Japan’s Anime Revolution! Twenty Anime Films That Changed the World

Film historian Clements (Anime) provides a chatty, accessible overview of anime through 20 of its most influential films. He starts with the 1945 WWII propaganda film Momotarō—Sacred Sailors, Japan’s first full-length animated feature, and progresses from there to such landmarks as Katsuhiro Ōtomo’s “sprawling” 1988 hit Akira, Satoshi Kon’s critically acclaimed 1988 film Perfect Blue, and Miyazaki Hayao’s Spirited Away, which won the second Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film in 2003. Clements intersperses the history of anime with colorful tidbits about the scene and its players: Gainax director Hiroyuki Yamaga trained to helm his first feature by watching The Bad News Bears 10 times; Mobile Suit Gundam creator Yoshiyuki Tomino is described as having “the simmering anger of a creative genius who was famous for a thing about space robots.” Clemens makes no secret of his preferences and as a result the list skews toward the films of his generation, with an emphasis on shonen (anime geared toward adolescent boys) science fiction and action anime. Though the 1970s–1990s picks could be more varied, the edgy anime of the “Akira generation” contrast dramatically with sentimental, Ghibli-influenced films of the 2000s. It’s a solid introduction to the genre with enough depth to teach even devoted fans a thing or two. (May)