The discussion provides a nuanced look at how Hosoda uses digital spaces to bridge the gap between personal grief and public identity. It successfully argues that the film's emotional authenticity far outweighs its narrative complexities.
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Belle (w/ Dan Olson) | | Quest 061
Added:Sometimes an anime comes out that changes your life. Sometimes that anime is the day anime we're talking about today. It's maybe the anime we're talking about today. I want to start over. That was not very good.
>> Also, because are you trying to argue that Belle has changed all of our lives?
I beg to differ.
>> I'm trying to make a general content or comment about the stuff we do. I'm not a YouTuber. You guys need to forgive me on this.
>> Okay, you are forgiven.
>> Hello everyone. My name is Miles and I am not a YouTuber and we're on a podcast talking about anime.
>> I'm Tristan.
>> I'm Miles.
>> I'm Jeff.
>> And this is Quest for the Best. And we've got a very special guest for you all today, Dan Olsen. Thank you so much for joining us, man.
>> Hello. Thanks for having me. Thanks for inviting me.
>> Thanks for being here. [clears throat] This makes the Canadian to American ratio and YouTuber to not YouTuber ratio of this podcast very >> imbalanced. Okay. [laughter] which is the actually kind of the norm for us, oddly enough. We keep on bringing on Canadian guests, and I'm happy for this. I'm very happy for this.
>> Over representing yourself in in the anime niche. I like it.
>> No, I think we're representing ourselves just fine.
>> I I there was a moment where I was like looking at the top anime YouTubers and I think only one of them was from America among the English language ones. And I'm like, what is going on? Where is our cultural dominance going?
>> That is that is fascinating. Who who are the like top three?
I don't usually look at rankings. So, >> like in terms of like viewership, Jeff's up there in the top three. Um, and then we've got Joey the anime man who's a Canadian. I mean, not a Canadian Australian.
>> Australian.
>> Australian.
>> And then we've got who's a Brit.
>> So, you know, it's just America doesn't seem to have we don't have the sauce, I guess.
>> Yeah. plenty plenty of weebs and not enough uh not enough uh uh god damn it.
I was really gonna try to spin a port man too of like weeb and critic but like it it just the doesn't doesn't work.
That that wasn't happening. No, it doesn't come together on any level.
>> More than likely though, I would say that it's just Americans don't like watching other Americans is something that you can pull off of that data.
Well, we like the accent of everyone else, but you guys don't really have one.
>> Well, we we we can and we do. It depends on where from Canada you are, but yeah, generally, especially if you're on the internet, we just end up having some variety of like northernish American accent. We by and large a lot of Canada has like uh received the um uh the Chicago broadcaster diction.
>> Mhm.
>> Because of the news, our our monoculture for ever was just the CBC.
>> Fine. It sucks for me though because like all of my family's from Newfoundland, so they all talk to me [laughter] >> with new with Newfy accents and I can only ever use that accent if I'm on the island. My body just will not allow me to speak in the accent unless I am on the island and I do not understand it.
But >> you do not have control over your own code switching.
>> I do not. Not no. [laughter] >> Well, I mean, nothing ruined my uh Scottish accent worse than uh moving to Glasgow for a little while. I can't do it anymore.
>> It's like so ingrained. It's I just am not a very smart person, I think, is the real conclusion here. Dan, thank you so much for joining us. Uh we are uh we met very briefly in Toronto at Anime North and you're a good friend of Jeff's. So, uh we're we wanted to talk to you about anime and you had a very exciting choice for us. We'll be talking about Belle in a little bit, but before that, let's hear a little bit about you. Who are you? Uh, so I'm a uh I'm a YouTuber uh documentarian based out of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Um, I have a background in education, a background in the film industry. I've been doing YouTube, um, uh, casually since 2010, uh, professionally since, uh, 2017.
Um, I grew up in the 80s and 90s.
So, >> yeah. [laughter] >> So, that was your exposure to anime.
>> That was my exposure to anime. Yeah. So like uh I I intuiting the the next question would be uh would be it's like so what's your what's your background with anime would be that um you know I was like I was like a big fan [snorts] the the word that it was called at the time was not one that we really like uh uh repeat a whole lot anymore but like uh stuff that >> was initially not even really considered separate. Um, so like Astro Boy, right?
Like Astro Boy, it's a it is anime. It's a Japanese uh Japanese cartoon.
>> It's imported. Um, but because of the way that broadcasting worked in the 80s, kids programming was very much just sort of a goulash. like you'd be getting Astro Boy episodes right after like uh The Legendary Journeys of Hercules, which is this just absolutely garbage uh uh cartoon from like the late 50s, early 60s.
um you know and like the uh the the Ralph Bachi Superman uh uh cartoons and those were already you know um 10 15 years old uh at the at the time that that I was watching like so like there was no temporality to it, right? And you of course had all of the concur like the the contemporary stuff, you know, uh Teddy Ruxpin, um uh My Little Pony, Transformers, Ninja Turtles, and all of those were done on this business model of like, all right, in like a year and a half, we will crank out 80 episodes, 80 half episodes, and then we will just recycle them forever. the raccoons, you know, etc., etc., etc. So, for a lot of my life, like, uh, you know, there was anime that was like in that diet, in that media diet, but it wasn't really separate in any kind of identifiable way. Yeah. It wasn't until the late '9s when um stuff like uh Akira and Ghost in the Shell and the first couple Giblly movies were getting a lot more penetration into a market like Calgary.
um that you know I became interested in and that of course aligns with like a bunch of like other sort of cultural shifts and also like I was just at the perfect age like when YTV started broadcasting Dragon Ball Z I was I think like 16.
>> Uh oh yeah that's that'll hit you like in the soul.
>> Yeah. So like we you know I I wouldn't say I was like a big fan of Dragon Ball Z but like I watched a lot of Dragon Ball Z. Um, >> it was on that was just kind of the thing with us. Like we had we had YTV and only so many other things.
>> And uh, and I started to get into things like a little bit more deliberately and very much with kind of a like, well, I'm better than that, you know, attitude.
So, it was like I was taking like a a 2hour bus ride across town to Sentry Box to buy Serial Experiments laying on VHS tapes.
>> Hell yeah.
>> Which I still have. They're just up on I should have moved these onto the shelf.
So rather than [laughter] Avatar, I should have had a bunch of my Lane stuff. Uh >> Lane stuff up there. Um >> because we all love Lane.
>> Yeah. So you know, so like Serial Experiments Lane, um Akira, Ghost in the Shell. I mean, a lot of the you know, a lot of the I guess at this point classics and Touchstone stuff, you know, uh Aangelion, etc., etc., etc. Um, and I never really got super deep into being like into the like I am an anime watcher uh in the way that like there's there's a lot of people for which like it kind of like it is their hobby, right? Like they they watch a lot of the stuff that comes out. They catalog it. They get the uh uh you know they get the mangas. they like they collect sort of like all of the stuff and they are they are a fan of anime very broadly >> um as a as a super genre. Um and I'm a lot more touchandgo like I'll I'll and these days it's very much like heavily concentrated in in the mo like in movies more than it is uh series. Like I've I've watched a bunch of series and like but I tend to do it a lot more socially uh lately. We've [clears throat] been watching um we watched like the first half of uh playing death games to put money on the table.
>> Food on the table.
>> Food on the table.
>> Yeah, >> that's a good one. It's okay.
>> It had a very I would say that that was probably my favorite first episode of that season. It had a very strong start >> and then it kind of >> did this for a bit. M >> I I think I think the one thing like stylistically I'm I loved it.
>> Um as like the the way that it's using technique I I loved and I was I was very enamored with. But like I don't know there was just kind of like this vein through it of like hey do you do you get it? There's a there's a death game audience in this but you're also the audience that's watching this sanitized death. Do you get it? Do you get it? Do you get it? like, "Yeah, >> yeah, you got it." But you're still like, >> "I I got it when I played Dan Ganmpa."
>> Yeah. You're you're still a show like, you know, you don't get to you're still a show whose appeal hinges off of like watching girls get blendered. Like >> that is still like there, you know, you can't really shake that. And so like I don't know.
>> I'm I'm kind of like I'm kind of lukewarm on it, but stylistically it's gorgeous. The criticism of the audience isn't what's really interesting to me in that. It's the like what makes the main character what drives her to keep playing these games is what's interesting. But I didn't finish it. So maybe that runs out of gas. I'm I'm not finding that compelling. Like in part because it's drip feeding it so like ridiculously slowly. Even by the end of the show, they don't really answer that question all that well because like the final arc of the show is the earliest chronological arc. It kind of shows or it's attempting to show why she's continuing it from this point, but they've also kind of they also kind of alluded in the arc beforehand that she's done before reaching her goal. And there are a lot of like questions as is she going to continue? And the answer is yes. But the anime itself doesn't do a very good job of showcasing why compared to what I've been told the manga does.
>> Um, the anime also tells everything in a different order from the manga, which >> yeah, I did I did look some of this up.
So like the original light novel was one order and then the manga is basically the same and then the show uh takes the episodes of that and shuffles them chronologically both to screw with the audience and also to try to I can see why they moved some of the things and like why they consider Dollhouse to be like so Yeah. So yeah, cuz they they created a rival character that in the anime shows up in the second arc, but in order to get to her story, both the intro of and essentially the conclusion of it, um they had to jump to that almost immediately and skip the prelude arc, which they pushed all the way to the end. But in both the light novel and the manga, that happened second because it's supposed to be like this is the setup for our main character. We had this first arc, we've shown you the death games, we've shown you examples of it. Then the next arc was supposed to be, okay, well, here's our main character and how not necessarily her first game, but roughly speaking, how she started or where she became serious about it. But the anime is like, no, we don't need any of that.
And pushes it to the end. And then you're just kind of left being like, okay, well, now you're showing us arcs where, as it was written in the original material, we already knew all of that.
Yeah. But the anime watchers don't. H okay. So, this is sounding like I inadvertently made a good decision not finishing it. Um, [laughter] it it has its moments and again I would say that I really enjoyed the the first part of it, but it goes I wouldn't say downhill. It just goes in weird directions that I don't fully understand. And maybe that's why I I was like very enamored by it because I I started looking into the differences between the manga and the anime and I'm like I don't understand why you did this and I want to try to >> and then like what I was like so like Oshino co we watched the first season how many seasons of that are there?
There's two seasons now. Is it Is it There's three. We're at three now.
>> We watched until the handoff to Ruby as the main character and then we were planning on doing another like binge day and schedules just haven't been able to line up with everybody who wanted to watch that one. Like I was I was enjoying that one, but like the pacing in it is is garbage.
But I can I can see then from that argument why you normally stick to to movies even just for like time sake.
It's a lot easier to be like, "Yeah, we're going to find 2 hours and we're going to be able to guaranteed watch almost any movie that would show up."
Because not a lot of anime films are more than 2 hours >> versus hey, here's a 24 episode series that you need like 12 >> a weekend.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. Like even cuz even the shorter uh like even a short series like I mean I >> like 12 episodes. Yeah.
>> Yeah. even like a 12 episode like even if it's a half hour. I mean these days like so many of them are doing basically the feature length first episode. Uh which I tell you when you're binging just kind of like really screws with your perception of time. Um, but like on the movie side of things, you know, like uh uh I've been going back to a bunch of uh bunch of stuff kind of recently, like we uh uh uh it's not a Japanese anime, but um uh Mars Express uh became one of my favorite films of all time after a single viewing. Um, you know, Red Line, uh, uh, uh, I've been kind of chipping through the City Hunter movies. There's like 50 of them, so like that's kind of a process in and of itself. Um, you know, >> I want to go back to those. I I first watched those when I was in high school.
>> I I convinced all my friends to watch Tekk Concrete for uh for a New Year's party, and they're all like, "We don't know what's going on, but this rules."
Yeah.
>> Yeah. I'm glad that they thank you for it as they should.
>> That's such a good movie. Have you seen Ping Pong?
>> No.
>> You So, you should watch Ping Pong.
That's from the same mangaka. Um, it's a 12 episode series, so it's pretty easy to uh binge. And I >> I would say it's like the greatest sports anime of all time.
>> Okay. Okay.
>> I'll take that a step further. I I'd say it's the greatest sports story I've ever seen. No, I've watched a lot of sports movies.
>> I mean, it's got to comp it's got to compete with Marty Supreme on multiple levels then.
>> I can't actually make that. That's one of the few uh Oscar contenders from Asia I didn't get around to.
>> It It was one of my favorites from last Yeah, we I can Yeah. Yeah.
>> I watched like 70 movies that came out in 2025 during 2025 and I don't know how I That's like one every other week, right?
>> And I I still like a lot of that is just like the Netflix slop, right? whenever the new action movie or Oceans 11 alike is out, I I will always give those a chance and I'm always so disappointed.
>> I I used to keep a uh uh a record like I would keep a list of of every movie that I had that I'd watched um you know back in my early 20s and I pulled out some of those lists recently and it was like >> 300 350 movies a year for like most of my 20s.
Uh, and I always had to remind but then like I was also working at a movie theater on and off through that through that period. So like I'd have to remind people that it's like you know who would be getting into movies that it's like the average person particularly 20 years ago the average person would see approximately 11 movies a year.
>> Yeah.
>> Maybe >> it's not [clears throat] that different now >> you know like Yeah. the a like so like the average is something like 11 and it it it airs a little bit lower. Like most people see a movie about a month, [snorts] you know, maybe there a couple more in some months and then other months they just like don't go to the movies at all.
They don't see a movie. They don't sit down and watch a movie. Um, and uh, so like if you're watching even like 25 movies a year, you know, one every two weeks, you're you're on the high side of the bell curve. Um, and then the the freaks like uh, you know, freaks that watch, you know, a movie a day or they're like pretty close are uh, you know, the the the extreme pole of it.
But yeah, >> it's funny you mentioned that cuz uh when you were talking about your relationship with anime, it reminded me in my most pretentious film snob phase where I was like 20 years old and I said I don't like anime because it's anime. I just am in the anime club because that's where the hot girls are, which was true at the time. And I just like I just like I don't think like I watch Tarovski and I watch Oshi and like I think of them in the same in the same sentence, right?
And like I don't like it just cuz it's Japanese or just cuz it's anime. And now I'm like no if it if it comes from the you know Japan region of the world and it's made out of cartoons I [ __ ] love it. [laughter] >> Yeah. I guess I'm still in that like you know I I am still kind of in that snob phase a little bit where it's like you know I something's got to like something's got to persuade me. Um you know >> nothing wrong with that to be honest.
>> Yeah. I mean, and I I I honestly like I treat kind of I treat everything that way. [laughter] It's like, all right, a movie. It's like, ah, you're a movie.
Okay, like persuade. But I mean, I watch a lot of like garbage, too. Uh, you know, like I gladly watch garbage.
>> You got to keep I mean, one, garbage is immensely enjoyable sometimes. Um, but two, you got to like keep your pallet calibrated. Yeah. You know, if all you watch is good stuff, >> I got to I got to intersperse the Marty Supremes with like 70s TNA movies that were that are actually like that there was the core of it was like a movie shot by one crew, but then they couldn't finish it. So, they just sold everything they had to another producer who then put like a rapper story around it, but it was still too short. So he like hired back two of the actors who were originally in it to write make a third rapper story around the entire thing that's set in the far future uh about like thought crimes and it's like and it makes no sense cuz you've got these three layers of story that do not properly interact and it's just like you know and and all of it 100% of it is just an excuse for story lines to culminate in a lady taking her shirt off.
>> Hell yeah.
>> The the greatest form of art. the greatest horror of art and it's like it's just just garbage. Like Tubi Tubi is just like a gift from God to me. Um >> have you seen >> In the Aftermath? So it's this Australian film where they basically pirated uh Mamroshi's Angel Egg.
>> No, I haven't seen this. I don't.
>> And they use it as dream sequences throughout the film. So it uses like 45 minutes of Angel's Egg, which is one of the greatest anime you'll ever watch.
>> All right. All right.
>> In this format, it's actually still super sick. Uh because it works so well as just extended dream sequences.
>> The movie on >> better than it should be.
>> Okay.
>> And I can't believe they they like put it out on Blu-ray because like they did not >> the licensing sounds [laughter] like a nightmare.
>> It is part of the reason I believe that Angel's Egg only just became available in the West legally like a year or two ago because this came out in like '89 and it just kind of like made everyone mad, right?
>> Uh who was working on it. So, >> so, so it's the rootech of Angel's Egg.
>> That's my assumption. And validated by a couple things I've heard, but I don't quote me on Wikipedia here, guys.
>> Oh, so maybe they maybe they like they pretended to do things properly. It's like, hey, we'd like to license your thing and release it. They're like, "Okay, yeah, with, you know, paid like rock bottom dollar cuz they like under misrepresented what they were going to do with it and then just like used it as visuals and replaced all the dialogue."
>> It It's extremely possible. I would totally buy that. It's It's a fascinating artifact if nothing else, which is, you know, the kind of stuff you're into as far as I can.
>> I've been watching your videos for like 10 years, so it's kind of >> interesting whenever we like meet with people, they're like, "Oh, yeah. Uh Tristan, I watched your video when I was a child.
[laughter] >> That was like a grown ass person.
>> That happens more often than I would like to happen. I mean, I do like it to happen cuz I still like meeting the people. But it also makes me feel very old very quickly.
>> Technically speaking, I was a child when I watched when I first watched your videos. 16-year-old child, but you know, >> still a child.
>> You weren't you weren't an adult yet in >> Yeah. Yeah. Sure.
>> I didn't watch you back then. Sorry, Tristan.
>> I didn't I was [ __ ] back then anyway.
It's fine. [laughter] >> Um it was like a second order effect of my that guy with the glasses fandom because um Yu Otaku was was like one of the best things on that guy with the glasses and uh was also part of the Desk Brigade which Tristan was part of.
>> And it makes me feel so cringe to hear that at this point in time. [laughter] >> Well, that you're part of the Desk Brigade. Did you have a business card that said that?
>> No. I should have made one, but this was when I was like 19 and living out of a dorm at university putting up a freaking website on Jumla thinking that we were hot [ __ ] >> Easily one of the funniest artifacts from that era was uh uh oh dang it. I can't remember her screen name, but she popped into the Something Awful uh uh movie reviewer, That Guy with the Glasses thread once and posted her four videos that were just like reviewing hentai.
>> That's I mean, that's quality content.
Like like uh >> that's a good resume. Yeah.
>> Uh was it What style was it? Did was she doing like a cinema snob type thing or >> No, no, no. It she was doing like >> she it was very vlogish, right? Like she was just kind of like sitting on her bed in costume surrounded by a bunch of like props and stuff. It was I mean I say costume, but it was basically like Oh man. It w there was it was like a riff on the avatar of one of the like file sharing sites >> and I don't I I'm I these details are very hazy in my brain. I just remember that it like it was like a it was like throwing a hand grenade into the into the forum thread though cuz like I mean of course it was um >> it was Yeah, that would have been >> you know it's when people say the internet is forever. I'm so mad that they're wrong all the time. I I do YouTube every once in a while and I look and most of my favorites cuz most of my favorites are you know pre202 are gone >> since since um marrying my wife. One thing that has uh absolutely infuriated me is that her and her brothers have um a bunch of inside jokes that all relate to this one Lord of the Rings um online meme cartoon that they all watched as a child and we've never been able to find it and they keep quoting it and have been quoting it for the last 15 years and I've never seen it cuz we've never been able to locate it.
>> It's only the bad parts of the internet that are forever. I I yeah, I guess that's as good a transition as any into the main topic if we >> unless we had a question of the week to go to first. I can't remember if we did or not.
>> I mean, which were most impactful? Well, I mean, that's going to be Princess Monoke and Akira.
>> Like my those >> Princess Monoke was the first like uh it got a theatrical release, like a proper theatrical release, and of course, they had like the the big budget uh like they had the bigname English cast, and they actually did like alternating showings of the uh uh the English soundtrack and the Japanese soundtrack. And um so that was the first one kind of in that formative teenage years where I was like I am going to go see that. I'm going to like I'm going to be into that. I'm going to make that my thing. And then it wound up being a thing worth making your thing. Like it's it wound up being a like actually like phenomenal movie. So I wasn't just like uh >> you know trend chasing but um >> it was one of my more formative ones in in high school as well. I had some uh anime preloading prior to that, like through um elementary school and my sister was in the anime club and she was 2 years older than me and she had things slowly filter down before I entered high school. But then like when I joined up the first thing that we all watched was Monoke and I was like, "Oh, okay. This is not Pokémon. Uh this is not anything that normally shows up on YTV except that one time that Endless Walts was on YTV."
>> But [laughter] um >> uh and this is very different and I and I and I like this. And then I realized um well cuz Monoke was probably a little bit more mature than even some of the other Giblly stuff cuz I had seen Giblly movies prior to Monoke cuz I had watched Kiki and um I had watched Lapida but like um Monoke was one of those okay no this is slightly different and I like whatever this is. And then that led into like two or three years of literally watching anything that was even remotely considered anime, which is also like how I watched the City Hunter films because a friend of mine had them on VHS tape and I'm like, "Yes, please. I will watch all of them. I don't care what order.
Doesn't matter really."
>> So, what what was your experience with Akira? I'm also curious about that.
>> Uh [sighs and gasps] I mean, when did I first actually see it? Um it would have been high school.
Um, it would have been a VHS copy. I think we all went over to Laurianne's place and uh uh cuz she was like into anime and she was like importing stuff and she had a she had a uh you know two VCRs, she had you know DVD player um uh and um yeah, I feel like I feel like we just watched it as a group one day based off of, you know, almost entirely off of like its reputation. I think we had already seen uh uh we had definitely already seen a by that point and we had we'd certainly seen uh uh Ghost in the Shell by that point. Um because actually I yeah I rented my brothers and I rented that one actually shortly before we even moved back to Calgary. So that was I was still in junior high at the time. Um, but yeah, so just in in high school, we we someone had a copy of Akira. We watched it as a as a group and uh you know, just off of its reputation. Um, and uh and it wound up being like deeply formative, you know, not just for my like relationship with anime, but my relationship with film as a whole. Um, you know, it's one of the movies that I would say that it's like are is the reason why I wanted to make movies is to make something like that. Yeah, >> I 100% see that. It's it's like the phrase tour force gets thrown around an awful lot, but it's it's a it's a real just divorce movie. I don't even feel weird saying that because like the number of filmmakers out there who are who it's like, "Oh, what are your like the most influential films who like have Akira on that list somewhere is, you know, there dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of them." So, yeah.
>> What What are the other films, anime or otherwise, that really got you into film making?
>> Um, Ridley Scott. Uh, so, uh, Bladeunner, Theman Louise, and Alien in particular. Um, the Louise I think is the one that people find odd out of that, but it's purely because we had the DVD. So, like when DVDs first came out, we were early adopters of DVD, and when they first came out, it was like, well, we need to put stuff on these to convince people to pay a higher price for them. Uh, so the first like couple waves of DVDs that came out of titles that released were actually like really good um valuewise. So Ridley Scott was someone they got on board early and clearly what they did is they just sat him down for like four days and had him just like talk over like all of his entire filmography up to that point. Um, but so those movies have directors like have Ridley Scott's director's commentaries and as a director, Ridley Scott is incredibly or at least at the time was like incredibly in tune with the entire process of making a movie from like conception to to writing to production to editing to, you know, effects and and all of it. like he was very much in tune with it and he could talk confidently about why decisions were made and how they impacted things and like little changes that uh that that shift how the movie forms. Um and he could just like riff that off the top of his head very naturally, very eloquently. and listening to Ridley Scott talk about movies and reading like uh uh Eert at his absolute prime in the '9s. Um >> you know just uh uh just really like instilled a deep love of like the craft of film making for me. The art of storytelling.
>> I'm I miss DVD commentaries like that so [laughter] much. I can I also remember when I got like the the the band-aid ripped off um because like Okay, we were we were big fans of Braveheart. We had it on VHS.
>> Mhm.
>> But the VHS was pan and scan. It wasn't even scan. It was basically just a center crop. So, the number of shots in Braveheart that make no sense because there's like cuz it uses all this extreme framing of like there's something way over on this side and there's something way over on this side like in the in the depth and it's like um but so when the when the DVDs came out, we were like really excited because it had the widescreen version and I was like, I can't wait for the director's commentary of this movie I've seen like 30 times and and really love. And then it's like you're watching the movie with Mel Gibson, but he really wants to see the movie.
[laughter] So he doesn't he's not exactly [clears throat] a chatty commentary track. And like of course all of this like has a different like you know talking about Mel Gibson's career has a different context these days but like in the 90s you know it was his his reputation was different at the time. Um, and so it was just like it was just comical and like deeply disappointing also that like I'm watching the director's commentary and he's basically saying nothing and when he is saying things it's like >> yeah so it rained a lot. [laughter] >> It was probably raining in this scene.
It's like you have somebody in the theater behind you just talking about something that sounds somewhat related but is really like them talking on a phone or something.
>> Yeah. But is otherwise like but is also trying to be like conscientious and like is trying to keep it like to the minimum, the absolute bare minimum. It's just like it really is just the occasional side comment about like I like this shot. That'll be it. That'll be like 100% of his commentary for an entire scene. Well, the film DVD commentary was like new probably when that that had came out, right? So, you know, there was no standard.
>> There was no standard. But so, like my expectations were set by Ridley Scott just like cuz one of them I think it's the the commentary for Alien. He had so much to say that if you watch the director's commentary, the movie ends.
He goes all the way through the credits, it ends, and then it just cuts to footage of Ridley Scott like, you know, talking for another 10 minutes. Yeah.
about making awesome.
>> So, like that's where my standards were set. And then you've got then you've got uh uh you know Mel Gibson who who talk like who uh barely manages to crack a hundred words in a three-hour movie. I mean, I feel like we're of a generation that's spoiled by this because like yes, some people were rich and had laser discs in like the '9s when early 90s when the criteria collection was just starting, but for the most part, it's really people who came of age at least in the terms of art consumption in the early 2000s who have this ability to have a relationship with filmmakers, which you don't get the same thing on TikTok. watching like a like 2-minute like variety interview with the director where it shows clips is not the same as sitting through a whole movie with the director and none of the streaming services do it like even Criterion Channel which is one of my favorite you know best $10 a month I spend where they've got like essays and you can watch different like packages of films with this like guided voice are not that even feels almost just the same as watching movies on turn of classic movies where they'd have like a 10-minute intro or an intro which I just we are from a very specific generation where you could get into art >> there. There are like a handful of movies on like Prime actually will occasionally have like director's commentaries. Uh they'll occasion very occasionally have new ones and they have a bunch of the like famous legacy ones like I believe the Amazon Prime version of Fight Club has like the like >> the director the Chuck Palan and the uh the cast commentaries. There were like five commentary tracks on that on that.
That one was insane. Uh but I mean now like nowadays ah god with streaming the you're lucky if you get any behind the scenes stuff at all and when you do most of it's going to be like cut for Tik Tok >> or it's going to be the Game of Thrones thing where it just feels like marketing.
>> Well cuz they are they are marketing like cuz Okay. So like in in film school like we learned all about this. So like the the proper industry term for all of that stuff is an EPK an electronic press kit. So, like if you if you have any memory of the '9s where like a big movie coming out, so like Mission Impossible 2 or The Matrix, like they were getting a ton of buzz to the point that it was like newsworthy and they'd be like it's like oh Mission like you're watching the 6:00 news and they're like this weekend Mission Impossible 2 comes out and then they play a quick little like an interview, a clip of the movie and something else that would all be from the EPK. And so when so DVDs were just like packaging EPK content that they were already making to send to broadcasters >> and then they would start shooting some more stuff like for the DVD for the Blu-ray. And now of course it's like we're shooting extra stuff for social because like that's because the form of the electronic press kit has just like mutated and like that's where the attention is.
>> That makes so much sense. Then then that also explains like a lot of why DVD bonus features would have started to fall off because like >> they just weren't >> television was becoming less and less important and like [clears throat] >> uh yeah and you know the the days of uh the days of like the the Star Wars um widescreen release EPK which is called um oh it's you know basically like channels showed the entire higher promotional EPK like just as a feature. Um like you know it's like what's it called? It's from >> Texas Hollywood era or >> from crap. I'm completely like it's there's any which way there's a uh there's a uh a 45minute behindthe-scenes epk that was included as part of the widescreen release of Star Wars on VHS that got just aired on broadcast in its entirety multiple times.
>> Yeah. All I remember about like that era was the the Star Wars VHS's that we had that every every movie had like a 10-minute interview with George Lucas at the top of it.
>> Yeah.
>> That over time we just reround through because we're like we don't need to watch we want to watch Star Wars.
>> Yeah. I mean, 10 years ago, which feels like a long time ago at this point, uh, when I was working on I was able to get money to do interviews with the Mob Psycho uh, casting crew for the Blu-ray, but I got the money for it for doing it for myself for social. Like, that's where the budget come came from. And the fact that we could put it on the home video release was just kind of like a nice to have. It was like helpful for getting the folks from Japan to be willing to sit down for an interview for an hour. But uh >> like I'm glad I got to do that and I'm glad I got to contribute to >> home video releases, but it it it still felt bad that oh that's we're just exploiting you for a 30 secondond clip that's going on YouTube.
>> Uh from Star Wars to Jedi, the making of a saga originally aired on PBS December 3rd, 1983. That was bugging me. The title was bugging me. I was like I can't remember. [laughter] I can't believe I >> get it. I get it.
No, I I understand that when when you get that in your head, I'm like, "Okay, I I need to look this up now. Otherwise, this is going to be my entire thought process for the next 3 hours."
>> I do that all the time while we're recording this podcast. I'll just like go quickly look up >> myself. [laughter] >> I mean, I hope we've indicated that we don't really care too much about form structure or anything else on this podcast. We're just kind of here to have a good time.
>> So, let's get into talking about Belle.
The one thing I do want to ask Dan before we talk about Belle is well no it's it's semi-related. Um and that's uh >> have you watched Summer Wars?
>> That's the one I haven't seen but everybody references it whenever I talk about Hosada there, you know. Yeah.
>> Yes. Um especially in in regards to this film.
>> So um >> um have you seen Digimon the movie?
>> Yes. So you've seen Summer Wars >> the are the the first part of Digimon the movie if that if you imagine that is two hours long with like a family sitcom side plot.
>> Okay. Summer wars. Okay.
>> I can visualize that. Yeah.
>> Yeah. And now that you've seen Belle, the add-on to that is like most of the digital world stuff is just >> you except they call it Oz.
>> Um and then there's a bunch of references. when I got out of Scarlet and I like I just tweeted about it's like you know just got out of Scarlet enjoy it. Someone like immediately pops in. It's like so how uh uh how was the tunnel of light representing a transition into a digital other world uh in in this movie? And I was like, actually, it's a uh very cool tunnel of light into not a digital world, but a like uh uh alternate memory.
>> They're like, "Okay, which is just the the same thing with a different coat of paint." Um >> he he has things that he likes [laughter] doing.
>> Things he likes. Yeah. He's got a he's got a type.
>> He does. He he has a a mentality of what he wanted the internet to be probably when he did like Digimon and Summer Wars and then he just keeps repeating that hoping that if he says it enough times eventually that'll just become reality.
That's kind of the the feeling I get sometimes after watching especially watching Belle and you and it's like oh well everybody has avatars in this online platform and I'm like okay well what does anybody do in this digital world and by the looks of it it's like no people just kind of bloat. I mean to to me like I I actually >> Belle feels decently accurate to how people use Fortnite to how people use [laughter] for I I feel like Belle is uh one of the best representations of social media.
>> Yeah, I I like I'm inclined to >> agree with that. There's, you know, like >> there there are people wandering around, you know, wandering around. Oh, they're just wandering around. They're they're scrolling. They're they're they're scrolling. Um, and anyone at any time is both audience and observed.
>> A lot of stuff about this movie like did really speak to me as a content creator, right? You know, like as somebody who's in that ecosystem, who's like been on both sides of influencer interactions and stuff like that. I was like, "Yeah, there is some like really good well-observed truth to this." In the same way that like I mean Hosto's always got some well-observed uh depictions of teenage life, right? Like like uh I think that's the best part of this movie is the the teenage sections.
>> The scene at the station is like >> top tier. Oh yeah.
>> Yes.
>> This is this Yeah. This is a really interesting movie for me cuz there's a lot of moments in it that hit me really hard emotionally. But like if I try to summarize the story, you know, it's it's a movie about a girl whose mom died. So, she was sad and couldn't sing for a while, but then she found the internet and found her voice and became a pop star and ultimately had to use the power of self-expression to uh dox a child abuser and save >> [snorts] >> uh like save a poor abused child. And it's like and she does this even though there is a character with a literal doc's gun.
>> The doc's gun. Yeah, the dog stun [laughter] is is simultaneously one of the best and worst parts of this [laughter] movie. It really is >> like like uh superhero Gaston with his docinator like >> with his with his doc gun and then he just disappears out of the narrative which I thought was a little dis disappointing because he was like he's like a version. He sings so good that that um Black Rockck and Bear Sterns just unsponsors him on the spot.
[laughter] >> Like there's just a lot of really weird inongruous things. There are stories constructed. It's two different stories that are uh not necessarily well interwoven but are too interlin to just go like well okay cut cut this one you know and like just it's like you can't just slice it in half neatly and be like all right make two movies because that's what you're doing here. um they are just entwined enough that it's like >> so you won't get the reference but it's Summer Wars. Um cuz that's kind of what Summer Wars did too cuz it had this whole big side plot with a family out in the Enaka uh and a grandmother who passed away and then they had like family unity and all this other stuff.
But then also they were fighting this like internet demon vampire or not demon vampire internet virus thing that was taking things over and this guy had who was part of the family created it and called it love machine because reasons.
Um and it was kind of two separate movies. It was this really great family drama and then also all of this uh Digimon stuff that was somewhat tacked on.
>> Well, not tacked on. I think Koda really did think he was threading that needle of this is all interconnected. This is kind of we have our inner lives and our outer lives. Like that's what all the stuff why he loves Avatar so much. He's like this is a mask a very literal mask uh in so many senses and this is very much the case here. But in Summer Wars it did not work. In this movie >> it kind of works.
>> It works better but still not great. I think the thing that saves it for me is that like particularly with uh with the fact that like it came out also well um you know the metaverse you know was uh was being pumped. Um, I >> I was consuming a lot of media that talks about the metaverse or imagines the metaverse or tries to visualize the internet or talk about the internet. And this was the only one where I was like, "Okay, this one this is the only one that understands the internet, >> you know, and and has gone like and is is stylizing the internet in unrealistic ways, but is doing so with the intent of being like, okay, we're like I need to express something about how the internet feels." Um, and and thus, you know, in order to make that visually exciting, I need to do it this way or to like for pacing purposes, I'm going to visualize it this way. Um, but then in the actual content, it like it understands how those things actually interact and like why people behave the way they do. And part of that is that it's like, you know, uh, Hosada is not just somebody who like sees an avatar as like, you know, oh, a weird things the kids do on that on that internet. Like, he understands that like you can have a very complicated lovehate relationship with your alter ego that is your screen name on a like '9s message board. uh you know he understands both the like the value like the potency of anonymity for good and evil. I hadn't seen Belle until we finally got to, you know, we were sitting down to do this podcast, right?
Because I I just fell off watching Hosodto's movies after a while. But like, and in my mind, I was like, "Oh, you know, he did Summer Wars a third time, right? He did Our War Game a third time." But like now that I'm sitting down and watching it, I'm like I I actually think that there is a a strong justification to him doing our war game and Summer Wars and this because the internet evolves so quickly and each of them does really create a compelling snapshot of how it felt to be online at that time.
>> Yeah. Um, and you know, here I like there's there's so many really interesting ideas. Um, I I wish he was a little more judicious in editing them, but like the idea of of taking Beauty and the Beast and making it a story about like uh two people's online personas, one of which is just like everything that is is like hidden inside them that they wish they could be, and the other one is is like art.
>> Well, [laughter] it's Yeah, but it's it's somebody like going through it and using the internet as an outlet.
>> Yeah. You're right. An online edge lord.
Yeah. Um >> in the in the thinking about it logically, right, it doesn't entirely track that like the entire world would be obsessed with one griefer in an online game, right? like we have to we have to uncover his identity because he's pvping too good.
>> Well, it's he's he's a he's a main character on Twitter. That's the thing is that it's not a video game. He's not >> he's not a griefer in Quake. He's a main character on social media >> and that it makes sense on that layer, right? And it there's a >> there's a fairy tale logic to it which feels very I think appropriate to doing Beauty and the Beast where um like even if you think through the sci-fi steps step by step and you're like, "Oh, this doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense." Emotionally, a the arc that it follows I think does really feel good.
>> This is Hoda's messiest movie by a mile.
It's It's like if Bel Deline set off on a quest to doc's drill.
[laughter] >> That is exactly it.
>> Well, there's the title for the podcast version, Tristan.
>> Thank you. [laughter] >> But like this is a messy the messiest movie this guy's ever made and yet it works because all these individual parts are >> extremely resonant.
>> Yeah. M >> yeah there's there's a number of plotwise I can totally like this is this is one of my favorite movies. This this movie like deeply like affected me. I I like I cried and I I love this film and I can still back up and look at and be like oh yeah and the plot's a hot mess.
>> The plot like hey let's enhance in this window. Hey there there's those two towers. is where the Oh, I know where those two towers are. It's conveniently the train ride right away.
>> No, no, no. I like that part. That part's I I like that part. Doing I like the geodoxing that one that scene's great.
>> Yeah, the geodoxing and then she shows up being like, "Oh [ __ ] I don't know the address." And then the kids are just outside and it's fun, >> of course, because they see her running up and down like, you know, well, presumably they see her running up and down the uh running up and down the street. Um, but like the uh uh the most jarring one to me every time I rewatch it is just the like the acceleration from like I have one follower to it's basic like it the the editing effectively implies that it's literally overnight.
>> Yeah.
>> Not even because it's like she sings and then she goes to sleep and when she wakes up it's still at zero. So, it's not even until like she wakes up, looks at it at zero, and then she like goes and gets breakfast and does a couple of things, and then when she checks back, it's >> gotund she has 20 million. It million followers. It's a huge number.
>> Is that how it works for you guys?
>> I mean, like, the thing is the song's really good, so I get it, right? Like, I would if if I was in that universe, I would have shared that song with with my homies, right? You know?
>> Did you watch it in English or Japanese?
>> Japanese. I I started it in English because that's how the Blu-ray defaulted and then I got a little ways in and I was like, >> "Uh, no, there is too much specific lip flapping in here. I can't deal with it."
And also like the dub version of the song is >> okay.
>> Okay.
>> But like like the >> you guys are pain and killing me.
>> Oh, >> this is where I become a dub defender.
Oh my gosh.
>> Dub Defender. Hey. Okay.
>> I think Kylie's just too good. It's I love her performance version of the songs.
I I just think there's some some subtleties to how it's sung in the in the original that are a little bit lost with the autotuning and whatnot.
>> I mean, having not listened to it, I can't speak to that, but I would say that like Jeff mentioned, the the lip flapping would bother the hell. the lip popping is not done very good because they don't care about that compared to well no like compared to other dubs even they seem to really care about the specific words and like I in you know I did work on this film in a marketing capacity in in the UK and France but I have no idea how it was dubbed just told everything studio was very involved in the dub so I wouldn't be surprised if they said hey we don't care about lip flops we care about getting the meaning across exactly as we wanted to.
>> I think that's the right call though cuz like >> getting the lip flaps right on this also would be very difficult given how they use the CG and how how how like like it's it's very well lip synced for an anime. You know, anime is not usually this accurate to to how the mouth shapes were on the actual actors.
>> Netflix AI is going to change that.
Um, yeah. I like what what you're saying, Dan, about how like the plot's a hot mess and yet it like made you cry. That was kind of like my experience with it, too. And it it like hit me really hard really fast. As soon as she gets into you and starts singing, I was like tearing up, right? cuz like like it's so effective in how it like sets up the like the karaoke scene and like you know she can't sing and that means a lot to her and then like you know again it's it's one of those scenes that like if you pull back and you're just like how would this logically go?
It's it's very awkward for somebody to just like log into uh the hub area of a virtual world and just start singing as the first thing they do, right?
>> But like it just hits, right? It just it just hits really hard. And there's a lot of moments in this movie that had me tearing up straight to the end. Um and also because like uh Yazzy she did her home stay in >> Coochi Sweden.
>> Uh so we went there on vacation, right?
So having been in the physical spaces that the movie is set in, um that really hit too. I was like I I like a lot more of the atmosphere and specific vibe of the uh Shikoku like really came through and I was like it it helped me connect with the characters a little more. I think >> Dan, you went to film >> I the the environment that this movie is set in in particular got its hooks into me. So like we went and saw it and I I get home and I'm like it's like wow that was like stunning. I want to see like where was that based on, you know, in the same way that like you watch a Miyazaki film and you're like it's like he's got to be he's referencing like >> somewhere >> somewhere, you know, it's like oh like this area is sort of like is based off of the forests in in this region, right?
And you know, it's like if you want to see terrain that evokes like this, you know, from uh you know, you know, whatever. Um, and what I discovered is like, okay, like so where was Belle based on? And it immediately pops up with like visit, you know, uh, uh, visit Kochi, like they've got a whole English language, uh, uh, touristf facing thing like, hey, if you saw the movie, like come see the place that, uh, that inspired it. And I was like, oh, that's >> there's a map in the film that specifically specifies where [laughter] they are before.
>> There's a they even tell you the stations.
>> They even tell you the stations. And so like I I uh I was like I I looked it up and I as I started digging deeper into it, I just kind of got a little bit like I got a little bit obsessed and was like just sort of like I was just doing the street view thing, right? Like I was just in street view and just like clicking around and like it's like oh wow like look at this place, look at this place. And as I was doing that, I started to notice a pattern, which was that all of the locations in the movie are reasonably geographically accurate.
that Belle or that that Suzu lives out in this little hamlet and she's got to get on a bus and take that to Eno Station where she gets on the local and takes that into the city and then goes to goes to school and then like they reverse that journey for the uh for the other direction. I was like all of these if if you lived here and you had you were going to school here, you would in fact >> do this >> go that way.
>> Was like interesting.
>> Yazz's told me about like doing that actual commute every day cuz she wasn't in Coochi. She was in >> I forget the name of the exact town but it was in one of like the smaller towns on the train line. So, she had to take like a train that came like once an hour.
>> Yeah.
>> For an hour just to get to school. Um, and it's a very interesting Sorry, I don't mean to.
>> Yeah. So, I I found that like really compelling as a creative choice. Now, anime, of course, is no stranger to um uh like direct referencing real world locations. Um and you know, like like hard photo [clears throat] referencing like like the the big one is Oh, what's the uh is that stairway from uh Call Me By Your Name?
>> Yeah, your name. Yeah.
>> Oh, it's just called Your Name.
>> Yeah. uh you know like that's that's the one is you know like overloaded with tourists all waiting to take a photo in the in the pose whatever so like but um well like so yeah so anime is no stranger to referencing real world locations um but I just found the the adherence to geographical accuracy to be too consistent to not be deliberate and so that fascinated me as a creative decision that it's like okay you put thought into that because it takes more effort to keep that like to make those decisions and keep that consistent when you're animating it. Um, you know, than it does if you're uh like than it would be to just like send some people out, take piles and piles of reference photos and then just sort of grab whatever is right like feel like whatever looks good in the moment. Um, >> whatever works for the scene you're doing.
>> Yeah. So it was like what's what's the intent there? What are what what what is the what what is being said underneath that? And I found that like okay that's a geographical grounding in Kochi and its surrounding area. Um that is meant to be sort of this like grounding. It's a rock in contrast to the the hyper reality of of you. So that it's like, okay, if we're going to have this virtual reality that is that is so abstracted, we're going to compensate by making the real world portion actually the real world.
>> Geographical consistency seems to be a big obsession of Hosodas as a filmmaker.
I think like um you see that a lot in in Digimon are both of the Digimon movies that he uh directed are very rooted in specific spaces in Tokyo and like their relationship to each other is really important. And um yeah, I mean like so much so that as a kid who just like watched the Digimon movie on repeat um when I was when I was uh 8 n years old, right when I moved to Tokyo, I ended up having this like nostalgic attachment to a lot of places that I'd never been to before just because he paints such a vivid picture of how they all connect through the film and like He also does that with fictional spaces which is really uh like in in Baron Matsuri, right? The you get a real sense for how the island is set up and how all of that connects as the straw hats are running all over it. Um, and then there's there's in he kind of merges the approaches of like recreating the real world and creating a fictional one in the girl who leapt through time because a lot of it is like real Tokyo neighborhoods, but then there's that like impossible death trap valley that the train runs through that is like purely just designed to ch kill children on bicycles. Um, [laughter] but uh it it like feels like a tangible space and like you understand how like her house connects to the school, connects to the museum. And I I just that is to me one of the most compelling things about all of Hosod's films is the spaces that the characters inhabit. And and I think that that's why Belle's virtual world works for me. in a way that Oz from uh uh Summer Wars never [clears throat] did. Cuz in in Summer Wars, Oz is very abstract, right? Like like it's it's just kind of this white void where stuff happens.
>> Yeah. Whereas in in Belle, yes, it's abstract, but there's like the city area and the castle area and like we follow Belle's journey to the beast's castle and like we understand how it's hidden, but like we also kind of hidden like he's he's basically like his his castle is basically like he's the last commenter in a on a on a BBS that you know [laughter] is otherwise like our like alt whatever.
uh uh chat room. Uh he's like, you know, that cuz it's surrounded by just all of this like he's like, "Oh, he's like, "Oh, what are these abandoned buildings in a digital context?" It's like, "Well, they're >> they're empty. They're for they're they're they're link rot. They're forums that are just like lying around. They're archived material. They're, you know, places that nobody goes anymore. They're forgotten websites."
There was an interview did uh talking about this and he said one of the reasons why he wanted uh you to look so busy is he's like well there's just been a lot of stuff on the internet. The internet's kind of like flesh fleshed out now compared to the Oz days where it's all like a big white space with a little bit of characters in the middle.
It's like no we're we've kind of filled up the internet. The internet is is here like it's all around us. It's giant. You don't know if the buildings are full or empty but like it's all around you. And I kind of I love that. And you got the wolf children people, or I mean, not wolf children, the uh the folks from Ireland to help with the look of you, which I thought was great.
>> The the uh cartoon saloon.
>> Cartoon saloon folks. Yeah, they were uh they lead the design for you.
>> That makes so much sense. Oh, man. Like, it's such a I I'm so glad we finally got out of the Hosodiverse design. Not that I don't like the the >> There was still There were a couple of cuts that felt like, oh, this sort of looks like Oz. Like, there was at least one at the very early on that had the same color palette for about 5 to 8 seconds. And I'm like, why would you why would you use the same color palette if you didn't want that reference to be made, >> but I I I think that's meant to evoke like how the space has evolved though, right? Like, this is what you expect from me. Here's what you're getting. Um, and like it's funny because he's been using that exact motif since um, >> he made a not since Digimon, he made a an ad for Louis Vuitton.
>> That's [laughter] the first time [clears throat] >> that he used that specific Yeah, there's like this one minute anime ad that he made for Louis Vuitton where like this girl falls into a white void that's like Oz except with the Louis Vuitton logos all over the place [laughter] instead of all of the random colorful glyphs and it's it's just [laughter] fascinating little piece of his history.
>> Mhm.
>> It's called Superflat.
>> Super flat monogram.
>> Yeah. Super flat monogram. That's it.
>> It is five minutes.
>> Five minutes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. It's It's a really I I like it a lot. Um it's a really uh fun little thing, but um Yeah. Like I see what like I didn't know Cartoon Saloon was on this, but it makes so much sense now that you said that. Um he hired an architect from South Korea, too, to help with the buildings in you as well. Like that's kind of cool to just like say, I want an architect to help me build these fictional buildings to make some larger point. I I also like low-key he he absolutely castlemogged Disney on um on the Beauty and the Beast side of this story, right? Like >> um it's very clearly and deliberately evoking the Disney movie with a lot of those moments >> and just the digital reinterpretation. A lot of that hits the dance scene, especially when they like take off from the ground and start flying around.
There was even um one track within the soundtrack that had the same instrumentation of one of the overtures from the Disney movie. And I only know this because my daughters listen to that soundtrack constantly. So when like the same brass picked up, I'm like that's the same as the Disney film. What are you doing? [laughter] I think it's just extremely bold to say, "Hey, I'm going to take the most iconic uh imagery in recent US animation history and I'm going to do it myself."
>> Like the the ballroom scene. I don't think the ballroom scene worked as well here. But >> no, not emotionally, but like >> But no, you kind of needed it to cuz so much of this movie is better emotionally than like so many other films. Why draw that comparison? I just I thought that was a little uh >> little much. I I I liked them flying though, right? And the decaying edges of the castle and stuff. It's >> if I wasn't comparing it to Beauty and the Beast in my head at that moment, it would have been >> I I think >> I think I could put my finger on exactly why you're feeling the way that you're feeling. And it's because the it's actually the scene where like the love story falls apart, >> like [clears throat] where it it turns into like, oh, this isn't actually a love story. This is this isn't this is not actually a romantic plot, >> which is a weird pivot in the course of the movie. Um >> that I would despise if it weren't if the actual culmination of it weren't so good.
>> It is. Yeah, it's it's got a really good climax. And I also I think it kind of works >> as a twist because up to that point, right, I was kind of suspecting that her like love interest at school might secretly be the beast. And I was like, "Oh, is that is is that the hacky angle that we're going?"
>> I thought the hacky angle was that the beast was going to be her dad.
>> That's what I thought.
>> That would have been atrocious.
>> It was going Yeah, it was atrocious. But I was just like, they have a relationship and Hoda historically has been very big on the family relationships and we have this big section about how she feels about her mom, but we didn't for a lot of the movie get a lot about what was going on with her dad who was probably also suffering at the same time. So I was fully expecting the beast to have been her dad. Like that would not have surprised.
>> Dad stuff wasn't even resolved really all that well cuz like he's >> not really. I mean, it's sort of at the end you want to get she's just been saying no and he's been like, "Oh, okay." And like that's like a very normal like [clears throat] honest realistic >> not just dad thing, but like >> single dad of a, you know, in this circumstance like what are you supposed to do? Am I supposed to figure out how she feels about this at the moment? I'm asking her if she wants to eat dinner. I I think part of it is going for like, you know, a because it's it's trying to go for at least a a version of realism where it's like, okay, things don't always neatly wrap up and things are messy and things happen to people that, you know, random things happen to people. You know, you've got the whole aside that's where it's like the war game. uh you know it's like the hex grid and they're like planning on how to deal with like how how to deal with the uh the the mean girls and like it's like how we how you go >> and the gossiping the >> plan Romance of the Three Kingdoms all of a sudden.
>> Yeah. And it's like it's it's a very sort of like random aside that never really comes back and you know you could say this like okay in a uh uh save the cat script writing sense like cut it >> but at the same time like you know I think to maybe the detriment of his films Hosod is like well no random things happen to people like people's lives are not cleancut. People's lives are not straight lines. People's lives are not uh uh neatly packaged. You know, there are like things that happen in people's lives that that are sort of like arcs and culminating moments and whatnot.
People have important moments in their lives. People have turning points, but also there's all this chaos happening around them. to cut that scene specifically like kind of maybe would work if you're only looking at that scene, but then I feel like it would have harmed again one of my favorite scenes, which was the canoe guy and the popular girl in the the >> canoe guy is like my favorite character in [laughter] >> I don't know why I was so invested in that romance. I he's like he's also I think probably the best written character just in terms of [laughter] like like every everything gets called back like just when like literally the second I was thinking man I really hoped I I at the start I was like I was really hoping that canoe guy would be more significant and then he literally came down the river as I was thinking that [laughter] and I was like you got me and then then you know he there's that like lime where he's like, "Oh, you're rooting for me. Does that mean you you have a little crush on me?
Just kidding." And then that comes back as like the turning point of that whole conversation. [laughter] >> It's so good.
>> That's Don't run away. Don't run away.
And like the camera just stays there and I loved it. I was like, "Yes, you don't need to move the camera. It's fine."
>> Yeah. Yeah. That's perfect. Perfect cinematography, perfect character acting. just like >> and and it also, you know, it feeds into uh Suzu's love story with I'm I'm forgetting it uh Shobu.
>> Um which is >> like that's one of those things that kind of just happens in the sidelines of >> life, right? That that you were talking about.
>> And I I like it as that. You know, I like that there's this guy who's in Suzu's corner who sees her and supports her, but isn't tied into the Beauty and the Beast storyline or anything like this. He's just like like he just recognizes that she's Belle because he understands her so well.
>> And it, you know, that like that feels like a good fake out and then it has a satisfying resolution.
>> Well, that's kind of the whole fairy tale thing, right? Like there are so many things that have a fairy tale ending in this kind of and the things that don't it kind of draws more attention to but you still feel pretty good about it. Like the end story for the two boys is congratulations you guys get to go in the system now right like that was just that's your system. Well I mean they get to go in the system but they are friends with uh probably pretty wealthy celebrities so they'll be fine.
Um hopefully >> it's so interesting how it never talks about not never but like the money is just such a tertiary interest to every bit of this you know.
>> Yeah. Like even even her producer who in most anime would be the like money money character if we're talking like keep your hands off Azoken or something like that. But here she's just like >> social media is such a fun game. I love manipulating people and we're maybe we'll make a lot of money. I don't know.
But I'm winning the game and [laughter] >> that's I don't know. That's endearing.
>> That's our whole motivation and I am here for it.
>> That's that's also what I like about Miles uh if I'm being honest. Right.
Like Miles doesn't necessarily like capitalism but he he's good at it.
>> I do like winning.
>> You he likes winning. Suzu, by the way, just in ter Thank you, Jeeoff. Uh, Suzu is one of my favorite, probably my favorite protagonist in all of the Hod films >> because she is so specific in a way that uh is very earned. I mean, especially compared to something like The Girl through Time where I don't even remember the main character's name, but I kind of liked that it felt like a fairy tale because she felt very uh, you know, you could very much put yourself onto her.
uh she was that served that kind of role in this completely opposite.
>> I'm still a very big fan of Makoto from The Girl Who Left Through Time. Um mostly cuz I just feel like I I related to her more and as we discussed when we actually talked about that film, I watched that when I was like in that time of my life. And so like I I attached a lot more to it than it probably would make sense of me to attach to a high school girl now in my 30s. I I I mean I think like Makoto Chiaki and what's his what's the third guy's name? Um the that I'm >> I can remember main characters >> there. I mean he is main character but like I they have like >> there's kind of an every kid dynamic to how they're written almost, you know?
It's it's like >> they >> there is something you can recognize from your own friend group experience no matter what kind of friend group experience you've had. And like, >> you know, everybody everybody is some mix of the very serious kid at school, the guy who just wants to goof off, and like the person who's trying but maybe isn't so good at stuff, right? Um, so like but but Suzu, you're right, Miles, that Suzu is is very her journey is very specific. What she's going through is very specific.
Um, and like I don't know. I I like uh a a lot of different anime where a character has like a big concert and um the whole world tunes in and it changes things.
Like I I like that as a story beat. Love Carolyn Tuesday. Um but like this managed to do that without it it feeling like that. like it was just a >> uh it was more about her being seen and it doesn't really matter how many people are seeing her.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean the way she sings. Go ahead.
Yeah.
>> Yeah. But the fact that it is everyone and there is this moment of like vulnerability for everybody on the internet is is beautiful, right? And and you know, sorry I continue. I I'm I just kind of trailed off there.
>> No, I mean it's it's to the same point which is her message is very specific even in that last song where she's basically coming to terms with her mother's death finally. Uh and yet because she's got such a specific thing, it makes her more relatable to me in this particular movie to just being like, "Oh, I this feeling you're singing about is universal particularly because the way it's sung both in Japanese and in English. I just that uh the how can you make la like hit so hard and the answer is you just get extremely talented motheruckers to do it >> and have literally every human being on earth sing along with it >> with you. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Which is [sighs] I I mean Yeah.
Like so just like Suzu in general like I think fantastically wellrealized character, right? like she has this uh survivors guilt slashs survivors anger that you know motivates her in a way where you're like it's like okay I can see why that would derail you you know and that's that derailment that you see is then important because like you understand that this character is derailed and so when she's like oh like everybody at school hates me and that's observably untrue you're not sitting there going like oh the movie's trying to convince me of something. Well, it's like of one thing while it's showing me another thing. You understand immediately that it's like no, she just thinks that about herself when it's like really like the people around her have, you know, have neutral to actually kind of positive like opinions of her. They think she's a little quirky. They think she's like quiet, but like >> they they want to go to karaoke with her and see her sing.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. And it's it's that that like hit really hard as a depiction of a a very specific high school experience. The like thinking everybody around you is thinking about you more than they really are.
>> Yeah. Um, I also like the the immediately after her mom dies scene where like you hear all the different people from her family and around the neighborhood like gossiping about like oh >> Yeah. Yeah.
You can tell that that was very internalized as as impactful as the death itself for like how Suzu perceives herself and like human interactions and all of these things. And it's that's where the movie does work on like a plot structure level cuz this is as far as Hosoda I think has gotten from like you were saying save the cat uh Hero's Journey the traditional um American view of how to structure a movie. But this is still very much the the classic Japanese koen ketu um story structure which is uh establishment development twist and res resolution, right? We like we we see who Suzu is and why and like we get that uh and then we get the development of who she can be in you um and like uh how she expresses herself. We get the twist of seeing um like the beast and what he's going through. And for a while we're left confused as to like, okay, how does this connect? Are we doing a love story? What are we doing? There's all of these like pieces floating around, but then at the end we see that like the beast thing was really about her fully understanding why her mom did that and doing the same thing but with, you know, a a digital stream instead of a a physical one. And that's that's why I think the movie works a lot better than it has any right to and that than you would think it would when when you just lay out that it is a movie about a pop idol doxing someone.
[laughter] [snorts] >> All right. So now we can look at the list >> at the bottom of our dock >> and try and figure out >> where this goes.
>> Where this goes. Oh man, a couple of these got DNRs.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah. At the at the very bottom. Have you ever watched Motaro Sacred Sailors?
>> No, but I'm now interested cuz it got a DNR.
>> It's I am also deeply fascinated that Cleopatra for Queen of Sex is 48 above [laughter] Spirits Within. Like look, I get that Spirits Within is very boring.
>> We actually hate Spirits Within. likes both of these movies a lot.
>> Miles is the reason that those are as high as they are. Um but uh like like Cleo, have you have you seen Cleopatra, Dan?
>> Yeah, I why why did it come up? I was [laughter] >> Why?
>> Why did it come? It came up as I was researching something years and years and years ago.
Would it would it have been talking about Ralph Bakshi maybe? Because uh >> yeah, it was a couple years ago when I was doing the Bakshi uh thing and talking about like '7s animation and uh and yeah, cuz Cleopatra, Queen of Sex was what was imported in the wake of the success of of Fritz the Cat because uh movie distributors were just looking for smutty animation that they could quickly and cheaply acquire and stick in theaters to make a buck. And yes, so Cleopatra, Queen of S.
>> I salute all of them.
>> Was one of it was it was one of the first ones like it got pulled over in that wave and uh and and I watched it as research for like Yeah. as while I was watching like >> Well, I mean, I watched a lot of 70s animation and uh and only about half of it wound up actually getting mentioned in the uh in in the video. Um, uh, there's some dire stuff out there. Um, [laughter] but, uh, yeah. No, so I watched it while I was while I was watching all of like Bakshi's filmography.
>> And you you didn't care for it, >> man. I don't know what happens in that movie. I was watching the I was watching the the I wanted to Okay, I guess this here's the thing. I was watching the English language version because I wanted to see what like if if what was this 70 if it's 1973 and you see on the marquee Cleopatra Queen of Sex and you're like you know what I'm in uh [laughter] what what was your experience like? And it was just like I'm like it's like oh okay this is like the definition of a movie imported by people who did not care >> like and it was done by people who did not care or know what they were doing or care what they were doing. They just knew that it had to be done fast.
that that might explain some of your experience because when you watch the original like the Japanese cut, you get a lot more of the passion that Tzuka and the people making um Cleopatra Queen of Sex had for Cleopatra Queen of Sex because um like the thing is that it was part of a trilogy of the first three erotic animated feature films in existence.
>> Right. like like that was Tzuka trying to push the medium forward and he did like a a really harrowing uh rape fantasy horror story. Um a second one that I haven't seen yet, but Miles has seen. And then Hannah Barbara does a sex comedy, which um is kind of why Cleopatra ended up where it did. Uh [gasps] and um Belladonna's at 14.
>> Yeah, Bella's uh >> beautiful agonizing movie. Um >> okay, may maybe I'll put Cleopatra, Queen of Sex on again. Like I'll re I'll give it another pass through a different lens and [laughter] >> I should definitely do that instead of watching Momotaro Sacred Sailors cuz that is a literal war crime.
>> Literally a war crime.
>> You you are pitching me. so hard on momentaro [laughter] sacred sailors.
What is this garbage?
>> Actual PS doing the voice signs.
>> Oh, this is old, too.
>> They kill Popeye.
>> Yeah, [laughter] they murder Popeye in in in [clears throat] bloody battle.
It's a children's film.
>> Okay. [laughter] This is >> a children's film about how you should become a kami kaz. They teach you. Okay.
Okay. No, now I'm you know you [laughter] What's what's the uh what's what's the the Django line? Uh uh you had my curiosity and now you have my attention.
[laughter] >> Uh if if you did feel like re-watching Cleopatra, I would instead watch its spiritual successor, Belladon of Sadness, >> okay, which >> which you got at 14.
>> We do have 14. Heavy warnings. It is a not fun movie. It's a very good, very artful movie. It is not meant it. I did not take it as a movie you were meant to enjoy.
>> Right. Sure. I mean, I've I've I've watched Ireversible. I can I I I I've watched Gasbar No films. I I I can I know how to sit through a an awful grinding movie that is, you know.
>> Yeah. Okay.
>> This is more for subject matter. the the story actually is quite in I mean the animation.
>> Have Have you has anyone else here seen Irreversible? Gaspar knows irreversible.
Oh, okay. Um Okay. All right. Uh your commenters will fill you in.
>> All right.
>> More than likely. I bet. I bet.
>> All right. So, the we still got to figure out where we're putting Belle on this list.
>> Yes. [sighs and gasps] Belle needs a location.
>> Well, let's let's say Dan, where do you think we should put it? I mean, the thing is is that I'm okay. Like, let's go down. I'm I'm so unfamiliar with so many of these. And also, a bunch of these I assume are like are these like series as well? Are these like OAVs?
>> This is the top series series um TVs and OVAs. They're all kind of mish mashed into one.
>> Okay. Like Bakano being at number one is one that like I can't really disagree with on on any, you know, measure. Um >> Oh, yeah. [clears throat] Uh, Pat Labor one I haven't seen in decades and I've never seen Pat Labor 2. Uh, >> what? Oh, man. You >> You should see Pat Labor 2.
>> Pat Pat Labor 2 is is like the proto ghost in the shell.
>> Okay.
>> It is also the best 9/11 movie ever made in [laughter] those made in the 90s. and and it it's has very salient commentary about AI upscaling and AI like how how that can be used to manipulate people.
It's really good.
>> Yeah. And then we run down a bunch of stuff that I'm only like passingly familiar with. So like Re:Zero I know about. Firin I know about. Um, you know, so like the next movies that I've seen are Tokyo Godfathers and Princess Monoke and then uh >> uh and Oh, and the uh 0.0621371 miles is 100 m.
>> Yeah.
>> Which is a a 100 meter dash anime movie that is quite good also.
>> Yeah. And then we don't hit another movie that that I've seen until Howell Smoos Castle.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. You haven't I'm surprised you haven't seen Blood Blast as as an Akira enjoyer. That one would probably tickle your fantasy your fancy quite a bit.
>> It would.
>> Where was that? Did maybe I just uh >> just above >> Oh. Oh, Vampire D Hunter D. I guess because uh um Vampire Hunter D to me is very much like a franchise that I never got into. So jumping into like the franchise movies, I mean, I guess I've done that a few times, but like >> the movie super standalone.
>> Yeah. So just like mentally I'm like, "Oh, okay. That's going to be impenetrable." Because so often they are. Um >> it's not. Not this one.
>> Okay. Yeah. It's it's a it's a perfect standalone movie. Okay. Um uh yeah. So then it's like How's Movie Castle? Uh not quite as big of a jump down to Panny and Stalking. Uh Digib Bond movie.
Uh Cleopatra Queen of Sex, Spirits Within. Uh yeah. So like I've I've seen singledigit movies off of your list. So like single digit. In your defense though, you are, I think, the only guest we've ever had who seen >> who would have seen Cleopatra, [laughter] queen of sex, >> and can have a meaningful conversation [snorts] about Cleopatra, queen of sex, [laughter and gasps] >> and give Jeff as many excuses as possible to say Cleopatra, queen of sex.
>> So, as is tradition on anime YouTube, uh, you don't have to watch a lot of anime to have a really strong opinion about what's better than others, things you haven't seen. Uh, so we would love just off the top of your dome, where would you where would you like to see Belle on this list?
>> I can't put it above Mona. Okay, I wouldn't put it above Mona. Okay.
>> Um, >> neither would I.
>> Would you put it above How's Moving Castle?
>> I think I'd put it above Howl.
like Howl. Like a a bunch of my like a lot of my friends are ride or die for Howl. And I liked Howl, but like >> I've probably only seen it >> twice.
>> That's fair. Um, so I, you know, my my rating would be somewhere between those >> somewhere between Monoke and Howell, which is hilarious to me because we have so many movies just stuck in that chunk there.
>> Yeah, cuz uh, Royal Space Force. Yeah.
Royal Space Force to Bella, Gunbuster, Slam Dunk, Memories, 100 meters. Like those are all movie movie movie movie.
Um, and they they all just kind of coalesce into that one spot in our list at the moment.
>> I know I've recommended like on the subject of Royal Space Force, Dan, I know I've recommended you a lot of anime on this, but Royal Space Force is another one. If you want to see the Gynax guys, like the the people who would go on to make a attempt to make a completely original fantasy world and set a space race in there.
Oh, I've seen I've seen this around before.
>> Yeah. Like I >> actually aired on [clears throat] YTV, I think, at some point. Um, and I I was at uh we I found out about that.
>> No, I I've seen this.
>> Okay. Yeah.
>> I saw it under the title Wings of Hon.
>> Okay.
>> Oh, okay. Yeah, there we go. Um, but yeah, it was Bully was telling me that he saw it on YTV.
>> Yeah, I saw it on YTV.
>> Um, because he when he was a kid, he just didn't get it. Yeah, it was it was part of the same block with uh or like it was in uh a block once with um >> uh Venus Wars.
>> Hell yeah.
>> Oh, that's awesome. I I wish I could have watched that exact TV block, man.
Um so would you place this above or below uh Wings of Onime?
>> Oh god. I mean, it's been 30 years. Uh, >> I have fragmented scant memories of uh of it. I couldn't I don't feel like I could accurately rate that one.
>> Um >> Um, >> what about you guys? Yeah, >> we we still got like So, I personally would put it >> How did you do that downstairs?
>> We got a guest.
I I think I would put it above The Girl Who Leapt Through Time.
>> Oh, yeah. Me, too. I like I I think it's >> it's it's Yeah, I think it's probably the best movie that we've watched so far.
>> That we've watched so far. I think I would still put Wolf Child >> because we did skip Wolf Children. We did skip Wolf Children in order to have this discussion. But you guys have opinions about One Piece 6. No, I I like One Piece 6. I like this >> more >> more. You know, maybe One Piece 6 should be way higher, actually. Um, but that's But yeah, like I >> I like this over, you know, it's weird.
I like this over The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. I don't know if I necessarily like it over Vampire Hunter D, but maybe I do.
>> Yeah, that's the weird part about this.
Yeah, because because how we But >> well, we could >> I would I would probably say that yeah, I could put it above Early Left Through Time. Um, a part of me would feel weird about putting it over Howl.
>> I don't feel putting it over Howl.
>> These are two very messy movies that I adore >> for very different reasons, >> but I I think the Howl Zone, the Howl to Girl Who Leapt Through Time Zone >> in there somewhere. Yeah. a good zone for it. Maybe we should move the girl who leapt through time just below Howl and then put this >> should I think we >> I would be putting it above Jin Row but below Perfect Blue.
>> That's that's a pretty good place to put it, I think.
>> Yeah, >> that's very helpful actually.
>> It it would be Yeah. No, perfect needs a perfect look. H Yeah. Uh, how about we move sentence to be a hero and the girl who left up through time down below how's moving castle because I don't know why we have that above >> sentence to be a hero was really good and we decided that it belongs right up against dungeon meshy when >> more than vampire hunter d bloodlust.
>> Yeah, I really like sentence to be a hero a lot.
>> Yeah, I did. I did too. I was there.
Remember?
>> Okay, so we're moving we're moving girl who left through time under house moving castle.
>> Yep. And then we're putting Belle above girl who left through time below how's moving castle.
>> I think I can live with this.
>> We can always horse trade on a different week [laughter] >> as we are currently doing because Gerula three times getting bumped down like four or five spaces.
>> And it is a horse trade because that moves Uma Musu up.
>> I mean I wasn't going to comment on that. You [laughter] are correct.
Indeed. You are indeed correct.
>> Uh all right. I I guess we've got it figured out. Um, >> so Dan, where can people find you if they somehow don't know?
>> People can find me and this this annoying, needy, needy, emotionally demanding cat who cannot figure out where she wants to be and needs her claws trimmed cuz they're getting struck in my shirt. Uh, you can find me on YouTube, uh, me and my team, uh, at, uh, at Folding Ideas. Um, uh, you can find me specifically on social media, uh, foldablehum.
Uh, and, uh, yeah, I'm around.
>> Anything else you wanted or needed to plug?
>> Um, uh, >> aside from your Belle, uh, video, which may or may not be out by the time >> this I I have a I have a video about Belle that may or may not be out at the time of this, it's it's been a patron exclusive. Um, we we put it out as a patron exclusive uh earlier in the year and uh and patrons were like, "No, I'll put that put that out." So, we're uh we're we're going to put it on main channel um as kind of a summer treat because our our next big projects aren't going to be done until quite late in the year. Um cuz it was very uh intricate and a lot of travel. Um but uh uh no, if I'm going to plug something else, there's this uh there's this small franchise. I don't I don't know if y'all have heard of it, but uh uh Jackass No, I'm not going to plug Jackass.
[laughter] Uh >> you should. Jackass is awesome.
>> Um yeah, not to derail this uh this ending with it's just on my mind cuz I I had a couple hours to kill on Saturday, so I'm like screw it. Go and see the Jackass movie. Um go >> watch Jagass.
>> So it's on my mind. I thought it would be funny to plug something that's actually like a big uh you know not maybe not a giant franchise but like people have definitely heard of it. Uh, no. Um, uh, uh, uh, I like movies. Go. Actually, you know what? Yeah, I'm going to plug, uh, I'm going to plug FilmJoy, uh, that's, uh, Mikey Newman's channel, um, with, uh, uh, his his tiny team. um you know, embrace the love of cinema and storytelling and and movies uh for what they are and what they make us feel. So, >> yeah, it that's a that's a great recommendation. Mikey's one of my favorite YouTubers, period. um uh legit changed my approach to how I make videos once I started watching his. I was like I when I I don't want to make just thing bad stuff anymore. Sometimes I still do >> sometimes Netflix [snorts] >> sometimes things thing bad. I just uh I just got done Netflix Avatar and that's um >> Oh boy. I'm kind of Oh, yeah.
>> That's That's coming out real soon. Um, but uh Yeah, but like it made me rethink how I do like my trash roast and stuff like that. And I was like, "No, you know what?
>> I love garbage.
>> I want to put my love of garbage into stuff." And that I got that from watching movies with Mikey. Um his his like endofear film lists are so good.
He's just Yeah, his his stuff always hits. I'm seconding that recommendation.
Go watch film.
>> And one other deep plug. If you like animation as an art form and you want to see something you've never seen anything quite like before, uh uh go watch Ralph Back. She's Heavy Traffic.
>> Well, thank you very much for coming on, Dan.
>> Thanks so much for having me.
Yeah, this was great.
>> Bye.
>> Bye.
>> Bye. [laughter] >> [music] >> Next time on Quest for the Best, our spring 2026 wrap-up.
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