Turning Red's 4*Town Is Destined To End Tragically For Mei

screenrant.com:

Turning Red’s Mei is into a lot of things that teenage girls usually love, among those boy bands, with her favorite one being 4*Town, but when looking at the inspirations behind the band and the overall history of boy bands, this part of Mei’s life is destined to a tragic end. Pixar continues treating the audience to at least one movie every year, and 2022 will see two very different but exciting stories from the studio, starting with Turning Red, directed by Domee Shi and which addresses topics that aren’t usually seen in Pixar movies, which has earned it a lot of praise but also some backlash.

Turning Red takes the audience back to 2002 and to Toronto, Canada, to meet Meilin «Mei» Lee (Rosalie Chiang), a 13-year-old Chinese-Canadian student who one day discovers that she turns into a giant red panda whenever she gets too excited or stressed, but she can turn back if she becomes calm. This transformation is a family curse and it can be contained by performing a special ritual on one specific night, but that night coincides with the concert of Mei’s favorite boy band, 4*Town. To further complicate everything, Mei also has to deal with her overbearing mother, Ming (Sandra Oh), who doesn’t approve of many things in Mei’s life, including her friends and her love for 4*Town.

Related: Turning Red: How Old Are The 4*Town Members Supposed To Be?

4*Town is more than just a boy band in Turning Red, as it’s one of many bonding experiences between Mei and her friends, one of the movie’s most relatable elements, and it helps push the story forward, as Mei learns to embrace her panda through using it to get the money they need for concert tickets. The final “battle” in Turning Red even takes place at 4*Town’s concert, an event that