The Need to Be Normal - The Boy and the Beast Review [Bakemono No Ko]

Can you tell me? What am I? Am I a human? Am I a beast? Or neither? Am I a monster now? What am I then? Tell me! Kyudo was a young kid done with the divorce of his parents. He wanted an escape and decides to run away. His curiosity gets the best of him and he follows two beastly figures that question him about his life in the street. After getting caught up with the police, Kyudo breaks loose and decides to chase down the two strange figures through a maze of secret passages and alleyways. He should have been careful what he wished for because he surely did get his escape. He gets literally spirited away to the beast world of Jutengai. Lost, scared, stubborn, and surprisingly comfortable describes the boy's state. He went from a runaway to born with a sloppy bear, and he never quests reality, not even once. The bear, Kumatesu, lays the ground rules and pretty much tells the boy to be anything but a nagging bitch. They later wake up to the iconic white rice and egg breakfast that looks so good, but it's really an acquired taste to say the least. Kyudo agrees with me and they get into a shouting match about how distasteful the breakfast is, and then they begin to do what I thought was the most entertaining thing to do as a kid. Chase something around an object instead of jumping over it. Kumatesu chases Kyudo around the city, and this is the perfect setup for some world building, where we see a marketplace, laborers, textile workers, and blacksmith wildebeest being the goofy awesome metal. Kyudo's intrigued, then he remembers he's running from a 12-foot bear. He runs into the lion, Ayozen's apprentices, Jiramaru and Chirohiko. Kyudo's foil? More on that later. Ayozen confronts Kumatesu about his apprenticeship status. Ayozen fires shots at Kumatesu, saying that he is too childish to be a good guardian, and Kumatesu proceeds to drop the bomb, showing that his apprentice is actually human. They find the human boy, and Ayozen warns Kumatesu of the dangers that lie within the human heart. They get into a heated argument that wouldn't have amounted to much privately, but since it's public and pride is a ************, they fight. Kumatesu was rough around the edges, but he was raw, authentic, and genuine. He was the drunk uncle who would tell you exactly how it is. Ayozen was clearly the crowd favorite. Poised, Responsible, and principled. Both gunning to be crowned the next Lord of Juten-Gai after the rabbit makes his decision on which god he will be. Kumatesu neglects fight etiquette and proceeds to showboat, starkly contrasting Ayozen's stoic and calm demeanor. Kumatesu throws the first punch, and Ayozen returns the favor with a polarizing difference of actually landing. These steroids kick in, and they get into a head-butting match. Ayozen starts to lose, but home court advantage is an advantage. Ayozen begins to beat the goofy out of Kumatesu, delivering L after L with each connection. The grandmaster puts an end to the madness and allows Kumatesu to teach the boy. Kumatesu and Kyuta live in harmony, well, kind of, with the strict regiment of cardio, antics, more antics, plain eating, traveling, and training. Their bond grew stronger. After years of this, Kyuta is now, and has grown considerably. Now, not only being able to keep up with Kumatesu, but has sharpened Kuma's skills as well. With Kyuta's exceptional growth, people were now waiting in line for the shot to be under Kumatesu's tutelage. Can we not talk about how cold Kyuta has gotten? This nigga does some chopsticks with his eyes closed while eating comfort food. Bro, that's crazy. Kyuta makes a decision that Kumatesu doesn't agree with, and he, like so many other times in this story, decides to run away. Jiromaru, surprised by Kyuta's presence, acknowledges his and Kumatesu's growth, stating that Kumatesu may be a great match for Ayozen. Ichirohiko rebuttals, Kumatesu? Don't compare that lazy slob to father. And Jiromaru has a stark realization that his childhood friend might be a threat to society. Kyuta and Ichirohiko are both foils, both human, and both apprenticeses. Apprenticeses? That's a hard one. To the two possible successors for lordship. Like I said before, Kumatesu was raw, but it was genuine. But Ayozen, I always felt like it was too prideful. Of course, pride can lead to the downfall of anything, and it makes sense that Ayozen is prideful because he is a lion, and lions are almost the symbol of pride. And with Ayozen being too prideful, he never took that look and merited to see if he was doing anything wrong. I found it ironic that he says that Kumatesu could not handle a human. However, ostracization can create two outcomes. A person who is kind-hearted and nurturing and understands the pain of being outcast, and the person who loses his humanity and becomes mad at the world. An environment like this either creates a selfless hero or a cold-hearted villain. However, in this cold world, even Kyuta starts to lose his humanity, and Kaido was the one who helped him find it again. We are introduced to Kaido when Kyuta is reading a book like a cyclops with one eye closed. He asks her how to pronounce a word that he is struggling with, and she gladly helps. Then she confronts the loud high school students and kicks them out of the library. This is a great introduction for Kaido because it shows that she is caring, but also principled and combative. However, this is quickly contrasted with the scene of her being bullied. In the span of less than two minutes, a specific point in the plot. As a viewer, we can only assume that Kaido is lonely based on what the bully says. But if you look back 20 seconds before, you can actually verify this. After she confronted the teens, Kaido goes back to that bookshelf, just be met with Kyuta's absence. Again, in a span of less than two minutes, a character with the integral role in a plot is fleshed out extremely well, despite the rather obvious time constraints. Kyuta pulls up and goes to work, dealing with all three guys at once, striking fear into the hearts of the fleeing roaches. All primarily within the same shot, no cuts, but a smooth panic captures this beautiful scene in its entirety. Afterwards, Kaido thanks Kyuta, and they formally introduce themselves. Kaido spells out her name to Kyuta, and Kyuta decides to go by Ren, which is his real human world name. This is significant, because this marks the point where he starts to form an attachment to the human world, which later strains his relationship with Kumatetsu. This marks the point where he starts to feel the need to be normal, and becomes torn between the human world, and the beast world. The now Ren and Kaido begin to bond over literature, Kaido offering knowledge, and Ren offering companionship. His obligations in the beast world starts to conflict with his newfound love and curiosity for the human one. Ren and Kaido start to confide in each other. Kaido, for the first time, admits that she wants to live her life for her, and not for her parents. Kaido then suggests that Ren goes to college. He was hesitant at first, but later agreed. Inside of Ren, disagreement later turned to a right, during his clashes with Kumatetsu. And of course, you cannot deny the facts when they are laid out in front of you, across the table. He had the right to make his own decisions, the right to go to the human world, and ultimately, he had the right to be normal. The right to put this freak show of a life behind him, and finally grow accustomed to normalcy. Ren later reunites with his father, that further breaks his bond with the beast world. This is further exemplified by the changes of Ren's body language throughout his time in the human world. The differences are night and day when you compare his body language to when he first got there, to the last scenes when he starts to live there. It was initially out of place because of his attire, but Kaido cashed him out and got him a new outfit. He can clearly see that what made him stand out was his awkward posture. He often slouched, which juxtaposed Kaido's perfect posture, and he often looked uncomfortable, and his feelings of being out of place seemed to manifest in his posture. While comparing his dominant and authoritative body language in the beast world to this, it's clear. He has the aura of the quiet kid who felt like he didn't belong, the kid who didn't feel normal, and now he has to face his master to deliver the heartbreaking news that he wants to be normal. Of course, Kumitesu doesn't approve and they get into the usual shouting match, but this time, Ren doesn't argue. He does much more. He decides to deliver the fabulous line in Juten Gai history. I know where my dad is now. This is the moment that the years Kumitesu put into developing Ren were thrown in his face. This is then followed by one of the sadder scenes in the film. Ren slams his old man, and despite Kumitesu being disrespected to that degree, he is still calling out the boy's name. The new recruits suffer because in Kumitesu's eyes, no one stacks up to the greatness that is Ren. The recruits are spineless, agreeable, and passionless. The events that follow this is what elevates this film from just that one good animal movie I saw a commercial for a couple years ago, to this is one of the best anime films ever. Ren rejects his human father's companionship, because he is nothing like the one that he sees as his real father. This causes a rift inside the boy, because though he wants to be normal, he knows that his life thus far has been nothing but obscurity. This scene is quickly followed with Ren seeing his younger self, but with a void for a heart, because he was ignorant to the fact that in the quest of chasing normalcy, you also risk losing your identity. Kiyota thought that he would find home in becoming Ren, but found himself in Lumbo trying to find his true identity, which makes this appearance of his younger self even more symbolic, because he lacked his heart. And the saying goes, home is where the heart is, but if you lack a heart, there is no home to identify with. Now with the realization that he is too beast to be human, and too human to be beast, he feels like an imposter, a fraud, a reject, a phony. This is the darkness that Ayozen was hidden at before, manifesting right before our eyes. But this is the darkness that consumed Ichiro Hiko. This lack of identity will consume you, and it was truly starting to consume Kiyota. But unlike Ichiro Hiko, Kiyota actually has someone to be by his side, that he can confide in and express these very tender emotions with. He had someone who was first nurturing, but willing to slap him back to reality. This slap in an odd way was comforting to Kiyota, because it told him at the very least, someone was there to console him, to love him. Ichiro Hiko, on the other hand, was all alone. This is also shown in the genius cinematography, where Jiramaru, who was pretty much Ichiro Hiko's brother, is seen shaking hands and laughing with Kiyota. But Ichiro Hiko was shown coming from a dark room, all alone. Then this is followed by what comes hand in hand with the lack of true identity, self-hate. Ichiro Hiko later attacks Kiyota, spouting his disgust in humans and himself. And this is when Kiyota sees it. Ichiro Hiko is battling with an identity crisis, and he also has a void within himself. It is evident that the only way to fill the void is to come to terms with your three choices, either be human, beast, or monster. And Ichiro Hiko chose a monster. But I think Kiyota truly saw the fourth option, that was to be true to himself. He chose to accept his obscurities and idiosyncrasies. He came to terms with the fact that no one would ever truly understand what it is like to be him. Kiyota chooses to be Kiyota, not human, not beast, not monster, just the result of his lived experience. And all of this is displayed during the longest one second I've seen in my life, when Kumatetsu was on the ninth count of his down, against his fight for lordship against Aiozen. My nigga, that was a one second on crack and steroids. That shit was 40 seconds long. That shit is uncalled for. If I was Aiozen, I would have been so angry, because this is a WWE guest referee match, and the referee does not like me. Kiyota lights a fire under Kumatetsu. Aiozen throws the first punch, and Kumatetsu returns the favor with a polarizing difference of actually landing. Aiozen is down for the count, and Kumatetsu is crowned the new lord of Jyutengai. This celebration is cut short when Ichirohiko decides to be the monster he sees himself as. Because he found comfort in this new self-proclaimed identity, thinking it would fill this painful void within him, but in actuality, it only made it more cavernous. The irony here is he decides to choose the worst option out of the four. Being himself, a human, a beast, or a monster. Ichirohiko being himself would have completely filled the void inside of him. Identifying as solely being a human or a beast would have only shrunk the void, because that would mean abandoning a huge part of his lived experience, but being a monster means abandoning his entire lived experience. Abandoning both his nature and his upbringing. Ichirohiko uses telekinesis to launch a sword into Kumatetsu, impaling him in his back while laughing hysterically. In the monster's eyes, he saw this as just and right. Now fully embodying the identity of a monster, Ichirohiko's void grows and consumes him, and Aiozen looks to the past to see how he has failed as a guardian. We are met with the twist that he never tells Ichirohiko his true identity, which makes the case of Ichirohiko significantly more tragic than Kyuuta. At least Kyuuta was aware that he was written at one point a human, so he already swallowed a pill that he was inherently different from the beast. But Ichirohiko was robbed of this. He never had to deal with a tough pill to swallow because Aiozen never attempted to administer to him in the first place. Ichirohiko lived his whole life waiting to be the same as beings, so so different from himself. And what makes Aiozen's actions even worse is when met with the present question of who am I? He responds with the selfless answer of, you are the son of Aiozen. It would have been one thing if he had told the boy that he was a beast, but the fact that he said son of Aiozen explains the boy's actions throughout the entirety of the film. Ichirohiko thought he was nothing but the son of Aiozen and lived his entire life by this truth. And I do what father tells me, because if I do I know I'll be like him someday, a great swordsman, one with a long snout and big fangs. This explains his strong hatred towards Kumatetsu and his apprentice Kyuuta. And this explains his anger towards his brother, Jaramaru, and hinting that anyone could possibly challenge Aiozen. Because in the broken boy's eyes, they threatened the validity of the man who was trained to believe was his absolute, his maker. His life mission was to show absolute loyalty to the man who took everything away from him. Because without identity, you are truly nothing. Ichirohiko becomes a literal monster in the human world and Kyuuta risks his life to stop him. Then the most powerful and emotional scene takes place, where Kumatetsu gives the life he fought so hard to keep to Kyuuta, to save his life in the human world. I may be a fool and a bum and a slob, but for him I can be strong! The most noble gesture a master can do for a stubborn apprentice. And it is sad because despite all the growth Kyuuta had towards finding his identity, when met with Ichirohiko, he is reminded of the monster that lies within himself. Kyuuta allows himself to be engulfed by his inner monster, stating that he and Ichirohiko are unfit for the world of living. Kumatetsu appears reincarnated as a sword that truly fills the void within Kyuuta. And together, Kyuuta and Kumatetsu slay the tragedy that is Ichirohiko, the boy that was robbed of his identity. I remember seeing a trailer about this movie a couple years back, probably about 2014. You know, you see all them Kodas anime movie trailers, but if you're a broke boy, you can never actually see them shits in the movies. So I was like, oh, that's cool. I want to watch that one day, but I was like, you know what? I'm probably not gonna watch that shit one day, let's be honest. But then through the power of the internet and piracy, I learned to kiss anime. I was finally able to watch the boy and the beast and many other anime films that I fell in love with through the trailers, but never had the means to actually go watch. Though the first trailer I seen for the boy and the beast, I saw that years ago. So I barely remember it. It's probably going to be as nostalgic as hearing the secret life of every yeti, if you ever remember seeing that commercial. I was scouring youtube just to figure out if I should even invest my time into watching the boy and the beast. I watched a fan-made trailer and it had the song blue from the album sire by Jaden Smith featuring Willow Smith in background. Well more specifically the trailer had all four songs b l u e And i'm not gonna hold you that is a perfect song. That song is hard and Willow Smith's vocals really added to the vibe of the film. I honestly would have believed that they used those vocals in the ******* dub for the boy and the beast. That would have been legendary. I wish they could have done something like that because like Willow Smith's vocals are like when you lift up the sheets when it's cold and your legs get that that chilling draft in the room like her vocals are so crisp so emotional so So heavy like she has some heavy ass vocals bruh So foreign like her voice I can see an avatar off of the avatar singing with her voice like her voice is so It's almost alien. It's just crazy Of course, they mixed it in a certain way to make it sound like that But her voice was perfect for that trailer And it's also perfect that this specific song was picked because of Jaden Smith and Willow Smith are both victims of constant spotlight and criticism Jaden Smith from the pursuit of happiness to the karate kid to after earth His whole life can be seen on film Willow Smith from I am legend to I whip my hair back and forth to red table talk Two people who poured their hearts out who both were living with the curse of being a child star Those applied to both but more so for Jaden his unstable mental state his behavioral episodes his controversies All show that he saw this fame as a blessing and a curse He had a platform to speak his truth But his truth was because of the platform that has watched him grow his entire life This leads to what makes Jaden's situation so horrible he has everything the world has to offer How dare he be sad or unhappy in the eyes of the masses rich kids have all the rights in the world Except the right to be unhappy and then you can take a look at like Jeanette McCurdy off of you know iCarly or some shit like the spotlight gave her crippling anxiety and she just wanted to give it all up to be normal But she had financial obligations to keep on acting the boy in the beast is a cult film. I think underrated I don't really hear people talking about it I don't want to say it's like a house on the castle or like a spirit of the way But it is up there probably one of the best anime films i've ever watched in my life And I wish it got more attention because the boy in the beast Is a cult film this film had me saying too many things over and over again for the next couple of weeks Even up until this date Like you know how to say that shit in the film, you know all anime like like they had me saying that shit all day You know all day, bro And I also found it perfect how the boy within themselves was really just their lack of identity It was perfect. They took two kids, even though it's not an official trailer of course jaden smith and willow smith probably went through an identity crisis themselves like they can't relate to kids their age because they're so different and it's hard for them to relate to any other rich kid because because no other kids are like will smith's kids like This is will smith we're talking about from french prince of bel air to men in black Independence day the pursuit of happiness, which is one of my favorite films of all time, too What else was will smith in see like he's such a goat that there's more there's more than that Like that's goated right? That's a go to playlist. Oh, yeah hitch, which is another code movie But about ram at this point for this is a really fun video to make because I got to relive one of my favorite anime Films of all time, you know, I have a lot of favorite things of all time This is this is definitely a gem a hidden gem to say the least it's spread away in house of the castle prince Manoko or the generation of miracles The boy in the beast is an uncrowned king. Fuck with it, please I'm, pretty sure if you already watched this video you already **** with it get somebody else to **** with it Get this shit up, bro The boy in the beast is a co-op movie bro a movie about an identity crisis and I feel like sooner later Everybody would go through something like that Especially if you're from an urban area type shit You just you just run into so many different people but for for I appreciate y'all niggas watching kiss on the left cheek Slap in the right I'll see y'all when I see y'all man