Ruzanna Lisa

I enjoyed the movie to a certain extent. The animation was stunning and the songs were beautiful. In the first half of the movie, I was completely moved by it. I was ready to get my heartstrings pulled because here is a young girl who lost her mother and her reason for the love of singing. Her journey was somewhat unsatisfying because if it had just been about Suzu moving on from her mother's death and learning to love singing again as herself then it would have been a spectacular ending combined with a beautiful song at the end. Instead, I was disappointed because when they introduced 'Beast', parts of the movie made me think it was Shinobu because of how certain scenes were shown but at the same time, it made no sense either. I get that they added in small easter eggs to foreshadow the reveal in the end but how they handled that ending in regards to the brothers was irresponsible to me. It's as though they treated domestic abuse lightly because nothing was explained in the end and having her just go there on her own (mind you, she is still a MINOR) to protect these kids from an abusive man and he just randomly stops because she stared at him? No. That's not how that works. It's an insult to real victims. Another thing I noticed, Suzu's best friend was portrayed as the smart kid who is a whiz with technology yet for some reason they decided to throw that out the window when it comes to finding out where the beast lives in real life???? She could have just searched up the IP address like she did when looking for the castle in U. They just wanted the extra characters to have a role when it was so unnecessary to the whole plot. In the end, I was so disappointed by the ending. In hindsight, Suzu is also extremely selfish at certain points. Especially when it comes to her father. The man lost his wife, you don't think he'd be depressed too? He's tried so hard to talk to his daughter but she continuously pushed him away but they made-up through text?!!? While she was on a train to Tokyo on her own (AGAIN, MIND YOU, SHE'S STILL A MINOR). Another thing, the way she demanded the beast to open up to her? He is not obligated in any way to do so. He doesn't know you, he doesn't trust you, at best, you're just a random stranger that sings in an app. Why must he tell YOU about himself? Their meeting was so random and so forced. So many things could have been done about this whole movie. It has so much potential and would have been better as a series so we could connect with all the characters. Nothing was told about the beast, nothing was expanded on how Shinobu and her drifted apart, nothing was explained on how she became distant with her father. It's just so frustrating by the end.