/animation with the story but just fell quite short. If they spent more time in the story and made it into a series, it might’ve been better. There was just so much to unpack: Suzu’s insecurities, the relationship with her childhood friend, her rise to fame as Belle and the two kids. I would’ve been eager to watch something along these lines if it becomes possible.

But with the 2-hour feature that we got, I’d score this 6/10.