Starting off a media "thread" of things that I liked or just found significant this year. And I wanted to start with something that I was looking forward to, but put off watching until now.
So yeah, Belle. Or "The Dragon and the Freckled Princess" which is probably a more fitting, yet lengthy title. Arguably.
Long story short: I liked it! I even cried! That's a surprise!
A bit more under the cut. Light spoilers.
It's not perfect, but that doesn't stop it from being an emotionally strong, visually fantastic film. And honestly, the worst you could do here is get hung up on personal nitpicks and understandable questions. Otherwise, the only other elephant in the room kind of gives weight to an arguably well used twist. As I find that the movie improves drastically around and after it drops.
And you could half joke about Mamoru Hosoda and studio Chizu always drawing from the same pool of light concepts. Mainly ones about teenagers, furries, the internet, and family issues. But that pool could easily produce a dozen more fresh ideas from them, especially if applied, spread out, and rearranged effectively.
The dub is fairly decent, as most GKIDS releases often go. And the lead actress also providing the vocals for that version's songs helps too.
Speaking of which, hey, this has a pretty great soundtrack! Of course it does. Especially since music plays a heavy role in the plot. It better be good. It has to! There's a lot of great, interesting talent in here, and it really adds to the theme of the internet togetherness, united by art and song and all that. (Wow, Ludvig Forssell worked on this a bit too? Neat.)
I could talk about that really good station confession scene, but it's been rightfully highlighted in an interview/feature on the disc and online. I could also talk about the great visuals and abundance of great character designs all over the place in this. But I'm gonna wrap this up here. (Gotta practice brevity and actually posting things, more than fretting forever and doing nothing.)
Maybe I'll come back to this and talk about crying a little and all that juicy TMI stuff.
Hopefully I can get around to seeing and rewatching more of Hosoda and Chizu's films soon. They're always a treat.
Alright. Thanks for reading!