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50 free Kubo and the Two Strings trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Kubo and the Two Strings is the 2016 stop-motion fantasy that marked the directing debut of Laika CEO Travis Knight, a one-time rapper whose father co-founded Nike. Set in feudal Japan, it follows a one-eyed boy with a magical shamisen, a stern monkey who is more than she seems and a samurai cursed into a stag beetle, all hunted by the Moon King and his masked daughters. These 50 questions cover the film from every angle: the voice cast of Charlize Theron, Art Parkinson, Matthew McConaughey, Ralph Fiennes and Rooney Mara; the plot beats from the Bon Festival to the Garden of Eyes and the village bell; the production story of ukiyo-e prints, Kiyoshi Saito, Stratasys 3D printers and the 16-foot skeleton puppet that Laika bought an eBay robot to move; Dario Marianelli's score and Regina Spektor's Beatles cover; and an awards season that brought a BAFTA and two Oscar nominations, both lost to Disney. Easy questions stick to the cast and the story; the expert tier asks about Mondo vinyl, the Yoshida Brothers and Utagawa Kuniyoshi. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation so you learn something even when you miss. Play it solo or print it for an animation night.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which studio produced Kubo and the Two Strings?
Laika
It was Laika's fourth stop-motion feature, after Coraline, ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls.
Q 02Who directed Kubo and the Two Strings?
Travis Knight
It was Knight's directorial debut; he had been lead animator on Laika's earlier films.
Q 03Which animation technique was used to make the film?
Stop-motion
Laika blended stop-motion puppets with computer-generated backgrounds, which the New York Times called seamless.
Q 04What magical instrument does Kubo play?
Shamisen
The shamisen is a three-stringed Japanese lute, and its strings give the film its title.
Q 05Who took Kubo's left eye when he was a baby?
The Moon King
The Moon King is Kubo's own grandfather, and he wants the second eye too.
Q 06Who voices Kubo?
Art Parkinson
Parkinson was best known at the time as Rickon Stark in Game of Thrones.
Q 07Who voices Monkey?
Charlize Theron
Theron's Monkey is stern and protective, a long way from the sweet sidekick the design suggests.
Q 08Who voices Beetle?
Matthew McConaughey
It was McConaughey's first animated feature role.
Q 09Who voices Kubo's grandfather?
Ralph Fiennes
Fiennes had previously voiced Lord Victor Quartermaine in Aardman's Wallace & Gromit film.
Q 10Who voices the twin Sisters?
Rooney Mara
Mara voices both sisters, who wear expressionless noh-style masks.
Q 11Brenda Vaccaro voices which character?
Kameyo
Kameyo is the elderly villager who acts as a grandmother figure to Kubo.
Q 12Who does Monkey turn out to be?
Kubo's mother
Kubo learns the truth while entranced by the Garden of Eyes under the Long Lake.
Q 13Who is Beetle revealed to be?
Kubo's father
The surviving Sister reveals it as she kills him in the fortress trap.
Q 14Which festival does Kubo attend, hoping to speak with Hanzo's spirit?
Q 21Who pitched the film to Laika's CEO as a samurai epic in the studio's signature medium?
Shannon Tindle
Tindle was Laika's production designer and later left the project over creative differences.
Q 22Which 20th-century Japanese graphic artist did Knight call the film's visual "touchstone"?
Kiyoshi Saito
Knight admired how Saito fused eastern and western styles in his woodblock prints.
Q 23Laika wanted the whole film to look like a moving print in which Japanese style?
Ukiyo-e
Ukiyo-e woodblock prints, ink wash painting and origami were all cited as influences.
Obon
The film calls it the Bon Festival; the real-world Obon honours ancestral spirits each summer.
Q 15The blade Kubo takes from the giant skeleton's cave carries which epithet?
Unbreakable
The other two pieces of armor are the Breastplate Impenetrable and the Helmet Invulnerable.
Q 16Which piece of Hanzo's armor turns out to be the village bell?
The helmet
Little Hanzo, the origami figure, is the one who works it out.
Q 17Where do Kubo and Beetle find the Breastplate Impenetrable?
At the bottom of a lake
They cross the Long Lake in a leaf boat and dive for it.
Q 18What kind of creature is the Garden of Eyes?
A sea monster
It hypnotises victims with visions of secrets and eats them while they are distracted.
Q 19The Moon Beast resembles which prehistoric creature?
Dunkleosteus
Dunkleosteus was an armoured fish from the Devonian period with bony blade-like jaws.
Q 20In the final scene, the villagers' lanterns transform into what?
Golden cranes
The cranes carry the spirits back to the other world as Kubo speaks with his parents' ghosts.
Q 24Which 3D printing firm lent Laika its newest technology in exchange for feedback?
Stratasys
Laika 3D-prints thousands of replacement faces for its puppets.
Q 25Which Japanese animator's work did Knight say partly inspired the story?
Hayao Miyazaki
Knight also named the filmmaker Akira Kurosawa as an inspiration.
Q 26How tall was the giant skeleton puppet built for the film?
16 ft
Laika claims it is the largest stop-motion puppet ever made, weighing about 400 pounds.
Q 27Where did the team at one point buy an industrial robot to move the skeleton?
eBay
It would not work with their setup, so Laika ended up designing its own robot.
Q 28Who composed the film's score?
Dario Marianelli
Coulais scored Coraline and Brion scored ParaNorman; Marianelli had done The Boxtrolls.
Q 29Which Beatles track does Regina Spektor perform on the soundtrack?
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Marianelli's arrangement includes a shamisen solo and ends with a piano coda.
Q 30Who performs the instrumental cover in the Japanese dub of the film?
Yoshida Brothers
The shamisen-playing duo replaced Spektor's vocal at Laika's request.