In another thread, someone said something about people objecting to the big eyes of Japanese anime, but it's not the eyes that bother me--its those little Speed Racer mouths that seem to be the only thing moving. In Japanese anime, the eyes never widen in surprise or narrow in anger, beards and hair never move in the breeze, facial expressions are frozen as though everyone has overdosed on botox, and nothing moves in the background. Reved car engines don't vibrate, dust and trash never stir in the breeze. All they do is fly through the air and rapidly moves those little mouths! Boring!
This just isn't so, at least in the anime I have seen, and I have seen dozens and dozens of series and features. Akira has some of the most fluid and active animation ever, with massive amounts of activity in the backgrounds etc. Cowboy BeBop, Gasaraki, Ghost in the shell, Noir, Macross Plus... on and on, this stuff is all so high quality and so well done. The fever dream scenes in Akira are unmatched to this day in detail and fluidity. Disney never did anything that even remotely approaches the level of those scenes. I have seen pretty much every Disney animated feature, and that stuff is child's play in comparison, detail-wise. It's Great! Don't get me wrong, those guys know what they are doing, and they tell a hell of a story, something that can't be said of a lot of anime, unfortunately. But, as far as the animation quality, Speed Racer is just not a good example. I don't even consider that stuff anime by today's standards. Take Miyazaki's Mononoke Hime'. One sequence features the hero riding a beast and chasing a wild boar that is covered in an evil substance that is corrupting it's spirit. They cover a lot of ground, with the boar's exterior shifting and flowing, releasing little bits here and there. Crazy fluidity. Also, during that same scene the hero rides past a forest the entire time, and Miyazaki never repeats a single background frame. Not once. The scene at the end of the film when the Forest Spirit goes through the transformation after the hunters get to it, is absolutely breathtaking. Of course, this is ALSO a Disney film, as well as an anime, but, it's a fantastic example of the level this stuff can get to. If only the story was at such a level.
Ruf, I don't think a lot of the material will be up your alley, but, give a couple of newer titles a shot, especially Miyazaki's stuff, and let me know what you think. Check out Spirited Away, by the same guy... Good for the whole family, that one...
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I've also been a fan of the classic style like Lion King, Aladdin, Fox and the Hound, and many others. I never really got into the new movies like shrek, cars, and Finding Nemo. Although the classics is what I grew up on, so I'm guessing the ages in which we grew up affect the styles we like...
Toy Story 2. It confounds me when I constantly see that it's considered the lesser of the (brilliant) trilogy. It develops it's characters wonderfully and it's so charming and funny and thrilling. It takes everything the first film did amazingly and, remarkably, improves on it and surpasses it by a long shot.
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As an animation buff I must say that in terms of full length features Japanese animation completely dominates the medium.
These films have complexity and depth that is seriously lacking in US animated features (which are usually made for toddlers, though recently American animated films have become more sophisticated thanks to the influence from Japanese animation (Pixar is pretty much an imitator of Miyazaki's style)).
Japanese animated films can be as adult and complex as any films, since there isn't much bias against animation in Japan as there is in the US, in fact the highest grossing film ever in Japan is an animated film (Spirited Away) and 4 out of the 6 top grossing films in Japan are animated films made in Japan (the other two are Titanic and Avatar). There are several animated films made in Japan that are adult drama films and have been the highest grossing films the year they were released (the best example is Omohide poro poro (Only Yesterday)), I cannot imagine an adult drama animated film made in the US that becomes the highest grossing film of the year.
The best animated film ever made in the North American continent is The Man Who Planted Trees, which is a short film (30 minutes in length) but stays forever in your memory:
So my top 20 favorite animated films would be:
1 - Kaze no tani no Naushika (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind) - Miyazaki 2 - Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke) - Miyazaki 3 - Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (Spirited Away) - Miyazaki 4 - Omohide poro poro (Only Yesterday) - Takahata 5 - Hotaru no haka (Grave of the Fireflies) - Takahata 6 - My Neighbor Totoro - Miyazaki 7 - Mimi wo sumaseba (Whisper of the Heart) - Kondo 8 - Majo no takkyűbin (Kiki's Delivery Service) - Miyazaki 9 - Tenkű no shiro Rapyuta (Castle in the Sky) - Miazaki 10 - Samâ uôzu (Summer Wars) - Hosoda 11 - Hauru no ugoku shiro (Howl's Moving Castle) - Miyazaki 12 - L'homme qui plantait des arbres (The Man Who Planted Trees) - Back 13 - Papurika (Paprika) - Kon 14 - Gake no ue no Ponyo (Ponyo) - Miyazaki 15 - Sero hiki no Gôshu (Gauche the Cellist) - Takahata 16 - Akira (Akira) - Otomo 17 - Kôkaku kidôtai (Ghost in the Shell) - Oshii 18 - Ôritsu uchűgun Oneamisu no tsubasa (Wings of Honeamise) - Yamaga 19 - Sennen joyű (Millennium Actress) - Kon 20 - Memorîzu (Memories) - Kon, Morimoto, Okamura
Edit: adding 10 more entries to show that I am not "biased" against US feature length animations:
21 - Kurenai no buta (Porco Rosso) - Miyazaki 22 - Wall-E - Pixar (lack of single directors and writers means that the auteur theory doesn't apply) 23 - Taiyō no Ōji: Horusu no Daibōken (Horus Prince of the Sun) - Takahata 24 - Toki o Kakeru Shōjo (The Girl who Leap Through Time) - Hosoda 25 - Pāfekuto Burū (Perfect Blue) - Kon 26 - Up - Pixar 27 - Ratatoille - Pixar 28 - Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru (5 Centimeters per Second) - Shinkai 29 - Jūbei Ninpūchō (Ninja Scroll) - Kawajiri 30 - Bambi - Disney
These films have complexity and depth that is seriously lacking in US animated features (which are usually made for toddlers, though recently American animated films have become more sophisticated thanks to the influence from Japanese animation (Pixar is pretty much an imitator of Miyazaki's style)).
Pinocchio, Fantasia and Alice in Wonderland were quite sophisticated in tne '40s and '50s. Brazil's own Bruno Bozzetto made some great stuff too.
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I don't like anime much at all, but I still think Miyazaki is the greatest animator of all time. My Neighbor Totoro is by far my favorite of his. It's beautiful, playful, and much more natural than his sometimes heavy-handed thematic plotting.
I also love Richard Linklater's intro philosophy course within a film, Waking Life, incredibly well done rotoscoping and endlessly interesing. He's such a varied and strange director
While I respect Norstein's work I cannot say I enjoyed watching his work very much. This style of stop motion of brown/dark figures is not my style, so I found it rather ugly looking.
While for this film in particular, it appears that the plot of Tale of Tales is inspired by Tarkovsky's, Zerkalo, but I found Zerkalo a very powerful experience while Tale of Tales, due mainly to it's brown visuals, appeared a bit underwhelming for me.
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