Despite the growing number of episodes of anime and TV series, and film titles I have yet to catch up on, I found myself looking for new anime films to watch. After my recent re-watch of the beautifully told Hotarubi no Mori e, there’s been a growing need to find something new in the anime film format that I can watch. Especially since my upcoming extended stay in Mindoro will keep me from watching the first offerings of the summer movie season.
While there are several anime resource sites that I usually rely on to find out what to watch, I decided to search for best-of lists. I was actually looking for titles released last year, so that it’d be easier to find copies. And with the randomness of search engine results, I found an interesting article from Tor.com, which is a site that features articles on fantasy and sci-fi works from various mediums.
The post, released in May of last year and written by Tim Maughan, was titled Ten Anime Films You Should See Before You Die (click on link to see full article), and it featured a list of anime films released between 1988 to 2006. Nope, I didn’t find my list of must-watch anime films of 2011, but I found the article to be informative and was helpful to me in a couple of ways. First, I have a list of new (new to me, at least) titles that I can watch. Second, it reminded me that I have a lot of older anime material to backtrack on. It made me realize that I’m a newbie in the world of anime, however much I watch it now.
Tim Maughan’s list included (in no particular order and linked to their Wikipedia pages):
- Akira
- Ghost in the Shell
- My Neighbor Totoro
- Porco Rosso
- Voices of a Distant Star
- Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise
- Patlabor: The Movie 2
- Perfect Blue
- Memories
- The Girl Who Leapt Through Time
Of the ten titles listed above, I only know seven, have only watched three and have a copy of one that I’ve put off watching for a while now.
Akira and Ghost in the Shell were part of my earliest anime film memories. So early, I can’t remember when I first watched them and what I felt about them. I was probably too young to even appreciate both masterpieces, until I had opportunities to re-watch them years later. The other film in the list that I watched was My Neighbor Totoro, which I discovered around the same time as Spirited Away. This means that I discovered the wonderful mind of Hayao Miyazaki during the latter part of his career.
My friend Bojji recommended that I watch The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. I immediately got a copy after his recommendation, but I ended up shelving it along with a bunch of other anime film titles that I got at the same time. I should be able to remedy that in the next few weeks. Hopefully.
Since I believe that Tim Maughan is more knowledgeable than I am about anime, I’m not about to start questioning his choices. Nor do I think I have watched enough anime films to warrant writing about my list of top anime films. I would probably end up choosing titles that others would disagree with, but hey, it’s my list. Even if I haven’t gotten around to making up my mind on which anime films to include in it.
But if I were to make that list, I might include the three films in Tim Maughan’s list that I already watched. I know that I would be hard pressed to choose one among the many Hayao Miyazaki films, which includes My Neighbor Totoro and with choices among Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo and so much more. I think Grave of the Fireflies and Only Yesterday by Takahata Isao might also make that list. I might also consider Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika, The Cat Returns, Steamboy, 5 Centimeters Per Second…
Hey, what do you know. Turns out that I have some pretty good contenders for my own list. Though I still think I’ll put off writing it until I’ve watched the rest of the titles in Tim Maughan’s list and watched more anime films to gauge which ones I really, really, really love.
What’s in your top anime film list?
Happy viewing!!
**All theatrical or promotional poster images are from Wikipedia.
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