Well… I only happened to take a few film courses during my stint in university that, to my surprise (and endless enjoyment for my inner nerd), covered anime. But since Alison got the geek ball for anime classics, giants, and the in-betweens rolling, I couldn’t help but continue the trend. So maybe I should amend the title to Anime from Someone Who’s a Part-Time Expert (Sort Of). Buckle in, because the nerdery is about to get nerdier.   

Since Alison briefly mentioned anime history, I thought we could make our first stop on this nerdvaganza at Akira. This 80s cyberpunk neo-noir story pulls from Japan’s post-WWII and nuclear fallout anxieties (as many foundational animes like Astro Boy, Trigun, and Mobile Suit Gundam often did). Opening with the fallout of a fictional nuclear incident, we follow bike gang member Kaneda and his friend Tetsuo in newly reconstructed 2019 Neo-Tokyo; a dark, shallowly hidden dystopia of so many near-future stories filled with neon lights, street races, governmental upset, and gangs (and yet we’re still here waiting on hovercars…). The story really kicks off when Tetsuo winds up in a chance encounter via a motorcycle accident/anti-institution rally with a stranger known as an Esper. Finding himself suddenly psychic, he’s whisked away by covert government agents. Some extremely illegal experimenting later, Tetsuo escapes them, but not before newfound abilities start to turn on him in a terrible mutation- and I do mean terrible. Word to the wise, don’t do what I did and watch this movie in an 8AM class on a caffeinated stomach of only green tea/coffee and a full hour and a half TTC trip. But, if you happen to ignore my advice, Chronicle will still give you the same psychic abilities gone wrong vibes as Akira (as an 84-minute homage) without the… Akiraisms (if you know, you know).  

Besides post-war fears and sentiments, Japan was also ahead of the game in the world of technology- at least when it came to what they put into their anime. Exploring its awe-inspiring highs and delving deep into its dangers, directors brought to life the world of cyberpunk (which, yes, does technically belong to the likes of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Blade Runner, but anime probably had the biggest hand in turning it into a household genre, and this is the hill I’m willing to die on). A.D. Police(1990), Megazone 23 (1985), and Ergo Proxy (2006) are all honorable cyberpunk mentions (and if I had to choose one for you to watch, Ergo Proxy gets my seal of approval), but there’s probably none so iconic of the handshake between anime and technology than Ghost in the Shell and its many sequels and spinoffs. In a world where you can build techno-brains, port them into synthetic bodies like they’re USB sticks, and enhance almost anything with the help of cybernetic add-ons like you’re a Google Chrome browser, what is it that makes you still human? Can robots, computers, and technology ever get close to something resembling a soul? And, if all a soul or a personality is is simply memory, and if memory is data which can be hacked, are people ever truly themselves? Major Motoko Kusanagi is going to have to answer all those questions as a failed assassination case finds its way onto her desk. With her loyal partner Batou in tow, together they’ll take themselves across New Port City, Japan, in the not-too-distant future of 2029. What they’ll find leads them down a rabbit hole of malignant code as they chase after a mysterious biohacker only known as “The Puppet Master”. If you’ve ever seen Netflix’s adaptation of Altered Carbon then you’ll have a good idea about how this all plays out, and, no, I’m not about to talk about whatever that live-action Ghost in the Shell was… (I simply do not see it, and neither should you).

Admittedly, when I first saw Alison’s blog post, the first thing I thought was “but does she know about Satoshi Kon?” Honestly, I think everyone who is new to anime (and those who aren’t) needs to know more about Satoshi Kon. I would add the gone-too-soon artist to the hallowed halls of sci-fi oracles like 1984, Neuromancer, and Fahrenheit 451, and there are plenty of big-name directors who have borrowed (if not completely lifted) Kon’s stories from Christopher Nolan’s Inception to Darren Aronofsky’s Oscar-winning Black Swan. If those two films don’t really give you an idea of Kon’s filmmaking vibes, let me break it down for you. Before the internet became what it is today, Kon was fascinated by the idea of the avatar- a character that someone might create, whether that’s a soon-to-be retired pop idol turned actress (Perfect Blue), a mysterious entity on roller skates that magically fixes all your problems with a baseball bat (Paranoia Agent), or a doctor whose alter ego travels through your dreams to give you advanced medical technology therapy (Paprika). But what happens when the avatar becomes more powerful than its creator? Kon’s films premiered in the early 1990s until 2010, but so much of what he created ultimately came true in our modern world of VTubers, internet personalities, celebrity culture, and the parasocial relationships that people can form when they’re a little Too Much of a fan. Though rather than spelling it out for you, Kon’s style is mind-bending, psychological, and surreal in a way that you can really only pull off in animation (though props to Nolan for doing his best to recreate that dream hallway scene from Paprika). Even if the stories might leave your head spinning, they’re always a feast for the eyes.   

Of course, I couldn’t have an anime-related post without mentioning arguably the most popular director in the genre, Hayao Miyazaki (and this paragraph may or may not be directed at Alison in particular, please watch a Miyazaki film, you’re missing out). I’ve rambled on and on about how fantastic his movies are (and I’m not the only one), so let me suggest something I haven’t hyped up yet: Princess Mononoke. Aka, that one movie that I thought was going to be so cool and fun because Miyazaki, right? He makes pretty kids’ movies full of magic and wonder and fantasy fun…yeah… yeah…

My thirteen-year-old self couldn’t have been more wrong about that one, and maybe I didn’t end up finishing Princess Mononoke until I was well into my 20s, but I feel that maybe it was for the better. After Prince Ashitaka is banished from his village for coming into contact with a demon and receiving a curse, he travels through a war-torn feudal Japan in search of a cure. But what he finds is a gunsmithery straddling the line between good and bad, a feral girl, and her small family of wolves, all vying for control over the nearby woods. The darker undertones of Princess Mononoke are a big departure from Miyazaki’s more whimsical films (beware of demon-worm infested wildlife and beheadings; it gets graphic), but its stark messaging about the environment and its morally grey characters put this movie on the same map as some of our other cornerstone anime films.

There have only been two directors to partially dethrone Miyazaki from my list of top anime movies, though. Mamoru Hosoda and Makoto Shinkai have taken over the modern market of magical realism drama anime, with their bright, colorfully rendered worlds and emotional storytelling. So if you’re looking for something heartfelt that has an 80% chance of you needing a tissue box (yes, full box), this totally objective list of my top three Shinkai/Hosoda hits will help get you started:

1. Mirai. Infusing time travel with a family-centric story made of the same stuff of any good picture book, you’ll need to sit your siblings down for this one- if only to bother them throughout the movie as much as is in your job description of “being related”. Four-year-old Kun is about to get a baby sister, which makes him as unhappy as anyone being taken out of the spotlight would be. At least, that’s until a magic garden introduces him to that sister, now a teenager, who takes him to meet his family from anywhere and everywhere, past, present, and future.  
2. Your Name. The body-swapping love story that has the power to make grown men cry. But I’ve talked this movie up already, so I’ll just leave you with that seal of approval and instead give a quick shoutout to Weathering with You. It takes Princess Mononoke’s environmental messaging but leaves out the grotesque demon-animals in favor of a runaway teenage boy and a girl whose forecast of sunshine is always right on the money since she has the power to stop the never-ending rains descending on Tokyo.
3. Belle. A reimagining of Beauty and the Beast that combines the cyberpunk vibes of Ghost in the Shell and others with the avatar-laden worlds of Satoshi Kon films. Plus it’s a musical! Belle tells the story of a girl who has lost her ability to sing after the loss of her mother, but when she’s convinced to create an avatar on the virtual reality platform “U”, she may just find her voice again.

And now you are all just a little bit more versed in the wide world of anime than when you started reading this post. There are so many more more old school and recent anime hits to comb through, though, so who knows? Maybe Alison and I will decide to do a part three to this two-parter blog at some point. In the meantime, you can check out the rest of VPL’s anime collection over on our catalog. Until next time!