Favorite Anime Movie

This was a very tough decision for me but I'm going with Perfect Blue

That movie from the beginning to end was all suspense and also very twisted,comical and all around great flick

i recommend everyone to watch that phenomenal classic

Can't decide, so I'll pick both.

Spirited Away is just such a cool, unique thing. It's not a controversial answer, but I feel like the right one.

Akira and Ghost in the Shell are two of my favorite anime things, but that's more about the manga for the former and Stand Alone Complex for the latter.

Princess Mononoke, from what few anime movies I've seen. I saw it not that long ago and it still had the same emotional power as I remember. Tis' a special movie to me.

Millennium Actress

Akira, without hesitation.

But I also want to shout out Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000). That movie is sick as shit, it's so cool. God, I need to rewatch that at some point.

Enjoy this "early 00s anime trailer"-ass trailer for it.

I've only seen a handful of anime movies. I've seen a hell of a lot more anime series then movies. Of the ones I have seen, Ghost in the Shell and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time are up there. Your Name is also pretty good. I only ever made it about halfway into Akira before I got bored and did something else. Don't know what that says about me. Watched my first Studio Ghibli film ever when they put them out on HBO Max. Binged what I could on a free trial, watching them in order of the year they were released. Made it up to Princess Mononoke. Of those, I enjoyed Kiki's Delivery Service and Only Yesterday the most.

EDIT: Oh yeah. I forgot about Wolf Children. Also great.

Forgot about Redline too. Redline's fun.

It's been a long time since I watched Perfect Blue, but... comical?

Anyway, it's not my favorite, necessarily, but I was thinking about Metropolis not too long ago and that's a really cool movie. I want to mention it because it doesn't often get mentioned alongside the usual suspects. I was going to post the trailer, but I think it looks awful, it's very spoiler-y, and it isn't all that representative of the actual movie.

Was this ever on Adult Swim? Because this looks like prime 2003-era Adult Swim material

@facelessvixen
i am watching the "leapt thru time" movie as we speak.

solid flick so far 10/10 imo

@justin258:

there was some dialogue in the movie that was pretty cheesy/corny i thought was funny,

deff worth rewatching again,

edit: metropolis is another one of my favorites

lmao @ the trailer it does the movie no justice at all

I'm going to be entirely unoriginal and say Akira. It actually had various ideas that to me that crossed current generational culture/ pop values. There were a few others I meant to watch, but one sounded so depressing (involving two starving children after WW2), I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I've tried to check out well done Anime from time to time, but haven't done so. That so, I did watch Star of the West(?) and was impressed by it's weirdness, ultra-violence, and implied Eastern values.

I absolutely love the Cowboy Bebop movie. It has one of the best opening scenes ever, and the music is so on point throughout.

I'd expect a lot of Akira/Ghost In The Shell/Paprika votes here. I've always been a huge Ghibli fan, but watching Summer Wars was the first time I realised there were alternatives to Studio Ghibli movies. Wolf Children and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time are also great, The Boy And The Beast, Your Name, Mirai... lots of options.

Also haven't seen a ton of movies, but of the Ghibli movies I have seen, I love Kiki. The entire tone of that movie just feels good to me, and I can't really explain it. Saw Weathering With You last year and that may be the leader in the clubhouse. Akira is an absolute touchstone in my anime experience (I saw it too young, and it was the first anime I had seen outside Transformers, et al.), but I wouldn't call it a favorite. Great soundtrack, though. I've owned a DVD copy of Grave of the Fireflies for going on 25 years, and I've never worked up the fortitude to watch it. I enjoyed the first Ranma movie quite a bit also, for what it was.

Don't know that I have a favorite so I'll just shout out the most recent film I've seen that sticks out to me which is I Want to Eat Your Pancreas.

Not my favorite but I recently saw "your name" and maaaaan that is a good-ass fucking movie. Didnt expect too much from it but was pretty impressed by everything from the way the story was told to the visuals.

Not sure what would be my favorite, everything named here I loved, cowboy bebop movie, akira, girl who went through time. spirited away, mononoke, metropolis, ghost in the shell, but I wouldnt be able to choose a favorite. Ive probably watched ghost in the shell 2 the most times. Paprika never really did anything for me, I barely remember anything from it despite having seen it 2 times and being super into lucid dreaming at the time.

Oh right I LOVED sky crawlers! been a while since ive seen it though. (although, from my memory, like gits2 its like 90% phylosophical rambling and 10% actual stuff happening so its not gonna be for everyone)

EDIT: OH FUCK I DO HAVE A FAVORITE!, cant believe I forgot it haha.

Its Jin-Roh the wolf brigade. Oof such a beautiful movie. Watched it countless times. Probably not "the best" in most of the things its doing or even that "enjoyable" to watch but man I dunno that movie just got to me in a special way.

Does Belladonna of Sadness count as anime? If so, probably that.

(Trailer NSFW, movie extremely NSFW)

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
If Belladonna doesn't count, then I'd probably go with Angel's Egg.

(Fan made trailer, dunno if there is an official one)

The ones that pop to the top of my mind are probably Grave of the Fireflies, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Princess Mononoke, and Comet in Moominland.

I did my thesis on Ghost in the Shell and Akira, so I guess I have to pick those.

(I also secretly love Porco Rosso!!)

That's a tough one but I think it's a tie between Patlabor and Patlabor 2. The combination of Mamoru Oshii's direction and Kenji Kawai's is second to none.

Princess Mononoke hands down, easy.

Probably Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Sure there are anime movies that are perhaps objectively better as far as film making goes but that one is still my personal favorite. I can't think of ones that I've rewatched as many times as Bloodlust except maybe Mononoke. Redline might be a close second.

My choice goes to Akira, but there are some pretty strong contestants in this thread.

Almost as obvious alternatives include the entire filmography of Hayao Miyazaki and Satoshi Kon.

@sombre: I’m confused. Why secretly? It’s great

Can't do just one.

But Miyazaki - Mononoke/Spirited Away/Totoro

Sword of the Stranger has the best sword fight in anything ever.

Patlabor 1 & 2 (ignore the third) - Both are pretty terrible at showing Patlabor's biggest strengths, but they're both great films, and as time goes on I like them a lot more than Ghost in the Shell.

Girl Who Leapt Through Time is wonderful.

Macross: Do you remember Love... Good luck watching that one legally. Almost recommend the Macross Plus movie, but the OVA is what you should watch.

A newer one I adored would be Promare. It's everything I loved about Gurren Lagann, and is fucking insane. It's pretty much Burning Rangers: The Anime.

@sweep: I rewatched this recently and was a little disappointed by it. The animation and the action sequences are amazing, and it's hard to complain about getting to spend time with the cast again, but at two hours, which is longer than any single story in the show, it really, really drags. Vincent is sub-Vicious, and most of the cast are really, really underused. The animation is so good though, it feels a little more like a showcase for animators at times. There's so many scenes with little details that look cool but just slow everything down.

This honestly might be mine. It was the first time I felt as an adult the sort of feelings I had watching classic Ghibli when I was younger. All of Mamoru Hosoda's films are good to great, but this and Summer Wars/Wolf Children are just something else.

It's super hard to pick just one. Obviously several Ghibli movies are great (my favorites are probably Only Yesterday, Proco Rosso, and Princess Mononoke) and the allure of all of Satoshi Kon's tragically small body of work is powerful (Millennium Actress is my favorite and very close second to my pick, maybe first on another day). Patlabor 2, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Akira, Sword of the Stranger, Redline, Ghost in the Shell, Space Adventure Cobra are all great movies that deserve to be seen by anyone interested in the medium.

Frankly, I'm a sucker for beautiful animation, and no movie has quite made my jaw land, and stay, on the floor like Macross: Do You Remember Love. It's hard to describe since I'm not an animator, but every frame of that movie feels like so much love and work went into it. It's not the most cerebral Anime out there, but it can't be beat as something I could watch any day of the week or as a pick me up when I'm feeling down. Real bummer that the only legal way to watch it is via an untranslated import Blu-Ray.

I'm an animator, so that makes sense :P The little details that look cool and slow everything down are part of what I like about it. I do think the pacing of the film is consistent with the original series though. There's plenty of long quiet scenes of the crew floating in zero gravity or lazing about on the ship which serve no real purpose other than to build atmosphere. I've always thought that balance is what makes the show so great!

I'll never watch it again in my life, but Grave of the Fireflies is my absolute favourite.

It requires completing the series but my heart will always belong to end of evangelion

It's been mentioned in here briefly already, but I wanna especially call out Patlabor 2: The Movie.

For reference, prior to watching P2 I had seen exactly 0 Patlabor, so if you're worried about being lost without the context of the show or the previous movie, allow me to assure you that you don't need to worry about it.

Ohhhhhh man this movie is good, ho-lee hell. I went in expecting some big splodey mecha action, and there is a smidge of that in there, but what this movie mainly consists of is a gripping, thought-provoking political thriller as an unknown entity stages a series of terrorist attacks on Tokyo in order to provoke panicked reactions from the populace and government alike. This is a movie about living in a security state, the true price of freedom and peace of mind, and about dealing with demons from your past. It's heavy, but extremely interesting.

Also, it was directed by Mamoru Oshii, who would later go on to direct this weird little arthouse movie no one's ever heard of called Ghost In The Shell. The same striking visual style is present here, down to the "mid-movie tone-setting montage showing the state of the world" (Patlabor 2's is better than GITS's, fight me).

It's gorgeous, it feels extremely relevant nowadays, the action is tense and pulse-pounding, I highly highly highly recommend it.

@asylumrunner: Reading this made me go: "huh is patlabor 2 older than gits?..." looked it up and holy hell indeed, I totally thought patlabor 2 was an early 2000s movie from after gits ....wow, makes it even more impressive. (I normally have all my anime sorted by decade so I always am aware of its context within the larger history of the medium...with the exception of mamoru oshiis stuff, that has its own dedicated folder but no dates haha)

I definitely agree its more relevant nowadays then gits would be. It really is an amazing movie, watched all the patlabors a couple month back after not having seen em in 10 years or something and 2 is definitely the one that stands out the most.

But really, all of mamoru oshii's directed animated movies are pretty much amazing imo.

(some of his life action stuff...less so :'D)

I also saw someone implying people should skip patlabor 3....nooo, its super fun xD its not like its a good patlabor movie at all or anything but its like a super weird mech/mystery/kaiju thing, kinda dumb and really fun xD Just dont expect ANY of the things that make patlabor good and your good x') I maaaybe enjoyed it more than patlabor 1 even if its not "as good". (but maybe that has more to do with my inexperience with any kaiju stuff besides shin-godzilla, which I first watched this year and absolutely adored. I always assumed Kaiju stuff to be super lame before that but I suspect I might actually have what it takes to enjoy the genre very much xD)

I see a lot of people saying Akira. And while I do like it, I felt like after I read the manga and found out how much the movie had changed or omitted, I just couldn't enjoy the movie the same way anymore. For instance, Lady Miyako was probably my favorite character in the manga, while in the movie she basically just has a cameo and is completely different from her character in the manga aside from her looks. Also, in the manga, Akira is still alive, and when they find him, the story is only halfway done.

Anyway, hard to pick just one. I think I have to be sort of boring and just go for a Ghibli movie. There are number of them that are virtually tied at the top, but I think for me Howl's Moving Castle just barely edges out everything else. I really liked the aging curse conceit, and the castle itself is stupendous. I just find it utterly charming.

I could mention others, but I think other people have pretty much talked about all my other favorites already.

Actually, the whole damned movie is up on YouTube. The upload date says 2017; not sure how it hasn't been taken down yet, but may as well enjoy it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyFfyDpy7Rk

I agree that it's a really good one. The animation is spectacular, and I really like some of the music in it, particularly the song "Grove" for one of the action scenes. Oddly, the original language for the film is English, though a Japanese dub does exist.

The other famous Yoshiaki Kawajiri-directed film is, of course, Ninja Scroll, which is also great, but way more over the top with the sex and violence in a way that can be uncomfortable in mixed company.

My problem with Wolf Children is that there's narration over the entire first half of the movie, which was... a strange thing. I kept waiting for the narrator to stop summarizing everything so the characters could just be and do their thing. Not bad, but not really my favorite.

Yeah. It was a real punch in the gut when I found out he died. I was seriously out of sorts for a few days... I had expected to watch many more of his movies. RIP.

Millennium Actress may indeed be his best film (though Paprika is really close for me), but honestly I thought that Paranoia Agent was the best thing he ever did. Of course that's a series, but it's a short 13-episode one that almost could have been a really long movie. Well, okay, maybe not. But man that thing is intense. And at times darkly funny in a way that I've never seen from any other animator. The episode with the three people trying to kill themselves is just hilarious.

I have to go with Laputa: Castle in the Sky. It was one of teh first animes I saw as a teen, it was a laser disc bootleg. My runner up is Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise which just as a next concept and alternative earth story.

Most people have seen Castle in the Sky, it is a Studio Ghibli classic, but people should check out Wings of Honnêamise because it is a a dramatic, funny, endearing, and sometime a sentimental movie worth seeing once.

It is really hard for me to pick a favorite anime film since it feels like my pick changes over time but I really love the work of Satoshi Kon with Millennium Actress probably being my favorite film by him.

One anime movie that I love but almost never see people talking about outside of certain circles is Windaria which is a fantastically tragic fantasy film. It also has a really great soundtrack and a very 80s anime aesthetic with character designs by Mutsumi Inomata.

I haven't seen too many beyond the standard classics (Ghibli stuff, Akira) but I haven't seen Jin Roh: Wolf Brigade mentioned, I like that movie a whole lot. Very grim.

I've only seen 12 anime films so far, and of those I think I have to go for the "boring" choice and pick Your Name. I will definitely be checking out Girl Who Lept Through Time now, though.

My favorite anime movie is Your Name.

I don't considered myself much of a Makoto Shinkai fan, finding that he basically just made the same movie over and over again (with it just being prettier as he went along), but Your Name was outstanding. It was the first time I feel his works had an emotional depth and warmth to its story and characters as opposed to his usual understated ephemeral nostalgia melancholy.

Lot of great picks but I got to go with Castle of Cagliostro mainly because I'm a huge Lupin the 3rd fan but it's also legit beautifully animated. Plus it has some amazing action set pieces that quite a few other cartoons and movies have paid homage to. That episode of Batman The Animated Series featuring the Clock King is pretty much inspired by the climax of Castle.

A few honorable mentions for Princess Mononoke, Grave of the Fireflies, Perfect Blue, and Golgo 13: The Professional.

I agree. Shinkai's works are always pretty but I find few to be worth a re-watch. Before Your Name, I think my favorite work of his was and remains She and Her Cat, a five-minute short film that was one of the first things he did. The original and fandub are both very worthwhile; Shinkai did the Japanese voice-over himself.

I do also like the first story in 5cm Per Second, too.

Perfect Blue is a very good choice.

Kiki's Delivery Service was the first to come to mind, though. Simply delightful.

I wouldn't call it my favorite but the last movie I saw in theaters was My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising and it was an incredible experience. Surprisingly packed house and everyone was so hyped that it created this amazing atmosphere that just made the movie so much better. I miss seeing movies in theaters :(

Hmm, I guess I'd have to say Mind Game, Masaaki Yuasa's debut film. Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fmmCsyK1dY

You can watch it on Crunchyroll: http://www.crunchyroll.com/mind-game/mind-game-mind-game-771937

Millennium Actress - This is the definition of a masterpiece to me. Pretty much anything by Kon is, but for me this is his best. Best anime movie, best romance anime, just one of the best anime period.

Your Name - I didn't see this until like 2 years after it came out so for years I basically just heard over and over how amazing this movie is and I just kept thinking to myself no way could it live up to the hype, but boy did it ever. I've liked Shinkai Makoto's stuff, but never been a big fan. With this he just stepped it up to another level.

Just some other ones I personally like even though I get that they might not be the best, I still loved them. Initial D Third Stage, Inu Yasha Affections Touching Across Time, Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust, Ninja Scroll, Lupin the Third Secret of Mamo, Lupin the Third Tokyo Crisis, Nausica of the Valley of the Wind and Lupin the 3rd Castle of Cagliostro (ok those last two most would consider all time greats, maybe Bloodlust too?, the rest though I just love)

For me it is a hard toss up between the original Vampire Hunter D , Fist of the Northstar, Akira, and Wings of Honneamise. Wicked City and Lensman are also up there.

My favorite one is Castle in the Sky. And Akira.

Mindgame