Belle
I admired the visuals and animation of this film by Mamoru Hosoda. The design of “U”—a metaverse-like world with billions of users—is suitably grandiose and chaotic. I personally would never want to spend time in a virtual environment like that… I’m sure I would vomit from motion sickness within minutes. But that’s just me.
Unfortunately, the story fell flat for me. For most of the runtime, the plot happening inside U—featuring the mysterious Beast character—felt disconnected from the plot happening in the real world, which mostly involved the teenage romance angst that I see a lot of in anime. And the climax really stretches believability, requiring two characters to find each other at the exact same time at the exact same place in the middle of Tokyo.
