The Boy and the Beast is arguably the weirdest film in Mamoru Hosoda’s lineup.
In a career filled with both highs (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) and lows (Scarlet), somehow this 2015 film stands as both the most remembered, and the most forgotten, in his career. Often overshadowed by newer films yet not quite as beloved as those that came prior internationally, in Japan the story has enjoyed a remarkable second life on stage. That second life might even fix a decent-yet-flawed original story and transform it into something truly special.
Kyuta is a young boy whose world is turned upside down when his mother dies at the age of nine and his father is unable to take him in. Angry at the world and the relatives he don’t feel see his pain, he runs away to the streets of Shibuya. It’s here he meets Kumetatsu, a beast from the imaginary world of Jutengai. While far from an easy relationship, he becomes a spirit guide and unintentional father figure to the young boy as he trains him to fight in this world driven by gods. As he grows older, questions of his future between the two worlds begin to grow.
While Gekidan Shiki are known more for their work importing musicals, being the primary producer of big-budget, long-run musicals from Disney or for so-called mega musicals like Phantom of the Opera, Wicked and Back to the Future for extended runs across Japan. Defining their work is a grandiose scale benefited to them by diverging from Japan’s traditional limited-run performance model for extended performance runs that can extend for months, or even years, at a time. Unlike even powerhouses like TOHO and HoriPro, the company owns over a dozen theaters dedicated exclusively to their productions that allow them to occupy these spaces for such long periods, that security coming with a larger budget and ensemble to put on more ambitious performances with confidence.
While known for these imports primarily - currently the company is running no fewer than five different Disney musicals including Lion King, which has conducted over 13,000 performances since 1998 - they do also experiment and produce their own slate of original musicals. More often these are family musicals aimed at younger audiences, though they have broadened their scope throughout their long history to include a range of original adaptations of classic European tales and fantastical stories. The company transformed 2015 British book Robot in the Garden into a musical that has been restaged to great success since its first performance in 2020, the soundtrack even selling well enough to chart on Japan’s Oricon ranking upon release.
Boy and the Beast premiered as a musical in 2022, running for 500 shows across Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya over two years before initially closing, since being restaged in the following years to similar levels of popularity. It was, beyond a doubt, a success, and an unusual one in the world of Japanese theater. This was the first time Gekidan Shiki had adapted an anime into an original musical, and though Mamoru Hosoda is a household name thanks to his storied history of original films including this, it’s difficult to launch an original musical of this scale. Even for what is arguably the biggest dedicated theater company in Japan.
Never mind the fact that, despite sitting behind only Belle as the most commercially-successful of all of his films at the domestic box office, it is a film whose critical acclaim was also met with cries of fatigue and calls that it struggled to differentiate itself from prior works from the director. A decade later, it is often crowded out of conversations compared to other films from the director that people hold stronger positive or negative emotions towards.
It’s hard not to disagree with this conclusion, either. This is a story not just of found family, but learning about the evolution of his feeling for that family and himself, and how to fight not just for revenge but for love, something requiring sacrifice and a mutual desire to connect. It’s what ties the human and beast world together, and is the core of this film's thematic idea.
Learning about that journey means exploring where the dream of a family, represented by the beast world and the lessons learned within it, clash with the real world and the real family and connections he finds there, notably with his father and a girl named Kaede. The relationship to Kaede, the first human to become his friend and fall in love since leaving the human world, is crucial to understanding what it means to remember and love. Yet the structure of the film, which ignores the human world for half of its runtime before throwing us back to introduce this character, makes this crucial aspect of the story feel like a distraction, and the pacing of the film feel disjointed until it plainly spells out its message throughout a rushed final fight.
This is ultimately a simple moral fable about family and self-belief told through the fantasy of a beast world connected to modern Tokyo. If anything, the story parallels the Greek myths, tales structurally defined by a split between godlike realms and the Earth. Yet rather than leaning into that, Hosoda's execution and indulgence in world building over-complicates the story to its detriment. It’s far from a bad film, but one whose execution and script, and proximity to another story about family and love from Hosoda in Wolf Children released three years prior, hinder it.
All these issues are fixed in the stage version, thanks to the power of music. A strong musical can use song to explore ideas that would take an extended time to explain in the matter of minutes through metaphor, raw emotion and melodic symphony. It can simplify while also deepening its message through the power of song, and the musical consistently achieves this. While the opening number gives the musical adaptation time to contain all of its setup for the beast world within a single number, something that alongside impressive set design that blends projections with elaborate facades is enough to understand this world as an escape for Kyuta and what fighting means, it’s in the solo song for the young boy (Tsuyoku Naru) that we give him an opportunity not offered at all in the original movie: a chance to express his doubts and resolve to train under his unlikely father figure.
With the story of Boy and the Beast playing more like a fable than a typical fantasy narrative, having a form that allows its characters to leave the story and express themselves beyond words like this works to strengthen the thematic resonance beyond typical storytelling. As a folk tale told through song, everything clicks. The beasts, the two worlds. Even the way the beast and human are portrayed in the musical, taking lessons from Shiki’s vast experience producing The Lion King and assistance from puppeteer Toby Olie to create elaborate masks that make our beast-like characters feel more like kabuki figures, and the story like a tale passed down through generations for the lessons it can teach.
Songs featured in the show have a roaring drive to them that resonates and makes for an engaging listen even removed from their supporting visuals. Mune no Naka no Ken, the song sung by Kumetatsu to Kyuta to emphasize the sword in his heart that is the love and trust he must train like his fighting, is stirring even removed from its context as a song about desire.
Some of these changes and course-corrections for the musical do feel like a response to the original criticisms the story received in anime form. Beyond that, though, is the unshakable feeling this story is complete on stage in a way that it not only wasn’t, but couldn’t in anime form. The story Hosoda wished to explore was made for theater. Gekidan Shiki merely brought it to life.
