The Boy and the Beast
Everyone loves Ghibli movies, and for good reason. But since Miyazaki retired (or not, depending on how he feels this week), people have wondered – who will be his spiritual successor?
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Mamoru Hosoda‘s The Boy and The Beast film has sold over 3 million tickets to earn over 3.8 billion yen (about US$30.5 million), 30 days after opening on July 11. It dropped from #4 to #7 at the Japanese box-office for the August 8-9 weekend. It played on 354 theaters in its fifth weekend.
Many would argue that Mamoru Hosoda is the most talented director of family anime in the industry today. That “family” classification is two-fold, by the way. Not only are Hosoda’s works appropriate for just about all ages, taking the high road by eschewing in-your-face sex appeal and gratuitous violence, the bond between family members is a recurring theme in his films. In 2009, Hosoda’s Summer Wars showed audiences an extended yet close-knit family headed by the female lead’s tough yet kind grandmother. Three years later, the focus was on a single mother raising two lycanthropes in rural Japan in Wolf Children Ame and Yuki.
Now, Hosoda is turning viewers’ gaze towards a relationship he hasn’t put the spotlight on before, with the just-released The Boy and the Beast, which asks what a boy needs to learn from his father, and also what that father can learn from his boy. So how does it answer those quesitons? Read on for the rest of our review of Hosoda’s latest hit to find out.
Mamoru Hosoda‘s The Boy and The Beast film debut at #1 during the July 11-12 weekend, topping the Japanese debut of Terminator Genisys. The Boy and The Beast opened on 457 screens, and earned 667,035,100 yen (about US$5.4 million) in its first two days. The film sold 494,170 tickets over the weekend.
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