What Are The Best Anime Movies?
Mar. 30th, 2013 04:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
philosoraptor42What are the best anime movies? - I don't claim to be able to answer this question myself. Though I went through a phase of watching some anime at one point, I wouldn't say I'm the biggest anime fan. A friend on LJ has finally decided to watch "Akira". They aren't really familiar with anime and what they have seen they haven't been impressed with, but they are a film lover and so they felt "Akira" was one of those films that they really ought to see.
I think "Akira" is probably a pretty good way to see up front what anime is like. It's not, to my mind, a great film. However, it does have some fantastic elements involved in it and I think it pretty much sums up what anime is like in general.
Anime movies often haven't had a big budget like Disney and a lot of their stylistic tropes have come from attempts to cut corners and save money. At the same time, in spite of having their origin in Japan, anime often involves characters with huge eyes, since this element was borrowed from western animation. The characters in Akira look a lot more like typical people than in a lot of anime.
This image is NOT from "Akira"
However, while anime may not have had Disney's budget, they also don't aim at such a young audience. Anime will often feature quite graphic violence. In fact, Akira even features some pretty graphic violence against one of the female characters.
Unfortunately another factor in the cheapness of anime is that the English voice actors are often not that great. It's not helpful that the pattern of conversations and the style of expression is very distinctive and can feel quite bizarre with an English voice over the top.
Translation isn't always great either, with some sentences making very little sense. Akira features one character trying to explain evolution. They do a pretty horrendous job of it and I don't know how far to blame the original script or the translation.
I'm not entirely sure that I understand what Akira was trying to say. It's a very dark tale and I think expecting a satisfying resolution may be a mistake. The film seems to suggest that there's some hope at the end and yet, in the light of what happens during the film, I felt that seemed deeply misplaced.
I didn't feel any kind of bond with the characters (though I know there are fans of Akira who feel the characters are much stronger than I do). But I definitely felt immersed by the art. As a piece of art, "Akira" is quite incredible (especially bearing in mind the aforementioned low budget). The dream sequences in particular are extremely clever and well handled. Even as the dialogue grates, the visuals are utterly stunning.
There's one last important flaw with anime which I feel Akira highlights. Preachiness. Akira isn't happy to be a dark tale of misery. It definitely seems to be trying to teach us a lesson (hence why the ending feels so awkward for me). The message isn't exactly deep. It's the old "power corrupts" idea essentially.
So anyway, below I've made a list of my favourite anime movies. If anyone wants to recommend different ones in the comments, I'm sure my friend will appreciate it! :D
Anime TV series recommendations:
I found the "Ghost In The Shell" series boring, I couldn't get into "Evangelion", but there are a couple of series that I found appealing.
X - TV
I'd already seen the movie of "X" and found it absolutely amazing. However, it was extremely confusing (incomprehensible in fact). The tv series makes everything a lot clearer and I can appreciate how the movie crams the entire story into such a short period of time much better now. The movie might not make much sense, but it features the same events rendered in an absolutely gorgeous way.
The story is about a boy called Kamui who discovers that his destiny is to save mankind. He's reluctant at first and also he doesn't seem like a terribly nice person. What makes things even worse is when his close childhood friend is chosen to be his opponent.
Interesting, both sides of the battle believe that it is their destiny to save the world. One side wishes to save humanity, the other side wishes to destroy humanity in order to save the planet from the damage done by humans. Those chosen on each side have special powers to fight with.
An element not so well presented in the movie, but absolutely essential to my enjoyment of the tv series, was the comic relief monk. One of the main characters was brought up in a monastery, but he's a bit of a troublemaker. In some ways he understands the threat better than any of them, but on the other hand he can never stop cracking jokes!
The TV series makes a remarkable amount of sense until the ending, where I really have no idea what is happening. It's quite a preachy ending to the series, but when the journey has been so much fun, it's easy to forgive it.
Elfen Lied
I'm sure there'll be some eye-rolling from anime fans in reaction to this choice. This didn't get further than 14 episodes, but I really enjoyed it for the most part. It must be said though that the real selling point was the beginning of the first episode where the central character escapes from a maximum security facility, destroying everything in her path.
At the end of the opening sequence, she receives a blow to the head which causes her to forget who she is. As the series goes on she forms a kind of multiple personality. Since her amnesiac self has built up relationships, her more homicidal self somewhat shares in that emotional investment whenever her memories return to her.
The central character appears to be some kind of monster whose destiny is to bring about the apocalypse, but she just looks like an ordinary girl asides from some strange horns sticking out of her head. However, she is very hard to kill and has a kind of telekinetic power, sometimes represented by elongated seethrough arms stretching around her. Basically, if someone comes within the distance of these arms or "vectors" (as they are called) then she can rip them apart.
Essentially I spent most of the series waiting for the main character to start ripping people apart with telekinetic powers, but I found myself somewhat charmed by the other scenes too. It was good fun.
I won't pretend there weren't a few rather bizarre and dodgy moments in the parts which weren't gory and violent though....
I cannot remember what was happening in this scene (pictured above), but I
remember there were embarassing/cute sections like this with entirely innocent explanations.
Top 7 Anime Movie Favourites
Okay, so with tv series out of the way, here are my favourites of the anime movies....
7) Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000)
There is an earlier "Vampire Hunter D" movie, but it's nothing like as well animated and it's much much slower paced. The dialogue isn't consistently well written here, but the voice acting is actually done pretty well. In particular one comic relief character is performed very well indeed.
Vampire Hunter D is basically "Blade" (he predates the movies, but not the comics) in that he's a half human, half vampire. However, he lives in a distant post-apocalyptic future which is styled as if it were in the past. The most obvious examples of this are the robotic horses.
Vampire Hunter D is a half-vampire who fights vampires, but another factor is the symbiote that lives in his left hand. In his left palm there's a face and it will often talk to him. In the movie "Bloodlust" it's very talkative indeed. On the one hand, it mocks D for not acting like a proper vampire, but on the other hand it needs D to survive in order to continue to live off of him.
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is great fun. If you could forgive any flaws in "Blade II" you'll have no problem forgiving the flaws in this.
6) Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)
The director of "Ghost In The Shell" (Mamoru Oshii) helped to create this rather short movie (more recently turned into an absolutely dire live action film). The story is about a vampire killer in a US army base within Japan during America's conflict with Vietnam.
The vampire killer appears to be a vampire herself and what's more, she is a young girl, but her motives are not entirely explored. This is a short, beautiful and very powerful film and there's something cool about the lack of explanation.
5) Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
This didn't do that well when it was released, although that was partly because of how much it cost to make. The effects were, at the time, way ahead of anything else that had been released.
Sure, the plot is ludicrous and the dialogue is preachy, but that's all par for the course with anime. In fact, the dialogue is a great deal better than in a lot of anime movies.
There are some moderate issues with pacing, but overall "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" is an absolutely fantastic movie.
4) Ghost In The Shell (1995) / Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
Ghost In The Shell is one of the first recommendations you will get regarding classic anime movies. On the one hand, the sci-fi setting is absolutely inspired, the visuals are incredible and the central character of 'the Major' makes for a pretty awesome lead. However, the dialogue isn't always great and the preachiness is pretty bad. The preachiness gets rather hard to support towards the end of the sequel when one of the characters starts shouting at a child.
Still, the exploration of ideas of self is handled in a very clever way and there's no doubting the excitement of the action scenes. The Ghost In The Shell movies are highly inventive and do a great job of keeping the audience engaged.
3) Perfect Blue (1997)
Initially I wasn't convinced by this film at all. The story introduces a Japanese pop star who is planning on leaving her pop group to persue an acting career. It's initially really hard to work out why we should be interested.
However, once she starts getting roles, things don't go the way she was hoping. She's told that she needs to get grittier roles in order to distance herself from her old pop career, but that also means that she's alienating her old fans. She discovers a blog written from her own perspective that is clearly written by a stalker. Could this be the same person making threats against her?
The fake online diary of her life, supposedly written a stalker, no longer fits with the actual events of her day. It claims that she is still hanging out with the band. Then things get really trippy when she imagines being greeted by her old pop star self.
Reality is constantly blurred throughout the film. The audience is constantly tricked about what is real and what is fake. I think there are some fans who have Matrix-esque theories about what is really happening in the film, but personally I think the down-to-earth explanation of the movie is pretty clear-cut.
Few anime films have managed to get me so involved in the emotions of the central character as "Perfect Blue".
2) The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)
A more recent one, this benefits from some much better translation and voice narration than you can expect from older anime movies. It also has a great sense of humour.
A girl discovers a device that allows her to do special jumps that send her hurtling to another point in time. It's a very good time travel plot and a very sweet story.
1) Studio Ghibli movies
I haven't seen all the movies from Studio Ghibli. Not even all of those directed by Hayao Miyazaki. However, I have seen enough to be convinced that they are often head and shoulders above any other anime films. However, making this entire list into essentially a list of Studio Ghibli films seemed unfair.
So instead, below is a short list of my personal favourites:
Laputa: Castle In The Sky (1986)
- Two young children in a steampunk world are pursued by air-pirates and a sinister military organisation in order to find the secret to the location of the lost floating city of Laputa. Absolutely enchanting story and my personal favourite.
Princess Mononoke (1997)
- Things get very preachy. (Hayao Miyazaki is a strong environmentalist.) However, in this fantasy world nature is becoming corrupted by mankind's pursuit of industry and some of the forest gods are turning into demons as a result. In the middle of the conflict is Princess Mononoke, a human girl who has grown up with the wolves. A proper epic story, very well handled.
Arrietty (2010)
- An excellent take on The Borrowers, giving a full sense of the world in which borrowers live. The full scale of what is involved in climbing up a table and the gadgets the borrowers use to achieve this are brought to life on screen in a brilliant way.
Spirited Away (2001)
- A girl and her parents finds themselves in a spirit world. While the girl runs away, her parents fall prey to a trick transforming them completely into pigs (and not the cartoon talking-animal kind). She finds herself with no choice but to get a job at the spirits' bath house in the hope that an opportunity to save her parents will turn up later. Some excellent world-building albeit a rather bizarre story.
So, are there any ones you feel I ought to have listed? Please say so in the comments! :)
I think "Akira" is probably a pretty good way to see up front what anime is like. It's not, to my mind, a great film. However, it does have some fantastic elements involved in it and I think it pretty much sums up what anime is like in general.
Anime movies often haven't had a big budget like Disney and a lot of their stylistic tropes have come from attempts to cut corners and save money. At the same time, in spite of having their origin in Japan, anime often involves characters with huge eyes, since this element was borrowed from western animation. The characters in Akira look a lot more like typical people than in a lot of anime.
This image is NOT from "Akira"
However, while anime may not have had Disney's budget, they also don't aim at such a young audience. Anime will often feature quite graphic violence. In fact, Akira even features some pretty graphic violence against one of the female characters.
Unfortunately another factor in the cheapness of anime is that the English voice actors are often not that great. It's not helpful that the pattern of conversations and the style of expression is very distinctive and can feel quite bizarre with an English voice over the top.
Translation isn't always great either, with some sentences making very little sense. Akira features one character trying to explain evolution. They do a pretty horrendous job of it and I don't know how far to blame the original script or the translation.
I'm not entirely sure that I understand what Akira was trying to say. It's a very dark tale and I think expecting a satisfying resolution may be a mistake. The film seems to suggest that there's some hope at the end and yet, in the light of what happens during the film, I felt that seemed deeply misplaced.
I didn't feel any kind of bond with the characters (though I know there are fans of Akira who feel the characters are much stronger than I do). But I definitely felt immersed by the art. As a piece of art, "Akira" is quite incredible (especially bearing in mind the aforementioned low budget). The dream sequences in particular are extremely clever and well handled. Even as the dialogue grates, the visuals are utterly stunning.
There's one last important flaw with anime which I feel Akira highlights. Preachiness. Akira isn't happy to be a dark tale of misery. It definitely seems to be trying to teach us a lesson (hence why the ending feels so awkward for me). The message isn't exactly deep. It's the old "power corrupts" idea essentially.
So anyway, below I've made a list of my favourite anime movies. If anyone wants to recommend different ones in the comments, I'm sure my friend will appreciate it! :D
Anime TV series recommendations:
I found the "Ghost In The Shell" series boring, I couldn't get into "Evangelion", but there are a couple of series that I found appealing.
X - TV
I'd already seen the movie of "X" and found it absolutely amazing. However, it was extremely confusing (incomprehensible in fact). The tv series makes everything a lot clearer and I can appreciate how the movie crams the entire story into such a short period of time much better now. The movie might not make much sense, but it features the same events rendered in an absolutely gorgeous way.
The story is about a boy called Kamui who discovers that his destiny is to save mankind. He's reluctant at first and also he doesn't seem like a terribly nice person. What makes things even worse is when his close childhood friend is chosen to be his opponent.
Interesting, both sides of the battle believe that it is their destiny to save the world. One side wishes to save humanity, the other side wishes to destroy humanity in order to save the planet from the damage done by humans. Those chosen on each side have special powers to fight with.
An element not so well presented in the movie, but absolutely essential to my enjoyment of the tv series, was the comic relief monk. One of the main characters was brought up in a monastery, but he's a bit of a troublemaker. In some ways he understands the threat better than any of them, but on the other hand he can never stop cracking jokes!
The TV series makes a remarkable amount of sense until the ending, where I really have no idea what is happening. It's quite a preachy ending to the series, but when the journey has been so much fun, it's easy to forgive it.
Elfen Lied
I'm sure there'll be some eye-rolling from anime fans in reaction to this choice. This didn't get further than 14 episodes, but I really enjoyed it for the most part. It must be said though that the real selling point was the beginning of the first episode where the central character escapes from a maximum security facility, destroying everything in her path.
At the end of the opening sequence, she receives a blow to the head which causes her to forget who she is. As the series goes on she forms a kind of multiple personality. Since her amnesiac self has built up relationships, her more homicidal self somewhat shares in that emotional investment whenever her memories return to her.
The central character appears to be some kind of monster whose destiny is to bring about the apocalypse, but she just looks like an ordinary girl asides from some strange horns sticking out of her head. However, she is very hard to kill and has a kind of telekinetic power, sometimes represented by elongated seethrough arms stretching around her. Basically, if someone comes within the distance of these arms or "vectors" (as they are called) then she can rip them apart.
Essentially I spent most of the series waiting for the main character to start ripping people apart with telekinetic powers, but I found myself somewhat charmed by the other scenes too. It was good fun.
I won't pretend there weren't a few rather bizarre and dodgy moments in the parts which weren't gory and violent though....
I cannot remember what was happening in this scene (pictured above), but I
remember there were embarassing/cute sections like this with entirely innocent explanations.
Top 7 Anime Movie Favourites
Okay, so with tv series out of the way, here are my favourites of the anime movies....
7) Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000)
There is an earlier "Vampire Hunter D" movie, but it's nothing like as well animated and it's much much slower paced. The dialogue isn't consistently well written here, but the voice acting is actually done pretty well. In particular one comic relief character is performed very well indeed.
Vampire Hunter D is basically "Blade" (he predates the movies, but not the comics) in that he's a half human, half vampire. However, he lives in a distant post-apocalyptic future which is styled as if it were in the past. The most obvious examples of this are the robotic horses.
Vampire Hunter D is a half-vampire who fights vampires, but another factor is the symbiote that lives in his left hand. In his left palm there's a face and it will often talk to him. In the movie "Bloodlust" it's very talkative indeed. On the one hand, it mocks D for not acting like a proper vampire, but on the other hand it needs D to survive in order to continue to live off of him.
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is great fun. If you could forgive any flaws in "Blade II" you'll have no problem forgiving the flaws in this.
6) Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)
The director of "Ghost In The Shell" (Mamoru Oshii) helped to create this rather short movie (more recently turned into an absolutely dire live action film). The story is about a vampire killer in a US army base within Japan during America's conflict with Vietnam.
The vampire killer appears to be a vampire herself and what's more, she is a young girl, but her motives are not entirely explored. This is a short, beautiful and very powerful film and there's something cool about the lack of explanation.
5) Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
This didn't do that well when it was released, although that was partly because of how much it cost to make. The effects were, at the time, way ahead of anything else that had been released.
Sure, the plot is ludicrous and the dialogue is preachy, but that's all par for the course with anime. In fact, the dialogue is a great deal better than in a lot of anime movies.
There are some moderate issues with pacing, but overall "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within" is an absolutely fantastic movie.
4) Ghost In The Shell (1995) / Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence (2004)
Ghost In The Shell is one of the first recommendations you will get regarding classic anime movies. On the one hand, the sci-fi setting is absolutely inspired, the visuals are incredible and the central character of 'the Major' makes for a pretty awesome lead. However, the dialogue isn't always great and the preachiness is pretty bad. The preachiness gets rather hard to support towards the end of the sequel when one of the characters starts shouting at a child.
Still, the exploration of ideas of self is handled in a very clever way and there's no doubting the excitement of the action scenes. The Ghost In The Shell movies are highly inventive and do a great job of keeping the audience engaged.
3) Perfect Blue (1997)
Initially I wasn't convinced by this film at all. The story introduces a Japanese pop star who is planning on leaving her pop group to persue an acting career. It's initially really hard to work out why we should be interested.
However, once she starts getting roles, things don't go the way she was hoping. She's told that she needs to get grittier roles in order to distance herself from her old pop career, but that also means that she's alienating her old fans. She discovers a blog written from her own perspective that is clearly written by a stalker. Could this be the same person making threats against her?
The fake online diary of her life, supposedly written a stalker, no longer fits with the actual events of her day. It claims that she is still hanging out with the band. Then things get really trippy when she imagines being greeted by her old pop star self.
Reality is constantly blurred throughout the film. The audience is constantly tricked about what is real and what is fake. I think there are some fans who have Matrix-esque theories about what is really happening in the film, but personally I think the down-to-earth explanation of the movie is pretty clear-cut.
Few anime films have managed to get me so involved in the emotions of the central character as "Perfect Blue".
2) The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)
A more recent one, this benefits from some much better translation and voice narration than you can expect from older anime movies. It also has a great sense of humour.
A girl discovers a device that allows her to do special jumps that send her hurtling to another point in time. It's a very good time travel plot and a very sweet story.
1) Studio Ghibli movies
I haven't seen all the movies from Studio Ghibli. Not even all of those directed by Hayao Miyazaki. However, I have seen enough to be convinced that they are often head and shoulders above any other anime films. However, making this entire list into essentially a list of Studio Ghibli films seemed unfair.
So instead, below is a short list of my personal favourites:
Laputa: Castle In The Sky (1986)
- Two young children in a steampunk world are pursued by air-pirates and a sinister military organisation in order to find the secret to the location of the lost floating city of Laputa. Absolutely enchanting story and my personal favourite.
Princess Mononoke (1997)
- Things get very preachy. (Hayao Miyazaki is a strong environmentalist.) However, in this fantasy world nature is becoming corrupted by mankind's pursuit of industry and some of the forest gods are turning into demons as a result. In the middle of the conflict is Princess Mononoke, a human girl who has grown up with the wolves. A proper epic story, very well handled.
Arrietty (2010)
- An excellent take on The Borrowers, giving a full sense of the world in which borrowers live. The full scale of what is involved in climbing up a table and the gadgets the borrowers use to achieve this are brought to life on screen in a brilliant way.
Spirited Away (2001)
- A girl and her parents finds themselves in a spirit world. While the girl runs away, her parents fall prey to a trick transforming them completely into pigs (and not the cartoon talking-animal kind). She finds herself with no choice but to get a job at the spirits' bath house in the hope that an opportunity to save her parents will turn up later. Some excellent world-building albeit a rather bizarre story.
So, are there any ones you feel I ought to have listed? Please say so in the comments! :)
