Ah anime movies. The greatest thing about anime movies (in my mind) is that they’re great to start newcomers to anime off with. I’ve seen a lot of anime movies, but there are so many more that I still want to see. But I’ll try my best here to narrow down my favorite anime movies here. Again, plot summaries start off each review and again, they’re courtesy of ANN. [Author’s note: I most certainly need to watch Akira again. But as I haven’t seen it since high school and I don’t remember much of what happened in it, I will leave it off the list for now.]
Before I start off, I’m going to talk a little bit about directors. I’m going to be the first to admit that I know near to nothing about what makes good directing. But there are a few names that constantly pop up when it comes to directing anime. Hayao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, Mamoru Oshii, Mamoru Hosoda, and Makoto Shinkai. These five directors dominate my complete list of anime movies. 100% of the list is directed by one of these five. So, if you want to start watching anime movies, check out these guys. They’re good, they’re really good.
1. Tokyo Godfathers
Plot Summary: On a Christmas Eve, three Tokyo homeless – mid-aged alcoholic man Gin, high school runaway girl Miyuki, and former drag queen Hana – were searching dumpsters and trash bags for possible Christmas gifts for themselves, when cries from a baby drew their attention. Believing this was a gift from God, Hana, who couldn’t have a baby of “her” own, vowed to take care of the abandoned baby girl and together they began searching for baby’s mother.
Tokyo Godfathers has a very simple plot. It’s almost overly simple. Three bums find a kid and they want to find the kid’s parents. That’s it. But what drives this movie is the characters. Gin, Miyuki, and Hana are some of the richest characters I’ve ever seen in any anime. And I’m inclined to believe that, if I had included movies in my Top 15 Anime list, Tokyo Godfathers, not Baccano!, would be at the top. That’s how good this is.
But there are so many hardships, trials, tribulations, and reconciliations that these characters go through. I’m going to spoil things for you guys here, so if you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want the (sort of) blatant ending spoiled, look away to the next paragraph. What’s great is that these three bums are being recognized for what they did by the parents. The doctors say the people who returned their kid are bums, they’re smelly, and they have nothing on God’s green Earth to offer to them. But the parents don’t care. They just want to thank the people who saved their precious daughter.
Phew. Spoilers over and tear-jerking moments aside, this is an amazing movie. Have I said that enough? Because it’s simply amazing. If you want to check out a movie that is solely about the characters, check this out. Because each of them go through so much by the end of the movie. In just 90 minutes, these characters grow so much.
2. Ghost in the Shell
Plot Summary: In the year 2029, the barriers of our world have been broken down by the net and by cybernetics, but this brings new vulnerability to humans in the form of brain-hacking. When a highly-wanted hacker known as “The Puppetmaster” begins involving them in politics, Section 9, a group of cybernetically enhanced cops, are called in to investigate and stop the Puppetmaster. The pursuit will call into question what makes a human and what is the Puppetmaster in a world where the distinction between human and machine is increasingly blurry.
Remember the scene in The Matrix when Neo is getting the plug in the back of his head removed? He’s still in the machine’s breeding pod at that point, if that helps. Well, anyway, that scene is straight out of Ghost in the Shell. It’s the Wachowski’s homage to one of their favorite anime.
When the author of a book says that he’s skeptical whether the book he wrote can be made into a movie, only to allow it to be made into a movie because of the director attached, you know the director has to be good. Well, both Sky Crawlers and Ghost in the Shell were directed by the brilliant Mamoru Oshii. But we’re here to talk about Ghost in the Shell and I’ve already had two digressions before even starting to review the movie.
Getting right into it, I love this movie for the philosophical discussions in it. It blurs the difference between humans and machines. If a machine can know that it has consciousness, is it sentient? And before that, what is sentience? These are the types of questions that Ghost in the Shell always brings up and these are the types of questions I love thinking about. I even wrote a term paper about machine sentience in Philosophy 343. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, what makes Ghost in the Shell great is that it makes me think. As I’ve said already, the philosophical discussion in this is just so great. We aren’t questioning machine sentience, we’re questioning human sentience. Isn’t that brilliant?
But it’s not just the philosophy that brings me in to Ghost in the Shell. It’s the complex story. The Laughing Man and Individual Eleven arcs were amazing and the Puppetmaster story in this is no exception to both complexity and quality. Again, I’m not going to spoil anything about the story, but know that it is great. If you’ve seen the series, and like it, the movie is for you. If you haven’t seen the series, but liked The Matrix, you’ll like this. If you haven’t seen the series or The Matrix, get out.
3. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Plot Summary: In the post-apocalyptic future, large parts of the world have been swallowed up by forests of poisonous fungi. The remaining humans live near the fungus and its monstrous insectoid inhabitants, trying to prevent its spread. One of the human kingdoms, the peaceful Valley of Wind, loves its gentle Princess Nausicaä and her father, the king. But their peace is about to be broken, as they are swallowed up in the machinations of their larger, warmongering neighbors. However, Nausicaä has hidden potential, and may yet change the fate of the world.
Really, this is director Hayao Miyazaki’s spot. Actually, it’s Studio Ghibli’s spot. But given I’m dedicated to giving five specific movies, here’s Nausicaä. Just don’t discount movies like Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, and Grave of the Fireflies just because they don’t make an appearance.
The appeal, to me, of Nausicaä is the world Hayao Miyazaki creates. There is the poison forest, the ohm, and so many other fantastical creatures. I daresay what Tolkien did for fantasy, Miyazaki has done for anime (ok, that’s completely untrue because we all know Osamu Tezuka did for anime what Tolkien did for fantasy, but Miyazaki certainly did a lot for Studio Ghibli). But really, Miyazaki’s trademark thing is a fantastical setting (Princess Mononoke, Ponyo, Howl’s Moving Castle, every one of his other movies…). That’s what pulls you in, that’s what keeps you watching. Then you get into the story of Nausicaä and her village and the conflict between them, the Pejite’s, and the Tolmekian’s.
But it’s not even about that. I’m going to quote Thane’s sarcasm™ and say something along the lines of it’s all about preachy tree hugging (he didn’t say exactly that, but exact words escape me). But it is about that. It’s about respecting nature and not taking it for granted like so many of us do. A lot of Miyazaki’s films send out this message, but none stronger than Nausicaä and none better than Nausicaä.
4. 5 Centimeters Per Second
Plot Summary: A tale of two people, Tono Takaki and Shinohara Akari, who were close friends but gradually grow farther and farther apart as time moves on. They become separated because of their families yet continue to exchange contact in the form of letters. Yet as time continues to trudge on, their contact with one another begins to cease. Years pass and the rift between them grows ever larger. However, Takaki remembers the times they have shared together, but as life continues to unfold for him, he wonders if he would be given the chance to meet Akari again as the tale embarks on Takaki’s realization of the world and people around him.
Five spots and five directors. But I am not putting this movie on here because I want Makoto Shinkai on the list (ok, it’s a little because of that…). Despite that, Shinkai is a legitimately brilliant director and often said to be the next Miyazaki. Shinkai’s biggest downfall is that he used the same story for two of his works (Voices of a Distant Star and 5 Centimeters Per Second), except the latter is better because he has a bit more experience and the characters are richer.
The great thing about Shinkai’s works is the landscapes. Great cityscapes that awe the artistic mind are the mainstay of every Shinkai film. That and a story that’s sure to be a tear-jerker. But aside from the grand cityscapes in 5 Centimeters Per Second, there is a great relationship between three characters. First, there’s Takaki Tōno, the male protagonist that longs for the relationship that was never to be. Then there’s Akari Shinohara, the female protagonist and Takaki’s love interest. Lastly, there’s Kanae Sumida, the other female protagonist, that just can’t seem to catch a break.
Shinkai brilliantly builds up the Takaki and Akari’s relationship in the first part of the movie, then breaks all that down in the second part. We’re left feeling dejected and saddened, which is only escalated by the relationship between Takaki and Kanae. This is a great movie for a deep look at these three characters, Takaki in particular. If you like character things, check it out. If you like amazing landscapes, check it out.
5. Summer Wars
Plot Summary: When timid eleventh-grader and math genius Kenji Koiso is asked by older student and secret crush Natsuki to come with her to her family’s Nagano home for a summer job, he agrees without hesitation. Natsuki’s family, the Jinnouchi clan, dates back to the Muromachi era, and they’ve all come together to celebrate the 90th birthday of the spunky matriarch of the family, Sakae. That’s when Kenji discovers his “summer job” is to pretend to be Natsuki’s fiancé and dance with her at the birthday celebration. As Kenji attempts to keep up with Natsuki’s act around her family, he receives a strange math problem on his cell phone which, being a math genius, he can’t resist solving. As it turns out, the solution to the mysterious equation causes a hijacking of the social networking site through which most of the world's social and business traffic flows.
Not to take anything away from Summer Wars, but my original intention was to review The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Mamoru Hosoda’s other big movie) with this slot. Actually, I wanted The Girl Who Leapt Through Time to be in the number 4 slot. However, it is my regretful decision to give Summer Wars this spot in its stead because the last time I watched The Girl Who Leapt Through Time was about two years ago. As you can imagine, my memory on it is fuzzy.
Now, into the review. I’ll first say that Summer Wars big downfall is that it relies heavily on some Japanese cultural things that people outside Japan are unlikely to know. When I say it relies heavily, I mean it has a lot of Japanese cultural things that people that don’t watch anime religiously (like me) or people who live in Japan would know. I picked up on a lot of the things, but things like Koi Koi still went over my head. Relying on Japanese cultural stuff is something I don’t recall The Girl Who Leapt Through Time doing.
What I’m thinking of when I say it relied on Japanese culture is the game of Koi Koi, which it is apparently called. I have no idea what the rules are, and I have no idea how to play it. The movie didn’t give me that information because it assumes that you’ve lived in Japan and know the game.
But that isn’t to say that this isn’t a good movie. I wouldn’t have bothered putting it on the list if I did think it was good despite that dependence on Japanese culture. What it does well overcomes that cultural boundary that turns off so many new viewers. It gives you characters (Natsuki and Kenji) that you can relate to. Kenji is the nerd that has a crush on the girl and Natsuki is…well, she’s kind of just Natsuki. She’s the girl next door-type. But while Kenji is pretending to be Natsuki’s boyfriend, he gets caught up in a huge internet…thing. See, they have this thing called Oz, which is basically Facebook, Amazon, and your bank combined. But they’re not evil (no, really, they’re not). What’s evil is some guy that puts one of the most complex math problems to the smartest math nerds (Kenji included of course) to solve. Once they solve it, this dude breaks into Oz.
All hell breaks loose because EVERYTHING is based on this system. When I say it’s Facebook, Amazon, and your bank combined, I’m not joking. But it also controls traffic lights, water, electricity...you know, anything important. So the characters have to overcome this in an amazingly animated sequence. It’s great, it’s dramatic, and the characters you used to sort of hate or at dislike or actually like, you grow to like them or like them more. I highly suggest it for anyone looking for a neat sort of fantasy, sort of cyberpunk world.
Mamoru Hosoda also directed the Digimon: The Movie, but that’s a separate thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment