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 Isao Takahata, for all his legendary status as a director and co-founder of Studio Ghibli, is sometimes a hard director to pin down, stylistically. Case in point: the delightful, virtually plot-free, humane comedy My Neighbors the Yamadas, which looks and feels like nothing else in his oeuvre. Despite this, it somehow also feels like quintessential Takahata. Based on the comic strip manga, Nono-Chan, the film is a series of vignettes centered around the Yamadas, an average family living in metropolitan Japan. These vignettes cover everything from how Takashi and Matsuko (the parents at the center of many of the tales) met, to family arguments over who has control of the TV remote, to grandmother Shige’s advice and proverbs told to the family. Despite not having an overarching story, by the end of the film, each character and their interconnecting relationships are finely and realistically drawn, and it’s easy to find oneself in love with this family, and their silly, crabby humanity. Complex truths about aging, marriage, family, and childhood are expressed through these simple tales about particular family members and their trials, tribulations and daily foibles. Also of note is the striking visual style of the film, designed to look like a watercolor comic strip. Takahata was so firm in his desire to achieve this look that My Neighbors the Yamadas ended up becoming the first fully digital film from Studio Ghibli. Whether you find it slow-moving or delightfully sedate, the visuals will captivate. My Neighbors the Yamadas is a film only Ghibli would make, and only Takahata could shape into such a poignant ode to the humanity of everyday families. Essential Takahata, indeed. —J.D. 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. Suffering multiple delays that caused its single cour run to stretch over nine months, Uncle from Another World started hot and ended ice-cold. By the time the final episode aired, the comedy anime was old news, relegating it to a footnote of 2022's anime offerings rather than a potential highlight. As frustrating as these issues were, nowadays, Uncle from Another World can be watched in its entirety; however, is it worth it?

This list features famous action classic anime movies, like Akira and Ninja Scroll, as well as new and popular anime movies, like A Letter to Momo and Ponyo (although that movie is almost 8 years old now). Vote up the best anime movies ever, and see if your favorites are ranked in the top 10.Based on a series of light novels written by Reki Kawahard, Sword Art Online is an anime whose first season aired in 2012 and the most recent season aired in 2020. The story is based in modern times, where people can experience immersive gaming with the help of virtual reality. However, the trouble begins when the creator of a medieval fantasy game called Sword Art Online (SAO) traps thousands of players inside the game by removing the log-out button, leaving them stranded. The only way for these players to ever make it out to the real world again is to finish all the one hundred increasingly difficult levels of this game. The protagonist, Kirito, and the other players join forces to overcome the challenges.

The first season of the One Piece anime came out in 1999, and now, 24 years later, it's still ongoing. This massive anime, comprised of well over 1000 episodes, is one of the longest-running anime of all time. Based on Eichiro Oda's manga of the same name, this anime is set in a world where humans and other mythical creatures all co-exist together. The story mainly focuses on the protagonist Luffy and his pirate crew, but there are many other different arcs and plots since the anime is so long. The manga is said to end sometime in 2024 or 2025, so if someone wants to start watching or reading it, they will have plenty of episodes to binge. 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 In Kakegurui Hyakkaou Private Academy is a place for the rich. But it has a special curriculum. If you are rich, it’s not about athletic prowess or book smarts that keep you ahead. It’s about reading your opponent and understanding the art of the deal. There’s no better approach to polishing those talents with a rigorous gambling education than living like a king. The winners live like kings at Hyakkaou Private Academy, but the losers are put through the wringer; nevertheless, when Yumeko Jabami joins, she’ll teach these kids what it’s like to be a high roller. At Paste, we believe there’s an anime for everyone. With lists like this, diverse demographics are often left unconsidered, effectively sidelining female and LGBT viewers. Hobbyists and fandoms have long had distinctive, individualized communities, lively groups that often do not intersect except, maybe, at anime conventions, given over half of North America’s attendees are female. So why is it that lists like this leave out anime made by women, for women? And why can’t these anime be enjoyed by men, too?

9. Pokémon (1997 – Present)

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). Ghost Story is another example where the humor was introduced almost entirely in the dub. The original played the material straight, while the dub is one of the most hilarious anime series of all time. 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. Patlabor pulls the mecha genre out from space operas and away from all those cosmic threats, and lands it in for a more upbeat earthbound approach. Created in the twilight of Japan’s economic boom before the bubble burst in 1992, the series glitters with a positive, progressive outlook on the (then) near-future of the island nation, where commercial-grade mechs called Labors have integrated within every day life, powering transportation, manufacturing, land development, and more avenues of industry. We follow the colorful, motley crew of officers at Second Special Vehicles Division, who combat a variety of Labor-related crimes. Less overtly political than the OVA and movie timeline, The TV Series is an appealing breakdown of a unique police unit’s inner workings that, in its best episodes, feels like an office sitcom whose lessons are delivered through giant robot beatdowns. Based off of the first two volumes of Yukito Kishiro’s long-running sci-fi manga series, Battle Angel (or Gunnm, as it’s known in Japan) is the story of Gally, an amnesiac cyborg who wakes up to a dystopian future after being rescued by a kindly prosthetic scientist and later embarks on a personal journey of self-discovery and adventure. Despite the series’ popularity and the manga having run for a cumulative nineteen years, Battle Angel adapts only the first two volumes of the series. The film is premium cyberpunk material, with sprawling cityscapes, homicidal cyborg junkies, brooding bounty-hunters, and an enormous megacity hanging above the mainland separating the haves from the have-nots. Battle Angel does a wonderful job of fleshing out Gally’s initial arc from an unassuming youth to a formidable bounty hunter and martial artist. The film’s impressive quality only makes absence of any subsequent adaptation all that more peculiar. Battle Angel just barely scratches the surface of its source material, but if you’re looking for vintage cyberpunk story and a concise introduction to Kishiro’s opus, you’d be remiss not to give this one a shot.— Toussaint Egan

How often do you see a female character who’s basically perfect, rich, beautiful, intelligent… I could go on. A multimedia project consisting of four animated shorts plus one videogame, each representing a different period in Japan’s history, Short Peace is a delightful grab bag. With Otomo at the helm guiding the project, and providing one of the shorts, this project pulled together a ton of talent, all in the service of some gorgeous animated short films. The unifying concept barely hangs together, but each of the tales are so singular and stunningly rendered, this is a minor concern. The most singular of the bunch is “Possessions,” was nominated for an Oscar, and it’s easy to see why. The visual technique and seamless rendering of CG/2D animation is absolutely captivating. Otomo’s own contribution, “A Farewell to Weapons,” based on his manga, is the other centerpiece and closes out the collection. It remains true to many of Otomo’s extant themes—mainly, the effects of technology on humanity, and the inability of man to escape his patterns of tribal violence and conquest. The designs are incredibly detailed and well-thought out, like all of Otomo’s work, and the animation is of course hyper realistic. Overall, Short Peace is an excellent modern entry in the hallowed tradition of great collections of anime short films, even if the feast it provides is a bit more for the eyes than the brain. —J.D.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. The final two episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion are notorious among fans of the series.Titled “Do you love me?” and “Take Care of Yourself,” the two-part finale infamously sidelined the climactic finale to the series’ central conflict, instead opting to take place entirely away from the action within the subconscious of the show’s protagonist, Shinji Ikari, as he wrestled to resolve the self-loathing and hatred which plagued him throughout the story’s duration. The unconventionality and unsatisfying nature of this conclusion prompted disgruntled fans to issue death threats on Anno’s life and Gainax’s building to be defaced with graffiti. In response, Anno set to work on an alternative ending to the series to be produced in two parts and aired in theaters. If you were looking for a light, campy and celebratory conclusion, End of Evangelion is not that movie. Instead, what fans were treated to was perhaps one of the most fatalistic, avant garde, and oddly enough, life-affirming endings to an anime series ever produced. In short, it is the best and worst of everything that is Evangelion combined to create a film that is unlike anything that had come before it. Despite its unrelenting darkness, End of Evangelion remains true to the ethos of its subtitle, that the joy of death is in the act of rebirth.— Toussaint Egan Hanime could be a reasonably animation that has its origin in Japan; Hanime.tv is a web platform on that you can enjoy free hanime series and films that too fully HD quality. Through this app, the user gets unlimited access to the series simply once the launch and it guarantees you the simplest quality as well as high Japanese animation and Manga movies of all time and every one the best hanime songs and even wallpapers which will revive your recollections of hanime movies from time to time. Endless Waltz was originally produced as a three-part OVA wrapping up the story of the Gundam Wing TV series, which takes place outside the normal continuity of the Gundam “Universal Century” timeline. The movie cut is the superior viewing experience, however. Endless Waltz takes place one year after the events that wrapped up Gundam Wing, and involves the Gundam pilots, and their enemy Zechs Merquise, coming out of retirement to battle one last threat—and in some cases, each other. Where the Gundam Wing TV series had a plot that tended to meander, and sometimes used cheap animation or repeated cels, Endless Waltz is a feast for the eyes—filled with gorgeous, fluid battle scenes that any fan of giant robots will appreciate. Add to that the very smart decision to have the great Katoki Hajime ( Short Peace, Gundam 0083) redesign the Gundams into their “evolved” forms, and this becomes much more than a simple end of series cash-in. For this film version, several shots from the OVA were retouched, and there are some mild adjustments to the original animation. As a payoff to the TV series, it’s a great way to visit with the Gundam pilots one last time, and as a stand alone, it works well enough that even if one is not familiar with the source material, it’s a fun ride. The usual questions about the cost of war, the price of peace, and human determinism that run through virtually all Gundam series are on full display here. If you want a concise example of what Gundam does so well relative to other types of giant robot anime, this is a dance worth taking. —J.D.