If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

THE BOY AND THE BEAST is a likable anime feature set in a contemporary urban Japan. It's a little in the spirit of a Studio Ghibli feature, with a young male protagonist entering a bizarre world of monsters and half-human creatures who live by their own strict societal codes. The adventure that follows is sparky, hard-edged, and fast-paced, with lots of humour arising from the characters and action to see it through. The quality of the animation is top-notch, as you'd expect, and if this isn't particularly poignant as a Ghibli film would be, it still impresses.

A wonderful masterpiece of the relationship a master and an apprentice. (Or a father and a son.) The movie wonderfully develop the two main characters liaison. When Kumatetsu and Kyuta met they both lonely and unheeded. Kyuta mothers died, Kumatetsu cannot admit by monster, because he have special life and philosophy. They both are outsiders, they reciprocally need each other. Kyuta need a parent(father), Kumatetsu need a apprentice(son).In this anime has one of the best relationship I ever seen in a movie. The main characters relation grow up a perfect companion or more for the end of the movie.This is anime turn into one of my favorite. I recommended to everyone who love it. A good family movie. I think this anime is underrated.

The movies starts out with a very emotional story, and creates a magical animal world where they are equal to humans. The story could have ended perfectly with everyone working together to kill the evil. But instead, we got a very strange ending that reveals the author still believe that animals will always sacrifice themselves for humans. To help illustrate the point, we have to flip around the role of the people and the animals: 2 people fought a Kungfu match. The loser's dog is consumed by evil, and tries to kill the winner and his dog. The winner decides to die and turn into a sword to occupy his dog's heart. His dog wins the fight, then decides to go to school.

This is the first movie I've watched of Mamoru Hosoda. It's a good anime movie, but not superb.The movie starts by presenting us a world hidden to humans where anthropomorphic beasts live ruled by beasts-grandmasters who can reincarnate into gods. A lonely and lost kid, named Ren, accidentally enters into this hidden world and it's adopted by an aspiring grandmaster, named Kumatetsu, who is himself in someway lost. Hosoda makes us believe that Ren will become Kumatetsu's disciple and that he'll learn how to be strong and (insert typical plot development). But I was happily surprised to see that the master-apprentice relationship goes both ways. Human and Beast learn from each other and grow together for 8 years.After this very strong beginning, I was expecting to see an amazing movie, but it quickly started a spiral into too many "-_- really?..." moments. There is an underlying theme in the movie about finding oneself, and dealing with self-doubt and the darkness that exists within each of us. But these ideas are presented very poorly (except with the great introduction of Kaede) and the plot starts to make no sense whatsoever. I won't spoil much, but really, almost nothing makes sense from this point. At the end, even the Grandmaster, Kaede, Ren, everybody starts to act illogical. Finally, the movie concludes in a nonsensical cheesy all-out-Naruto-style battle, which is an awful way to close the themes of inner darkness and finding personal strength (specially given the final enemy).In summary: . The first part has a 9 over 10. Maybe even a 10/10. . The rest of the movie (which is most of the movie) is a 5. . The animation and the scenery are really great. The landscapes, the camera angles, the pacing, they were all very good (except for a part when they visit a bunch of grandmasters in a very fast paced journey that didn't add much anyway). Without any of this, it would be a 6/10, because the plot holes are too annoying.It's not an amazing movie, but you will enjoy it.