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Rock Band Mr. Children Performs Theme for Hosoda's The Boy & The Beast

The popular band Mr. Children is contributing the theme song for The Boy and The Beast (Bakemono no Ko), the first new anime film from director Mamoru Hosoda in three years. Hosoda had listened to the song "Starting Over" on Mr. Children's upcoming June 4 album Reflection, and praised it, "It definitely represents the worldview of The Boy and The Beast." With that, he decided to make this song the film's theme song.

Mr. Children vocalist and guitarist Kazutoshi Sakurai said, "I've just seen an amazing film. As a single father and as an artist — in my own small way — who has created through repeated trial-and-error, I was overcome with heart-wrenching feelings. It fills us with great pride to contribute, however little we can, to this marvelous work."

Hosoda said, "I think it is a huge honor to be able to collaborate with Mr. Children on The Boy and The Beast. The Boy and The Beast film is a coming-of-age story of a solitary boy, and the theme "Starting Over" is a song of fighting, of a boy overcoming the confusion of adolescence. Please give it a listen, and contemplate the title's meaning of 'a fresh start.'"

The story of the film is set in the human realm (Tokyo's Shibuya ward) and the bakemono realm ("Jūtengai"). In these two worlds which must not intersect, there lives a lonely boy and a lonely bakemono. One day, the boy gets lost in the bakemono world, becomes the disciple of the bakemono Kumatetsu, and is renamed Kyūta.

Narrator: Apart from the human realm, there is another realm that you don't know.
Kumatetsu: Hey, you alive or dead?
Kyūta: I—it's a monster.
Kumatetsu: You coming with me?
Narrator: The realm of beasts.
Text: From The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars, and Wolf Children director Mamoru Hosoda.
Text and Narrator: Kyūta, the boy who is all alone.
Kumatetsu: From now on, this boy is my disciple.
Text and Narrator: Kumatetsu, a rowdy beast.
Text: The Boy and The Beast as student and master?!
Narrator: Thus begins an unlikely bond between student and master.
Kumatetsu: I'm your master!
Kyūta: I'm not your disciple!
Narrator: They will push each other.
Tatara: Just give it a rest. Why did you even take a human boy as a disciple?
Narrator: They will understand each other.
Narrator: And before they notice it, they will share an irreplaceable connection.
Kyūta: Don't lose, Kumatetsu!
Kumatetsu: Kyūta...
Text: This summer, Studio Chizu presents a moving masterpiece.
Text: If I'm with you...
Kaede: Where did you come from?
Text: ...I can become stronger.
Text and Narrator: The Boy and The Beast

Hosoda (Summer Wars, Wolf Children) created and scripted the movie. It will be Hosoda's first film since 2012, when his relatively new animation movie company Studio Chizu released Wolf Children as its first project. Masakatsu Takagi (Wolf Children) is scoring the soundtrack. The film stars:

Kōji Yakusho as Kumatetsu, a bear-like being who acts as a teacher to the human Kyūta
Aoi Miyazaki as child Kyūta
Shōta Sometani as adolescent Kyūta

The film will open on July 11 in Japan. Renji Asai (Sentō Jōsai Masurawo) launched the manga in Kadokawa Shoten's Monthly Shōnen Ace on April 25.

Funimation licensed the American rights to the film, and plans to release the film in select theaters later this year and nationwide in early 2016. Theatrical screenings have also been set for France, and the major French movie studio Gaumont will handle international sales outside Asia. Funimation is working with Gaumont International to release the film.

Mr. Children previously contributed the ending theme song "Niji no Kanata e" to the Shōnan Bakusōzoku original video anime project and the theme song "Fanfare" to One Piece Film Strong World. Below is the trailer for Mr. Children's Reflection album:

Source: Mainichi Shimbun's Mantan Web