Nationwide theatrical release set for early 2016

The Hawaii International Film Festival announced on Tuesday that it will screen Mamoru Hosoda's The Boy and the Beast ( Bakemono no Ko ) film on November 21 and 22. The festival itself will take place from November 12-22.

The story of The Boy and the Beast is set in the human realm (Tokyo's Shibuya ward) and the bakemono realm ("Jūtengai"). In these two worlds that 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.

The film debuted at #1 in the Japanese box-office on July 11 and earned 667,035,100 yen (about US$5.4 million) in its first two days. It eventually surpassed the total box office earnings of Hosoda's previous film, Wolf Children .

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

Suzu Hirose in her debut voice-acting role as Kaede, a high school student Kyūta meets



Hosoda (Summer Wars, Wolf Children) created and scripted the movie. The film is 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.

Funimation licensed the American rights to the film, and plans to release the film 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. The Fantasic Film Festival in Austin hosted the U.S. premiere.