IMDb plot summary: Suzu is a shy high school student living in a rural village. For years, she has only been a shadow of herself. But when she enters "U", a massive virtual world, she escapes into her online persona as Belle, a globally-beloved singer.
Directed by Mamoru Hosoda. Starring Kaho Nakamura, Ryô Narita, and Shôta Sometani.
Belle is an anime film about a virtual reality social network where users interact via their avatar. One painfully shy young girl who loves music finds that she can sing openly in the social network without feeling self-conscious, and she becomes a virtual music star. Along the way she ends up connecting with another user, whose avatar presents him as an enormous beast. This film takes a lot of its inspiration from Disney's Beauty and the Beast, with some scenes almost exact recreations of the prior film. This is Mamoru Hosoda's latest film, and given how deeply Mirai hit me, I shouldn't have been surprised when this one also touched something deep within me. Until about the halfway mark it feels a little simplistic and derivative, and then suddenly the musical numbers HIT. The animation, the music, and the vocals all combine beautifully to suddenly elevate a normal story to something much more powerful. The rest of the story rides on that, so even when the ending feels a little too perfect, a little too sentimental, the music helps it land. I don't know that it'll be everyone's cup of tea, but I really liked this and would watch it again.
How it entered my Flickchart:
Belle > Ripley's Game
Belle > Woman in the Dunes
Belle > Broadway Danny Rose
Belle < Everything Everywhere All at Once
Belle < Nativity!
Belle > American Psycho
Belle < The Iron Giant
Belle > A Simple Plan
Belle > Pirate Radio
Belle < The Fisher King
Belle < The Lego Move
Belle > Strange Days
Final spot: #373 out of 3623, or 90%.
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