Interview with Mamoru Hosoda on BELLE’s Success, Design Secrets, and Overseas Release

You Can’t Fake the Skills of the Creator

ーーI have the feeling that BELLE is a beloved icon for young people.

Hosoda: BELLE's mix of beauty and cuteness is extraordinary.

ーーBELLE becomes a songstress in the film, and there was a similar hype for her in the real world as well. Her new songs quickly climbed the streaming charts. So I felt that what happened in the movie happened in real life as well.

Hosoda: When we were creating BELLE, we made her while incorporating affection and beauty. Though BELLE is the number one “Beauty” of the internet, when we were designing her, we didn’t necessarily set out to create “The number one Beauty in the world.”

I had a long discussion with the character designer Jin Kim about what a "Beauty" is in our current era. Is it just external beauty, is it cuteness, or maybe modernity? But in the end, a Beauty is different from all of those.

Rather, how beautiful is BELLE’s soul, how much can she be trusted? If she has a noble soul, how can we express that so it resonates with values held throughout the globe? Jin-san also understood BELLE’s character through the scenario, and you can see the end result.

This process happened not only with BELLE but with Suzu as well. I spoke with the real-world character designer Hiroyuki Aoyama about the same topics.

ーーYou start with the inner world of the character and add on from there.

Hosoda: Animation is essentially images, so you can’t fake the skills of the creators. If you only focus on having a beautiful design or this sort of baseline, in the end, you can only understand the characters from their appearance. That's why you have to build up their inner world little by little, or else their external appearance won't come easily.

I consulted with Daisuke Iga about costumes after Jin-san's (character) designs came in. We talked about how we should do a Megumi Shinozaki flower costume, utilize Kunihiko Morioka’s beads, and we divided things up like that. Clothes make a person come to life, and BELLE is a character that is well-matched with such a gorgeous outfit.

ーーIt’s rare to have an avatar or character change outfits.

Hosoda: I wanted to add a taste of the enjoyment of playing dress-up. There is a scene where the users of U are dressing BELLE up in different outfits, and I spoke with Iga-san about which costumes would be interesting. We tried dressing her up in a biker gang jacket and baseball uniform.

That point may be similar to a transformation sequence in a magical girl anime. There’s an old TV anime called Himitsu no Akko-chan that I made. In every episode, Akko-chan transforms into someone else. The thrill of a costume change never gets old.

ーーOn the topic of costumes, I have the feeling that the enjoyment is similar to that of changing your avatar’s clothes or skin in an online game. I can spend the entire day changing my avatar’s outfit.

Hosoda: I guess you want to wear a cute outfit if you’re cute (laughs).

ーーThat’s right. It’s hard to do that in real life, but it’s something you can do on the internet.