The Boy and the Beast (2015)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

The Boy and the Beast (2015)

Hoezo in KINO

In his films, Mamoru Hosoda rejects the adage ‘man is wolf to man’. Instead, in the worlds of this anime master, man is man to wolf: his oeuvre is filled with profound relationships between humans and animals – especially those which in reality, humans tend to distrust. Also, there are flying whales.
 
Take Hosoda’s Belle (2021), Wolf Children (2012) – recently released in Dutch cinemas – and this one, The Boy and the Beast (Bakemono no Ko). Here, the worlds of humans and bakemono – talking animals – are so close, that just by stumbling into a Tokyo alley, you can suddenly find yourself in Jutengai, the beast kingdom. Meanwhile those beasts, their hoodies raised, move unnoticed through our inattentive world.

Credits

Regie
Mamoru Hosoda
Genre
anime, fantasy, family
Speelduur
119 minutes
Land
Japan
Taal
Japanese
Ondertiteling
English

Storyline

And so, in Tokyo’s modern Shibuya district, nine-year-old Ren (‘the boy’) meets the gruff Kumatetsu (‘the beast’). Ren is a runaway; bear-like Kumatetsu is embroiled in a career dispute in Jutengai and needs an apprentice in the noble martial arts.

As always, Hosoda’s hand-drawn character animation is excellent, and amidst all these wondrous adventures, his focus remains firmly on the psychological subtleties. Because, just as Ren isn’t eager to be lectured, Kumatetsu truly isn’t born to teach. But their bond will grow, slowly but surely, as together they realise the role and even the importance of anger and how to manage that frightful, dark emptiness within, when you feel like everyone has abandoned you.

Other films in this program:

3×3 Eyes (1991)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

3×3 Eyes (1991)

Relationship drama? Demonic massacre? Romcom? Supernatural adventure story? It’s the nineties, so: it’s all of the above! Toei Animation’s adaptation of Yuzo Takada’s manga series has something for everyone: from budding teen romance to bloody dismemberment – luckily, our Yakumo is immortal. Now, he only has to help that kawaii three-eyed demon become human.

Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Children Who Chase Lost Voices (2011)

The most Miyazakian film by Makoto ‘the new Miyazaki’ Shinkai (Your Name., 2016) is slightly less romantic than usual, instead focussing more on learning to cope with death and solitude. We enter a gorgeous, multicultural underworld, to which our young female protagonist Asuna and her kawaii cat Mimi are irresistibly drawn.

Memories (1995)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Memories (1995)

Anthology project with three stories by Katsuhiro Ōtomo (Akira, 1988), who himself directs final short Cannon Fodder (about a world built around cannons), after Tensai Okamura’s comedic Stink Bomb (about someone unknowingly becoming a chemical weapon) and Kōji Morimoto’s highlight Magnetic Rose, combining space adventure with creepy psychological horror – and opera.

The Great Adventure of Horus Prince of the Sun (1968)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

The Great Adventure of Horus Prince of the Sun (1968)

Wonderfully energetic adventure story marked the first collaboration between director Isao Takahata and his protégé Hayao Miyazaki – later founders of Studio Ghibli. With its mythological source material (an epic of the indigenous Ainu) and socialist message (well received by 1968’s students), Horus became known as the first ‘grown-up’ anime.

Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Night on the Galactic Railroad (1985)

In this symbolic and thoughtful film Giovanni and Campanella, the first a blue-colored cat, the second a pink-colored one, board steam train that takes them across the galaxy. At each increasingly surrealist stop, then boys meet more outlandish characters, including an obsessed archeologist and a bird catcher who turns his catch into candy. Yet with every stop the train journey’s destination also grows more ominous.

  • Kijkwijzer 16
Steamboy (2004)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Steamboy (2004)

In a steampunk version of England, James Ray Steam is sent a mysterious spherical device that his father and grandfather have accidentally discovered while looking for a new source of energy for England’s steam engines. Increasingly hunted by members of the opposing O’Hara Foundation, James uncovers the Foundation’s sinister goals. He also finds himself confronted with Scarlett O’Hara St Johns, the granddaughter of the O’Hara Foundation’s chairman, who seems to have taken a liking to him.

 

 

  • Kijkwijzer 16
Miss Hokusai (2015)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Miss Hokusai (2015)

Tokyo, 1814. Versatile and stubborn visual artist Tetsuzo tirelessly works in in the garbage-loaded chaos of his house-atelier, assisted by his equally talented 23-year-old daughter O-Ei. She contributes significantly to his fame, but remains uncredited. The film sketches a lively portrayal of a free-spirited, utterly outspoken and hugely talented woman and artist, unfolding through the changing seasons: ‘We’re father and daughter; with two brushes and four chopsticks, we’ll get by anywhere.

Fist of the North Star (1986)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Fist of the North Star (1986)

Fist of the North Star was based on the eponymous manga that ran between 1983 and 1988 and was produced by the same team that made the popular television series of the same name. Director Toyoo Ashida came to this film straight from directing another cult classic, Vampire Hunter D (1985). An archetypical example of 1980s postapocalyptic martials arts cinema, Fist of the North Star has to be seen on the big screen.

Galaxy Express 999 (1979)
Classic Kaboom Anime Series

Galaxy Express 999 (1979)

In a distant future, Tetsuro is a human boy who wants his body replaced with a robotic one. This is possible, but to do so he has to reach the Immortal Planet onboard the space train Galaxy Express 999. Maetel, a beautiful and mysterious blonde woman dressed in Russian style, joins him in the long journey through space. Every episode sees our heroes arriving in a new planet’s space train station.

  • Kijkwijzer 16
Giovanni’s Island (2014)
Classic Kaboom Anime Series

Giovanni’s Island (2014)

In the aftermath of the most devastating conflict mankind had ever experienced, the tiny island of Shikotan became part of the Sakhalin Oblast… and on the unhealed border in this remote corner of the world, friendship among children from two different countries timidly blossomed, striving to overcome language barriers and the waves of history. Inspired by true events.

  • Kijkwijzer 16
Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)
Classic Kaboom Anime Series

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie (2001)

The year is 2071. Following a terrorist bombing, a deadly virus is released on the populace of Mars and the government has issued the largest bounty in history, for the capture of whoever is behind it. The bounty hunter crew of the spaceship Bebop; Spike, Faye, Jet and Ed, take the case with hopes of cashing in the bounty. However, the mystery surrounding the man responsible, Vincent, goes deeper than they ever imagined, and they aren’t the only ones hunting him.

  • Kijkwijzer 16
Streetfighter II: The Animated Movie (1994)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Streetfighter II: The Animated Movie (1994)

Based on the legendary video game series. This anime classic follows Ryu, a talented fighter who may be the greatest in all of the world, and Bison, the evil mastermind searching for Ryu’s talents.

  • Kijkwijzer 12
  • Geweld
Redline (2009)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Redline (2009)

A story about the most popular racing event in the galaxy, the Redline, and the various racers who compete in it.

  • Kijkwijzer 12
  • Seks
Barefoot Gen (1983)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Barefoot Gen (1983)

A powerful statement against war, Barefoot Gen is a disturbing story about the effect of the atomic bomb on a boy’s life and the lives of the Japanese people.

  • Kijkwijzer 12
  • Eng
Metropolis (2001)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Metropolis (2001)

Kenichi and his uncle Shunsaku Ban must find the mystery behind robot girl Tima.

  • Kijkwijzer 12
  • Discriminatie
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
Classic Kaboom Anime Series

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence (2004)

Cyborg detective Batou is assigned to investigate a series of murders committed by gynoids—doll-like cyborgs, which all malfunctioned, killed, then self-destructed afterwards. The brains of the gynoids initialize in order to protect their manufacturer’s software, but in one gynoid, which Batou himself neutralized, one file remains: a voice speaking the phrase “Help me.”

  • Kijkwijzer 12
  • Geweld
Only Yesterday (1991)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Only Yesterday (1991)

It’s 1982, and Taeko is 27 years old, unmarried, and has lived her whole life in Tokyo. She decides to visit her family in the countryside, and as the train travels through the night, memories flood back of her younger years: the first immature stirrings of romance, the onset of puberty, and the frustrations of math and boys. At the station she is met by young farmer Toshio, and the encounters with him begin to reconnect her to forgotten longings. In lyrical switches between the present and the past, Taeko contemplates the arc of her life, and wonders if she has been true to the dreams of her childhood self.

  • Kijkwijzer 6
  • Eng
  • Groftaalgebruik
Mind Game (2004)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Mind Game (2004)

Nishi has always loved Myon since they were little. And now as adults, he wants to pursue his dream of becoming a manga artist and marrying his childhood sweetheart. There’s one problem, though. She’s already been proposed to and thinks Nishi is too much of a wimp. But upon meeting the fiancé while at her family’s diner and accepting him as a good guy, they encounter a couple of yakuza, only to have Nishi grasp a certain revelation. And, with his newly acquired look on life, adventures abound as he, Myon, and her sister, Yan, escape the yakuza into a most unlikely location…

  • Kijkwijzer 16
  • Geweld
  • Groftaalgebruik
Roujin Z (1991)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Roujin Z (1991)

An elderly invalid is volunteered for a bizarre science experiment. He is given a robotic bed linked directly to his brainwaves, allowing instant gratification. This seems like a wonderful deal, until this seemingly harmless bed goes out of control and transforms into an unstoppable robot.

  • Kijkwijzer 16
  • Geweld
  • Groftaalgebruik
Sword of the Stranger (2007)
Special Kaboom Anime Series

Sword of the Stranger (2007)

Pursued by formidable Chinese assassins, young Kotaro and his dog run into No Name, a mysterious stranger who gets pulled into the chase. The unlikely companions form a bond over saving the dog from a poison attack, but chaos erupts when the assassins find Kotaro, and No Name must face his past before a horrible fate is met again.