Crystal Tokyo Anime Blog

        Well, the decade of the 2000’s have left us and now it’s time to reflect on the anime series and films that given us so much enjoyment over these last ten years. So, in this first post I’ll be listing what I feel are my top ten anime films of the past decade. When I first started working on this list I thought it would be a pretty difficult process but the movie list turned out to be pretty easy because cream raises to the top and I feel the cream was pretty easy to spot.

#10     Card Captor Sakura Movie 2 (2000)

       For lovers of Cardcaptor Sakura, and the magic girl genre in general, there was no greater movie treat than the sealed card movie. This film featured top notch animation, a great story, good music, and the beloved cast from Cardcaptor Sakura. The cherry on top of this great cake is that Sakura is finally able to come to terms with, and communicate her true feelings for Syaoran. 

 

#9      Voices of a Distant Star (2002)

      A short 25 minute in length movie created, directed, produced, and animated entirely by Shinaki Makoto on his Macintosh computer. Makoto and his girlfriend also provided the voices for the two main characters. This small film is a beautiful meditation on love and how it’s affected by the time and the distance of separation caused by war.

       “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” Orson Welles

 

#8        5cm per Second (2007)

      This film by Shinaki Makoto is a must see for anyone who loves a good romance or drama, it has it all, great animation, great story, and great dialogue. This film demonstrates more quality in its 90 minutes than other anime do in 100 episodes.

       This film is another meditation on first loves, distance and separation, and features the relationship between Takaki and Akira featuring the concept of mono no aware, which is often translated to mean the Ah-ness of things, or the sadness of all things. Meaning that Takaki and Akari love is extremely sweet, and sad at the same time, just like the cherry blossoms, while beautiful and awe inspiring, they only last a short time. Short but sweet, with just a little taste of bitterness and pain, just like teenage love, while that love may not be the one to last a lifetime, you’ll always remember it.

 

#7        The Place Promised in Our Early Days (2004)

       Another Shinaki Makoto film set in an alternate reality Japan where the country is divided with the south being protected by the United Sates and the northern part being controlled by the Soviet Union, and features the relationship and childhood promises made between childhood friends Takuya and Hiroki, and a girl named Sayuri. After Sayuri disappears each boy takes a different path, but years later each boy must come to terms with their loyalties and decide whether or not they need to honor a promise they made to Sayuri years ago.

 

#6       Cowboy Bebop, the movie (2001)

       As a great lover of the Cowboy Bebop series, this film was just like a Cowboy Bebop episode with the exception that it was bigger, better, and more bad assed than even, enough said.

 

#5       Metropolis, the Movie (2001)

       Metropolis is an anime based on Osamu Tezuka’s manga with influences from the German film of the same name.  This film was directed by Rintaro, with Akira’s creator Katsuhiro Otomo doing the script writing. This film is a great work of creative art and has some of the best animation I’ve ever seen, and is a must see for any fan of film.

 

 #4      The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006)

       This film is a very touching human tale of friendship, love, and learning to grow up. The film is also a cautionary about the lure of changing the future, and all the unintended consequences that those decisions entail.

 

#3        Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

       The plot of Tokyo Godfathers revolves around three homeless people finding a newborn baby in the trash on Christmas Eve and their quest to find the baby’s parents. Throughout the trio’s quest to return the baby to its parents we come to learn about each of the homeless person’s background. This film is a tale of miscommunications, regrets, and ultimately, a tale of the search individual redemption.

 

#2       Millennium Actress (2001)

        A film within a film, Millennium Actress is the story of a film director named Genya working on docutmary film about a famous aging actress named Chiyoko. While interviewing Chiyoko, the director slowly gets Chiyoko to reveal her life story to the audience, and that story is told in the form of flashbacks using famous moments of Japanese history and filmmaking. This movie is for those who love storytelling at its finest, compare to Cinema Paradiso.

 

 #1     Spirited Away (2001)

       Spirited Away begins with the simple premise of a ten year old socially withdrawn girl named Chihiro getting sucked into an Alice in Wonderland type of adventure in an attempt to save her parents and regain her identity, and takes us on an adventure of visual and emotional wonder. Many, including me consider this film to be Hayao Miyazaki’s masterwork, while many non-Japanese enjoy and appreciate anime, this film made many people not familiar with the art form stop and take notice. All, I can say is that if you haven’t seen Spirited Away then you haven’t seen anime.

       If you think I’m over stating Spirited Away’s  impact or power, here’s a list of where respected critics and magazines have placed Spirited Away in their best films of the decade lists (these lists include all films, not just animated features).

#8 Spirited Away (Film School Rejects)

#21 Spirited Away (Film Comment)

#22 Spirited Away (Cinematical)

#4 Spirited Away (The Hurst Review)

#3 Spirited Away (Jeff Meyers, editor Metromode)

#2 Spirited Away (Vanity Fair)

Borrowed from the Vanity Fair review.

        “You may have a noticed surprising absence of Pixar work on this list despite the fact that no company has made more money, impressed more critics, and pleased more audiences than the bastard love child of Steve Jobs and John Lasseter. True, each Pixar film is a gem in its own right, and it’s widely rumored that the devil has gross points on Lasseter’s soul. However, if you’re talking animation with an unparalleled power to provoke pure wonder and wide-eyed enchantment, even Lasseter would gladly bow down to Hayao Miyazaki. Watching this film is not only to feel like a child again, it’s to dream like a child again.”

        Well, this episode picks up right after all of Kurumi’s plans have come together, she had thought that her plan to ship Sawako with Ryuu would have caused Kazehaya to turn towards her loving arms, wrong. As soon as Kazehaya sees Sawako with Ryuu he drops everything he was carrying, and takes Sawako by the arm and runs off with her, leaving a destroyed Kurumi asking the heavens, WHY.

 

        Later, in class, Ayane tells Chizu about Kurumi being the source of the rumors, and Chizu thinks that Kurumi wants Ryuu. After Chizu goes on about her and Ryuu being like brother and sister, and how she doesn’t want Kurumi for a sister-in-law, Chizu shocks her with the news that Kurumi really likes Kazehaya.

 

       Once Kazehaya finally stops dragging Sawako away, he apologizes telling her he couldn’t handle it, and he asks her if she likes Ryuu. Sawako freezes for a moment as she goes over her feelings inside her head, and she tells herself that she loves Kazehaya. Sawako tells Kazehaya that her feelings for Ryuu aren’t feelings of love, and Kazehaya tells her he believes her. (I smash the fifth wall to yell, YTF, can’t anyone say their true feelings and get laid) Well, Kazehaya is embarrassed by his behavior and Sawako kneels down in front of him and realizes that her feelings of love are right in front of her. Kazehaya gets all flustered and says confused things to Sawako, and Sawako tells him it’s all right.

       Kazehaya finally asks Sawako (still not using her first name) about going out as boyfriend and girlfriend, and Sawako get really excited because she says it’s a very mature thing that she has no experience with. Sawako is very confused and not making sense when Kazehaya realizes that Sawako probably never thought about something like this, so he tells her it’s OK so just forget about it for now.

       While all this is going on, Ayane continues to explain Kurumi’s entire plot to Chizu, and her suspicions are only confirmed when Ryuu walks up and the whole “note from Sawako” thing is revealed. Chizu wants to go after Kurumi right away, but Ayane stops her and says that they’ll gather more evidence and crush Kurumi; Chizu grows frightened by Ayane’s disposition.

       Well, as Kurumi is still hanging out at the equipment shed waiting for Kazehaya’s return Pin wanders up and hassles Kurumi for being there without a purpose, and he soon gets the idea that Kurumi likes him. So, he tells her he doesn’t like kids and she’s ten years to soon and rejects her. At that very moment, Kazehaya walks up and hears the tail end of Pin and Kurumi’s conversation, and Kazehaya tell her he won’t say a thing. As Kazehaya and Pin walk off together, Pin tells Kurumi to give up on him.

       Ayane and Chizu asks around the school trying to find who started the original rumor about them but they have no luck until Tomo and Ekko confirm that the first person they heard the rumor from was Kurumi. Ayane goes all evil saying she has Kurumi now, and she’ll make Kurumi vomit out all her makeup.

       Back in the classroom, Sawako looks for Ayane and Chizu, but doesn’t find them.  Sawako can’t believe how happy she is in knowing she likes Kazehaya, and can’t wait to tell them about it. But, Sawako thinks about Kurumi and she tells herself that she should tell Kurumi first because she lets her know about her feelings for Kazehaya. Just as Sawako is looking for Kurumi, Ayane and Chizu are confronting Kurumi with the accusations and Kurumi is still trying to deny them, but it’s not working on them. Sawako comes running up to the three of them and asks if they’re friends now. Ayane tells Sawako that they’re just finishing Kurumi off because she’s the one who started all those rumors, and made her suffer so much. Well, that’s all for this episode.

      Well, just as Kurumi’s big plan to win over Kazehaya finally came together, and it comes crashing down around her in utter ruin. The main reason that Kurumi’s plan failed is she never took Kazehaya’s feelings into account, she felt that all she needed to do was show him that Sawako was interested in someone one else and he would have just fallen into her arms. This assumption of Kurumi was very arrogant and condescending considering how strong her feelings for Kazehaya are , did she ever consider the possibility that Kazehaya’s feeling for Sawako were as strong as her feelings for him were, and would she have just given up if she was in the same situation, I think not.

        My only real problem with this episode is Kazehaya’s and Sawako’s ongoing problems with communicating their feelings towards each other. Come on, Kazehaya, can’t you call Sawako by her first name already, and can’t you tell her that you like/love her. I also have a problem with Sawako’s behavior towards Kazehaya because she’s already come to the conclusion that she loves Kazehaya but when she’s standing right in front of him and all she can do is stammer and ramble on. But, I place the majority of the blame on Kazehaya, I was in a similar situation when I was sixteen with one of my sister’s friends who was fifteen at the time, every time she’d visit my sister she would come into my room to borrow a tape and we’d talk, I was attracted to her and I thought she was attracted to me, but I didn’t know. So, I asked my older cousin about this, and he told me go for it and just kiss her next time we were together, and she’ll let you know if you were right. Well, next time she stopped by my room and we were sitting next to each other talking I just leaned in and kissed her, jackpot, she became my first real girlfriend and we dated for a year. So, Kazehaya needs to man up and kiss the damn girl.

          After watching thirteen episodes of, and blogging twelve episodes of Tegami Bachi (Letter Bee) I’ve decided to drop my episodic coverage of Letter Bee. I felt that Letter Bee had started off strongly, but as the episodes went by I grew tired of Lag’s crying, and decidedly un-shonen like behavior. My disdain for Lag’s crying has reached the point where if I have to cover one more episode of him crying like a baby, I’ll……..

 

Goodbye, Niche and Steak, you were the most interesting part of the entire series.

       So, I’ll be picking up episodic coverage of Sora no Woto to fill the gap left after dumping Letter Bee. At least Kanata is self-aware enough to know she sucks.