This is a beautifully made Anime. Visually stunning with a great story and well fitting English speaking voice acting to boot. I loved this film! I enjoy the relationship between Kyuta and Kumatetsu and the bickering brings the comic relief but you can also tell ho much Kumatetsu loves the boy. He feels like he is his father, he raises him as his own, and as we see in the later pat of the film, once Kyuta finds his real dad as an adult, Kyuta sees that in him too. The whole film is a touching tale about adoption in a way with the added drama of the battle to be the next ruler of the land of beasts. The supporting cast gives a lot to the feel of the film too, and this comes more into the spot light during the human world scenes later int he film when Kyuta meets young bookworm Kaede, the only real reason he is torn about where he wants to be.
Overall the only real issue with the film is that it did unfortunately feel very long at points, and could have done with losing a few scenes just to knock the time down a smidgen, but as a whole The Boy and The Beast is yet another beautifully, touching animated masterpiece from the mind of Wolf Children director and writer Mamoru Hosoda. A must watch!