Japanese Spirits, History, and Hormones!
My Recommendations for Some Amazing Anime
Your Name (Kimi no Na Wa) (2016)
Format: Movie
Director & Writer: Makoto Shinkai
Where to find it: Rent or buy on Amazon (it’s worth the few bucks you’ll spend)
For anyone looking for an entry level anime that showcases incredible artwork and romantic sentimentality, Your Name is the movie for you. Like many Japanese fantasy romances, the story follows two teenage protagonists with raging hormones through some mysterious magical hijinks.
However, don’t write off this story as basic too quickly. What starts as a sort of Freaky Friday situation soon becomes so much more with twists and turns that will keep surprising you right to a gut punch at the very end.
The director, Makoto Shinkai, has been called the next Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli fame (My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki’s Delivery Service, Spirited Away.) Those are some pretty big shoes to fill, but this film does an impressive job living up to the hype. The artwork throughout the entire movie is so breathtaking that—if you are anything like me—you’ll be tempted to keep pausing the movie so you can take in all the details. On top of that, the writing comes together in such a tight and satisfying way that I was still fully engaged even on a second viewing.
I have watched a few other films by Shinkai if you are looking for more of his work—The Garden of Words, Fireworks, and Weathering You. While all of them are just as beautiful in their own right, I feel like it will be hard to ever top the inspired perfection of Your Name.
Millennium Actress (2001)
Format: Movie
Director: Satoshi Kon
Writers: Satoshi Kon & Sadayuki Murai
Where to watch: Free on Amazon Prime, YouTube, and Tubi
If you like mind-bending, surreal animation that will keep your brain wondering what is real and what isn’t then you will probably enjoy Millennium Actress. I had already seen two of Satoshi Kon’s other films, Perfect Blue (which inspired the movie Black Swan) and Paprika. Like both of those movies, Millennium Actress blends various versions of reality throughout the story so you are never sure if what you are watching is real or perhaps a fiction in the character’s mind.
This story follows two documentary filmmakers who are interviewing a famous Japanese actress at the end of her life. As she tells her story, we see it told through the lens of the different roles she played in films. So at some moments you get the feeling you are watching a scene from her real life memories, but in the next moment she is acting out the same situation in a period costume from one of her movies. To make things even more surreal, the documentary filmmakers show up constantly in the scenes almost as if they were always a part of her life.
Sound confusing? It is until you start to catch on to Kon’s cinematic vernacular. Once you do, the deeper themes begin to make more sense, and you’re just along for a wild ride until the end.
In This Corner of the World (2016)
Format: Movie
Director & Writer: Sunao Katabuchi
Where to watch: Netfli—wait no! It’s gone! Sorry, I guess you can rent it on Amazon.
Being relatively new to anime and manga, I have only recently become more aware of how regularly Japanese artists reference the atomic bombs dropped on their country. Images of mushroom clouds, neighborhoods flattened by nuclear winds, and the lasting effects of radiation poisoning appear over and over. Sometimes the references appear as more subtle symbolism such as in fantasy anime, but In This Corner of the World’s story shows a first-hand perspective of one family’s life leading up to the actual bombing of Hiroshima.
The story follows the life of a young woman growing up in Hiroshima. She leaves her home when she marries into a family living near a naval base. As she experiences the ordinary struggles of being a wife in a strange family, you can see the gears of war slowly turning in the bay just beyond their home. It seems far away at first, but the consequences creep closer and closer to their lives until the war’s end when the family is faced with the horrific aftermath.
It is as heartbreaking as it sounds, and yet there is a beauty in being able to see and empathize with the simple lives of these Japanese villagers. Despite some wretchedly sad events, the end of the film speaks to a spirit of resilience that Japanese culture seems to shoulder well. Whether it was out of necessity for survival after the war or something that they were fortunate to have forged previously over many centuries, the film surprises you with that spirit of hope and love in the face of so much horror.
This is truly a special film that, for a foreigner like me, might help you see the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from a perspective you may have known little about.
Sterling Martin is an artist and designer living in Chicago, IL. His background includes drawing, writing, theatre, teaching, improv & sketch comedy, and whatever else he can get his hands on to be creative. You can find him on the internet at:
Instagram: @sterfest.art
Website: sterlingmartin.design
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