# Recommend me some Japanese animated films
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [March 8, 2008, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550 "2008-03-08T01:53:37Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/1 "2008-03-08T01:53:37Z")
I just watched a a few of my niece’s favorite movies and I absolutely _loved_ them! I’ve seen _Spirited Away_, _The Cat Returns_ and _Howl’s Moving Castle_. I have _My Neighbor Totoro_, but haven’t watched it yet.
I’m a total newbie to this genre, so what else should I see?
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### Author:  [@Tenar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tenar)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/2 "2008-03-08T02:41:17Z")
Can’t go too far wrong with [The Castle of Cagliostro](http://www.amazon.com/Castle-Cagliostro-Lupin-III/dp/B00000JL3V). (I don’t know how old you are, but on the off chance that you have a few years on you, you may recognize many scenes from the movie from the 1983 Stern laserdisc videogame, Cliffhanger.)
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### Author:  [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/3 "2008-03-08T03:02:55Z")
_Princess Mononoke (Mononoke-hime)_, by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, they also produced most of the films you mentioned.
This film is more bloody and serious, IMHO, than Spirited Away.
_Laputa, Castle in the Sky_, is also from the same people, and also entertaining.
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### Author:  [@Hamlet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hamlet)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/4 "2008-03-08T03:09:19Z")
[QUOTE=koeeoaddi]
I just watched a a few of my niece’s favorite movies and I absolutely _loved_ them! I’ve seen _Spirited Away_, _The Cat Returns_ and _Howl’s Moving Castle_. I have _My Neighbor Totoro_, but haven’t watched it yet.
I’m a total newbie to this genre, so what else should I see?
[/QUOTE]
Well, since you seem to love Hayao Miyazaki films (he did Spirited Away, Howl’s, and Totoro), I’d suggest Princess Mononoki, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and Castle in the Sky (Mononoki is amazing, not quite as good as Spirited Away, but really excellent.) Those should be a good start.
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/5 "2008-03-08T03:21:07Z")
You’ve seen or have three of Miyazaki’s movies already – _Spirited Away_, _Howl’s Moving Castle_ and _My Neighbor Totoro_ – and been recommended another one, _The Castle of Cagliostro_.
Follow suit and get _all_ the rest, especially (IMHO) _Castle In The Sky_, _Princess Mononoke_, _Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds_, _Kiki’s Delivery Service_.
Thematically, _Princess Mononoke_ and _Spirited Away_ are probably the most complex, with layers of symbolism and meaning; _Nausicaa_ and _Castle In The Sky_ more straightfoward, but showing with the dark side of human ambition; and _My Neighbor Totoro_ and _Kiki’s Delivery Service_ are more light-hearted.
Themes of Man vs. Nature and the need to find a “third way” to reconcile or harmonize between the two dominate or underlie many of his works.
I see on preview that this is not a new sentiment. Take it to heart, you won’t regret it!
If you’re willing to get into Sci-Fi/fantasy related anime with more adult/violent content, I’d say _Akira_ (a classic – see the wonderful opening sequence with the biker gangs of Neo-Tokyo in [this YouTube clip](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZg8XYJ-bTE)) is a must-see of the genre. If you want to stay away from blood-n-guts, there’s _Millenium Actress_, a fictional bio-pic of a reclusive former movie star who is shown to have had a lifelong mystery man in her life… But, if you find you like the anime-style gore, there’s _Vampire Hunter D_.
And then there’s _Grave of the Fireflies_ for a real tear-jerker of a post-WW2 movie. It starts out with two young children orphaned and starving to death, and gets much sadder.
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/6 "2008-03-08T03:26:06Z")
I highly recommend [_Perfect Blue_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156887/). It’s sorta Roman Polanski meets Rumiko Takahashi, only not so much Takahashi.
[_Twlight of the Cockroaches_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093101/) is an allegory about the second world war with the allies represented by live-action humans and the axis as animated cockroaches.
[_Grave of the Fireflies_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095327/) is an extraordinary animated film about a small boy and his toddler sister and their experiences leading up to and after the bombing of Nagasaki - based on material written from personal experience. (It’s probably the most heart-breaking movie you will ever see.)
_ETA: I type slow._
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### Author:  [@randwill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/randwill)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/7 "2008-03-08T03:34:04Z")
I recommend “Only Yesterday” and “Whisper of the Heart” and “Porco Rosso”. With those three and the ones named above, you’ll have seen, arguably, the best Japanese animated films ever made.
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/8 "2008-03-08T03:35:00Z")
[QUOTE=Larry Mudd]
[_Twlight of the Cockroaches_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093101/) is an allegory about the second world war with the allies represented by live-action humans and the axis as animated cockroaches.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know if the Axis vs. Allies WWII angle is really there… “Hans” is obviously meant to be German, but is really just a representative foreigner: the roaches and the people are all Japanese in Japan, and speak in Japanese to each other and to the human who lives in the apartment (with whom they have had a longstanding “peace treaty” and who basically treats them as pets). Hans, of course, doesn’t buy into the whole “living with humans” thing, and is vigorous and wily where the all-but-domesticated local roaches have gone soft.
If there’s any political undertone, it’d be a caution to the Japanese not to get too soft and reliant on external shielding from violence and destruction (read: relying on the US instead of rebuilding their own military), especially when that shield is a traditional enemy who’s only playing nice for now because he’s bored or otherwise preoccupied.
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### Author:  [@Old\_Goat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Old_Goat)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/9 "2008-03-08T04:46:36Z")
Looks very much like a Ghibli production. I thought it was one.
About two boys (cats) named Giovanni and Campenella. The cats act just like humans but appear as cats. Took me a while to get over the Italian names, and the fact that Giovanni is blue, but the story slowly unfolds.
I think it is best to just let the story unfold. Don’t read any reviews. When it is all over, I found in all kind of sweet.
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### Author:  [@nikonikosuru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nikonikosuru)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/10 "2008-03-08T05:08:36Z")
Check out Castle in the Sky and Vampire Hunter D (the movie, not the 80s one). I thought My Neighbor Totoro was merely “meh”, and Grave of the Fireflies gave me a decent tug on my heartstrings, but didn’t flat out depress me like so many people said it would.
Spirited Away is definitely my favorite of all the ones I have seen thus far.
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/11 "2008-03-08T05:19:46Z")
Two more movies that are worth seeing are **Tokyo Godfathers** and **Paprika** , both directed by [Satoshi Kon](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Kon), but quite different movies.
Then you might want to move on to TV series. There are so many that it’s hard to know where to start, but some that I really like are **His and Her Circumstances** (also known as **Kare Kano** ), **The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi** , and **Zipang**.
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### Author:  [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/12 "2008-03-08T16:14:35Z")
I can’t believe I’m not the first to recommend Night on the Galactic Railroad.
Unfortunately, the translating company has let the licence lapse, so it would be out of print, and was always fairly obscure, so it night be difficult to find. But it IS worth the effort.
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### Author:  [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/13 "2008-03-08T16:44:28Z")
I knew you guys would come through, thank you! I now have a bunch of these on order now.
[QUOTE=nikonikosuru]
…I thought My Neighbor Totoro was merely “meh”…
Spirited Away is definitely my favorite of all the ones I have seen thus far.
[/QUOTE]
Agreed on both points. I watched _My Neighbor Totoro_ last night and while I thought it was pretty to look at, it was a bit too precious for my taste.
Can you all recommend anything that’s a bit more adult (and by that I don’t mean blood and guts or X rated – I’m thinking PG-13ish)?
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### Author:  [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/14 "2008-03-08T17:16:00Z")
I repeat, then, Mononoke Hime. Like they’ve written before, it is more serious (and more adult themes) than others from Studio Ghibli.
I agree with My Neighbor Totoro. I had high hopes, after seeing Mononoke, Spirited Away, and Castle in the Sky. I was disappointed and soon lost interest.
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### Author:  [@Hodge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hodge)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/15 "2008-03-08T17:21:34Z")
[QUOTE=koeeoaddi]
Can you all recommend anything that’s a bit more adult (and by that I don’t mean blood and guts or X rated – I’m thinking PG-13ish)?
[/QUOTE]
The aforementioned “Millennium Actress”, “Paprika”, and “Perfect Blue” by Satoshi Kon are sophisticated mind-bending psychological studies that play with the themes of perception, memory and identity. All of them are great movies but be forewarned that “Perfect Blue” is a pretty disturbing psycho-sexual thriller in the Hitchcock/De Palma tradition. “Tokyo Godfathers”, also by Satoshi Kon, is more of a straight-forward all-ages Christmas fable.
Getting back to the Studio Ghibli films, one not yet mentioned is “Only Yesterday”, which is a charming character study of a young woman and her reminiscences of country life. Subdued, introspective and beautifully animated.
A quirky, and very entertaining SF movie is “The Girl Who Leapt Through Time”, about a high-school girl who suddenly develops the ability to time-travel. Funny, romantic, and suspenseful.
Also very highly recommended is the SF TV series, “Cowboy Bebop”, about a rag-tag band of bounty hunters or “Cowboys”. Great action and drama with an awesome jazz-tinged soundtrack by the great Yoko Kanno.
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### Author:  [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/16 "2008-03-08T17:21:51Z")
[QUOTE=koeeoaddi]
Can you all recommend anything that’s a bit more adult (and by that I don’t mean blood and guts or X rated – I’m thinking PG-13ish)?
[/QUOTE]
All of those that I recommended are PG-13-type material. The characters in the Satoshi Kon movies are all adults (except for the homeless teenager in **Tokyo Godfathers** , who ran away from home because she stabbed her policeman father in a quarrel – not fatally, fortunately, because we hear from him during the movie.
**Kare Kano** and **Suzumiya Haruhi** are both set in high schools, but there’s fairly adult material. In the former, the two main characters finish up having sex with each other – those there’s nothing explicitly shown – and Suzumiya Haruhi spends a lot of her time undressing anothr student, and then dressing her up in lolicon outfits.
**Zipang** is the one with the most graphic violence, because it’s set in the Pacific Ocean on a late-20th-century Japanese Self-Defence Force cruiser (the Mirai) that’s gone back to immediately before the Battle of Midway (i.e., 1942). You see a few ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy being blown up by the Americans, and you see the Mirai suffering some casualties too, despite the Mirai out-gunning any other ship in the Pacific at the time, including the battleship Yamamoto, which exchanges a few shots with the Mirai. In spite of the unreal initial set-uo, it’s pretty realistic, and that includes sailors being killed during wartime.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/17 "2008-03-08T19:25:42Z")
I recommend _Porco Rosso_, a fairytale. With airplanes & set in the 20s-'30s, but a fairytale nonetheless.
I second the _Cowboy Bebop_ series, and suggest the _Lupin The 3rd_ series, which is at least as funny as the original Pink Panther films.
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### Author:  [@ErmesMarana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ErmesMarana)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/18 "2008-03-08T22:09:43Z")
_Princess Mononoke_ and _Whisper of the Heart_ are my two favorites.
_Nausicaa_ and _Spirited Away_ are the runners up.
_Whisper of the Heart_, while completely different, has a relationship with _The Cat Returns_, so you might want to check that one out.
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### Author:  [@nikonikosuru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nikonikosuru)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/19 "2008-03-08T22:31:08Z")
[QUOTE=koeeoaddi]
Can you all recommend anything that’s a bit more adult (and by that I don’t mean blood and guts or X rated – I’m thinking PG-13ish)?
[/QUOTE]
Let’s see…Vampire Hunter D the movie is a bit more bloody and I could watch it over and over without getting bored too quickly. I also enjoyed the anime Boogypop Phantom. It’s only 12 episodes long and it’s one of those animes that make you go “Whaaa the hell is going on?” in the beginning intentionally but wraps up well in the end. I’ll try to think of some more, I always keep forgetting anime that I’ve watched (so it must not have been that great to begin with. ;))
Not an anime, but you should definitely take a look at Battle Royale if you’re looking for a bit more blood.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [March 8, 2008, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-me-some-japanese-animated-films/440550/20 "2008-03-08T22:45:47Z")
**koeeoaddi** –give us some feedback.
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