Having been a fan of Japanime for a long time. Miyazaki has definitely created a world a person can get lost into. I own Spirited away, kikis delivery service (which my daughter loves), Castle in the sky, Totoro(another favorite of my daughter), and howls moving Castle.(which my daughter just watched with me tonight, though I don’t believe she understood the subtleness of the plot, she liked it non the less and stayed tuned in for the whole of it)

The last, “Howl’s Moving Castle,” I found to be one of his best works, very creative. Unlike some I’ve seen in here and other places I do enjoy Walt disney as well, but it seems everything they are doing of late is a rewrite of something that was done along time ago, sure there is different characters but the plots are all the same. Their is nothing truely original, that’s what I love about Miyazaki’s latest works. They are unique, original, and they captivate you.

Unfortunately where I live Japanimation is in short supply, so I am lucky when I can get some.

Another reason I have to go with Spirited Away is sentimental–it’s the first movie that my son and I watched together from beginning to end. He was between 18 and 24 months old I guess and he just sat and watched in the same trance I was in. It was quite a feat for that kid to sit still and pay attention for 90 minutes (just ask his Sunbeam teachers).

I went through an anime phase about a year ago and saw a lot of the films that have been mentioned here, GHOST IN THE SHELL, etc. My favorite was COWBOY BEBOP, the TV series, which I would highly recommend on the basis of the theme song alone. The whole series has great music.

But of all the anime I saw I have to say the GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES is the only one that really resonated and stayed with me. I agree with everyone else who has mentioned it on this thread. It’s amazing.

Disney (not that I’m hating on Disney really, but…) would totally have filled that moment with some topical wisecracks from a sidekick played by Whoopi Goldberg.

The film draws heavily on Japanese tanuki folklore — racoons are magical creatures who can transform themselves, or at least some of them can. The narrative style is very different what one might expect — it proceeds in a documentary format, with a narrator explicating the history of the struggle, which takes place over a couple of years, and the action taking place in short, set pieces.

Takahata uses three distinct styles of animation for the racoons: a fairly realistic style for scenes in which the racoons interact with humans in regular racoon fashion (as animals), an anthropomorphized style for the racoons interactions with each other, and a very simplisitic childish style for scenes in which the racoons are experience great emotion (happy or sad). It’s an effective technique.

Ultimately, the story is too long and drags, and some of it doesn’t make much sense. But it’s a fun ride, and beautiful to watch. I believe it was the highest grossing film in Japan the year it was released.

Also notable — the male racoons learn to inflate their testes to enormous size and use them as battle clubs in one scene. Those crazy Japanese!

I don’t watch tv, with the exception of Lost and any Duke basketball game that comes in on my rabbit ears. I’ve got four young kids, so DVDs are our primary form of weekend entertainment.

Check that — I’ve been keeping up with Battlestar Galactica, thanks to a random John.