Anime director Mamoru Hosoda has been inspired by internet culture for over two decades, and he's hopeful for the future.
Long before cellular devices became nearly vital, Mamoru Hosoda had already found a creative well in virtual universes.
Hosoda’s latest conceptually daring adventure, “Belle,” now in theaters, situates the old-age fairy tale of “Beauty and the Beast” within the context of virtual interactions. Sheepish teenager Suzu — voiced in Japanese by Kaho Nakamura and by Kylie McNeill in the English dub — lacks confidence at school, while at home communication with her father is strained.
There’s certainly been a big shift in how we relate to the internet. Twenty years ago, when I directed “Digimon Adventure,” it seemed like a space where a lot of the younger generations would reside and smash the old establishment way of doing things to form a new world for themselves.
I really love the story of “Beauty and the Beast,” especially how these values seem to be inverted, where something that may appear beautiful could possibly be ugly and vice versa ... When I was in college, I saw the Jean Cocteau version of “Beauty and the Beast” from 1946. I was really moved by it. But after graduating college, I joined a company called Toei Animation ... and it was a bit of a struggle, I confess. It was back in 1991.
We didn’t talk too much about the character’s appearance or exterior. We were more focused on what Suzu had inside of herself and what her other possibilities may look like, as someone who shares the same soul as Suzu, but has a very different kind of visual expression. At the time I had no idea who he was, where he was from, or if he even had moviemaking experience. We got to talking and I found out that he’s based in London. He is a 27-year-old architect who had absolutely no moviemaking experience, but I really saw his talent in his portfolio. We decided to create the world of U together and settled on this idea of a mega city to represent how complex the internet has become.