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Gurren Lagann is a 2007 anime produced by Gainax. This mech anime is initially about a young man named Simon and his older brother figure Kamina as they fight in the titular Lagann against the oppressive Spiral King and his army of Beastmen. Not content to redefine the mecha anime genre once with Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gainax did it again with Gurren Lagann, and the result is just so over-the-top that it's hard not to love. For the uninitiated, Fullmetal Alchemist and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood are based on the same manga. The difference is the former was produced while the manga was in production, so the end of the show has nothing to do with the manga. Brotherhood came later, and it faithfully adapts the entire manga. Both have great animation, engaging stories, and fantastic dubs. There's no question about whether the story of the Elric brothers belongs on any list of the best anime of all time. The more contentious issue is whether to choose Fullmetal Alchemist or Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
Written and storyboarded by Mamoru Oshii, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade is Hiroyuki Okiura’s feature film debut and the third and final installment in Oshii’s Kerberos trilogy. Jin-Roh follows a member of an elite anti-terrorist police unit who, after failing to subdue a mysterious suicide bomber in the midst of a heated riot, is plagued by disquieting visions and doubt regarding the virtue of his service. The film is as thematically complicated as it is aesthetically breathtaking, with superbly realistic animation, deafening firefights and oppressive melancholic ambiance owed in part to Hajime Mizoguchi’s score. Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade is an audacious reimagining of Charles Perrault’s “Little Red Riding Hood” set in an authoritarian alternate history Japan where the lines between the wolf and the girl, the hero and the villain, become blurred to the point where the two are rendered tragically indistinguishable by their fallibility.— Toussaint Egan The best sports anime right now, Haikyu!! takes you to the exciting, blood-pumping, and often heart-breaking world of volleyball. Even if you’ve never watched, played, or even thought about volleyball outside of Top Gun, this show guaranteed to school you on the sport and what makes people so excited for it, while putting you in a great mood every time the central team wins a match. Our main character is Shoyo Hinata, a high school freshman considered too short to play volleyball, but who is particularly fast and adept at jumping. Naturally, we follow his journey to becoming the best volleyball player he can be. This show features fantastic character development, hilarious humor, and some of the best sports sequences ever animated. Much like his contemporary Mamoru Hosoda, Makoto Shinkai is a director who is frequently championed as the “new” Hayao Miyazaki in the conversation surrounding who will succeed him as his heir apparent. This comparison however, much like in the case of Hosoda, ends up being frustratingly reductionist in its appraisal of both directors. Shinkai’s films are not light-hearted family adventures or archetypal pillars of anime canonicity, but tense, melancholic odes to contemporary Japanese society that highlight the ways in which physical, emotional and temporal distance inform the shape and course of human relationships. His fifth feature film, Your Name, exercises Shinkai’s predilection for “star-crossed love” to its narrative and thematic endpoint, situating the budding romance of the film’s protagonists at the epicenter of an astrological event of nothing shy of life-or-death consequence. The recipient of over a dozen awards, in addition to becoming the highest-grossing anime film of its time, Your Name is Shinkai’s most critically and commercially successful production to date, a masterful film that ranks among the very best the medium has to offer.— Toussaint Egan Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 novel How Do You Live? is a time capsule, preserving the virtues of the society it was made and circulated in. It’s about how to live as a good person in this world, about the childhood experience of discovering difference, disparity, and loss—and, thus, turning to philosophy. The influence of the text is apparent in Miyazaki’s work at Ghibli. While the protagonist of his latest film, Mahito (Soma Santoki), is styled around Miyazaki’s childhood, Miyazaki himself appears as he is today more directly in the figure of Mahito’s granduncle (Shōhei Hino), a man who built a mysterious library on the family estate decades ago before disappearing into his stories forever. The Boy and the Heron, released in Japan with the same name as Yoshino’s novel, becomes a firm reminder of the need to grow up, but one that recognizes the importance of the ephemeral experiences of childhood. Unlike Miyazaki’s semi-biographical 2013 swan song The Wind Rises, the quasi-autobiographical The Boy and the Heron is styled as the fantasy Bildungsroman that he became famous for—with a mature, edgier bent. The opening sequence depicts a 1943 firebombing, rendered with striking animation that entirely breaks with the art style of the rest of the film, veering into the abstract. Mahito’s ill mother dies in the flames. Afterwards, the 12-year-old moves to the countryside as his father Shoichi (Takuya Kimura), an industrialist contributing to the war effort, remarries his late mother’s younger sister, Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura). It’s a world where nearly everyone has some sort of superpower, and Izuku Midoriya is born with nothing. That doesn’t stop the kid from enrolling into one of the most prestigious superhero schools, setting out on an improbable journey to become the number one hero on the planet. My Hero Academia takes everything you love about superhero movies, and mixes it with a coming-of-age tale with lots of heart, eye-popping action, a supporting cast of well-developed and memorable characters, a protagonist who isn’t afraid to show vulnerability, and references and homages to your favorite comic books. Whether you want a first entry into the world of superheroics, or have seen all that Marvel and DC have to offer, this show has something for everyone.Of course, with so many high-caliber shows produced over the years, much of it readily available at our fingertips, we invite you to create your own guide. Let us know what you think are the best, most essential anime series out there in the comments. Angel’s Egg is not only unlike anything Mamoru Oshii has ever done as a director, it’s arguably unlike anything else in the medium of anime, period. Created during the period of Oshii’s career following his departure from Studio Pierrot, Angel’s Egg is not so much a narrative as it is a bizarre tableau of gothic imagery and thematic sobriety that seeps across the screen like a living painting throughout its 70-minute duration. Rather than offering a concrete premise that’s paced out through story beats and revelations, the film itself explores the question of why we search for meaning in anything in the first place, a visual meditation on how reality and our idea of reality is shaped through what we choose to believe in. The film ponders the question of whether anything exists at all, on whether ideas of the past that haunt the collective consciousness of humanity can reify themselves in the present tense, of whether belief in the perception of anything is worthwhile or reliable. These are themes that Oshii would go on to further explore, particularly through his work on Ghost in the Shell, but nowhere near on this level of abstraction. Angel’s Egg offers so much room for interpretation and nuance, but what’s unmistakable is this: it’s a must-see anime that no two viewers will watch or interpret quite the same way.— Toussaint Egan Of all of Miyazaki’s most persistent tropes and motifs, there are none more consistently threaded throughout the body of work than that of the depiction of flight. So it’s no surprise that The Wind Rises, his eleventh and final feature film to date, would focus squarely on depicting the life of Japanese aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi and the complicated legacy his creations relate not only to the pacifist cultural identity of contemporary Japan but also, on a personal level, to Miyazaki himself. A story of how a creator cannot control what their work becomes, only the dedication and craft to which they pour into the work itself. The Wind Rises is nothing short of Miyazaki’s final artistic testament to humanity’s paradoxical capacity for both the redemptive act of creation and dogged pursuit of self-annihilation. A film that is in no uncertain terms a conclusion, if not to Miyazaki’s venerable career as one of the undisputed patriarchs of modern Japanese animation, then a thematic coda that ties together an elegant knot at the end of his venerated and storied career as a director. — Toussaint Egan This is a peaceful place," Smith said. Through tears, Smith said the community and numerous law enforcement agencies helped in the shooting response.
We’re commemorating these moments with a selection of 25 anime TV series that we believe have been essential to the medium over the last five decades. Our recommendation that these shows ought to be sought out and watched is based on the immediate quality of the stories, characters, and animation, along with their crucial impact in exposing new audiences to the world of anime. The shooting began with a dispute over property lines, the sheriff's office said. In a news conference Tuesday, Smith said a dispute between the suspect and his neighbors had been ongoing for some time. Because if you get the reference it’s like high-fiving the creator in slow motion, but if you don’t get it you feel like you’ve brought great dishonor to your family. Or you just turn it off and move on.If stereotypically Dragon Ball Z captured the attention of boys, then Sailor Moon did the same for girls. A pioneer in national broadcast syndication like DBZ, Sailor Moon brought anime to the masses. It was an after-school, afternoon delight to daily unite with Usagi (or Serena, in the original English dub) and her intergalactic planetary squad of friends, as they navigate adolescent life, mysterious boyfriends, and their own secret identities as magically-endowed defenders of the planet. Series director Kunihiko Ikuhara would go to direct another shojo classic series, Revolutionary Girl Utena. Hailed as the apex of serialized anime since its debut, Neon Genesis Evangelion’s champagne reputation belies just how strange it is. Set in a post-apocalyptic Japan where kaijus known as “Angels” repeatedly ravage humanity, the series follows Shinji Ikari, an insecure boy chosen to pilot one of the Evangelions, which are giant, mysterious robots that are the only weapons capable of repelling the Angel menace. From there, Evangelion transforms from a mecha procedural into an impressionistic allegory about the inherent loneliness of being human. The virtually plotless finale divided audiences at the time and remains contentious to this day. Series creator Hideaki Anno responded to fan outrage with a supplemental film titled The End of Evangelion, which brought closure to the story while diving headlong into a darkness that the show merely glanced at. The result is a harrowing but unusually frank exploration of mental health. Taken altogether, Evangelion’s hallowed status is understandable: While the saga becomes more inscrutable the deeper it goes, viewers will come out the other end having gained a deeper understanding of themselves.
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