Kyuta and Kaede Scene in “The Boy and the Beast”

Yoyogi National Gymnasium in Shibuya Ward is featured in the movie “The Boy and the Beast” (2015). The scene in which Kyuta (Shota Sometani) and Kaede (Suzu Hirose) confront a whale, which is the incarnation of the darkness that people harbor, is set at Gymnasium 1, and the scene in which Kyuta and Kaede grow more familiar after sharing each other’s thoughts and worries is set against a row of zelkova trees at Yoyogi Gymnasium 2. The gymnasium was built for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. The gymnasium, which became the main arena for the event, was designed by famous architect Kenzo Tange, a highly regarded architect representative of postwar Japanese architecture.