Suzu, a 17-year-old high school student, is being raised by her father and can’t seem to come to terms with her mother’s early death. Since she and her mother loved to sing, Suzu has since given up singing, but has started writing songs. The girl decides that in the virtual space U, where there are 5 billion users, she will become a different person, and creates her complete opposite – a beautiful singer named Belle. In this new reality, the girl quickly becomes popular and gains millions of fans. One day her virtual concert is disrupted by a mysterious user in the form of a dragon, and Suzu decides to find out who he really is.
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Mamoru Hosodu’s new work is always a happy event for fans of classic anime. This time, the director has taken a genre new to him, the musical, adding some elements of Disney cartoons and adapting the fairy tale ‘Beauty and the Beast’ in the Japanese manner.
All this is unusually transferred to the virtual community U: a bright, fantastic other reality, which is ruled by 5 wise men. This is where you can start a new life and change the world. And to do so, all you need to do is register on the U app.
Your avatar is automatically created based on your biometric information, and all you have to do is create a nickname. And then you get to U, where there are 5 billion other users interacting with each other.
Who hasn’t wanted to escape from reality to a world like that?
And so the main character of the anime, the shy schoolgirl Suzu, couldn’t resist the U. Under the nickname Belle, she is rapidly gaining popularity in her new reality and is not afraid to do what she loves most in the world: singing.
The songs are a connection to her mother, who has died. She is sad and lonely, she feels weak and defenseless, and only in the virtual world she manages to become stronger.
But Suzu is not the only one fleeing from this world.
Dragon is another unhappy character trying to escape from reality in the U. Detached from other users, he senses a kindred spirit in Belle.
But no, there won’t be a classic love story like the original ‘Beauty and the Beast’ here. This anime is about salvation, friendship and accepting the real you.
Although the anime didn’t get me as excited as Hosodu’s earlier works ‘The Girl Who Conquered Time’ or ‘The Wolf Children of Ame and Yuki’, but on the whole it turned out beautifully and interestingly.
Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265 (64.7 Mb/s)
Resolution: Upscaled 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Audio
Japanese: TrueHD 7.1 Atmos (48kHz, 24-bit)
Japanese: DTS-HD MA 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby TrueHD with Dolby Atmos 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles
English, English SDH, Spanish.
