One of the joys of a Netflix account is their insistence on catering to every demographic in every country on the planet. As a result, that means they’re bound to get a selection of anime films from Japan.
Even though they’re not quite as special as Ghibli Hayao Miyazaki or Makoto Shinkai films, below are 5 examples of quality Netflix anime selections that are worth visiting to give examples of the power of the genre.
| The Castle of Cagliostro (1979) |
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| What is it about?: A clever theif/con artist discovers a secret castle run by a nefarious count up to nefarious schemes. |
| What makes the movie special?: This film is the first feature from the legendary Hayao Miyazaki. Like the pilot of a TV show, or a first novel of a great writer, this film plays as a first pass for Miyazaki making a movie. The elements of his greatness are there: great story premise, fascinating dimensional characters plural, and some inventive animation. Everything is just a smidge below his later efforts, where it’s clear he learned from his tiny mistakes making this film. If Cagliostro isn’t as clever and fun as it is, we probably don’t get Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, or Howl’s Moving Castle. |
| In This Corner of the World (2017) |
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| What is it about?: A young girl comes of age as the Japanese fight in World War II, and the bombing slowly approaches home, including the two most destructive bombs ever dropped in a war. |
| What makes the movie special?: What differentiates anime from American animation is how the art form is more accepted to be watched by everyone, meaning the stories can skew more adult in nature. This war movie is also told in a unique way. We’re never on the front lines; we only spend time with our heroine Suzu and her extended family dealing with the war in a small coastal Japanese city. With this view, the true scale of how war affects everyone comes into view, particularly as the US gets closer and closer to invading Japan, and Suzu’s proximity to the town of Hiroshima should leave anyone with any knowledge of world history terrified of what might befall these lovely people. Oh, and per usual for most of these animated films, it’s spectacular to look at. |
| Mary and the Witch’s Flower (2018) |
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| What is it about?: A young girl discovers a magical broom and flower in the forest, which help transport her to a school for the magically gifted. |
| What makes the movie special?: It’s anime crossed with Harry Potter. A great deal of this movie’s success is because of the first 10 minutes, which involves a spectacular set of visuals set to a breakout from a magical stronghold. However, I tend to like anime films where magic is adjacent to the story, not the center of it. This movie gets too bogged down in its third act and then rushes to its conclusion, but not before you witness some crazy looking creatures and a decent plot twist or two. |
| Flavors of Youth (2018) |
| Part 1 Rating: Part 2 Rating: Part 3 Rating: Net Rating: |
| What is it about?: Three vignettes about Chinese people and their lives. Story 1: A boy reminisces about his life through his love of noodles. Story 2: Two sisters live in Guangzhou, one a successful fashion model, the other a wanna be. Story 3: A boy and girl who were close as children become estranged, figuring out exactly what happened by their cassette note exchanges to each other in high school. |
| What makes the movie special?: Basically three short films crammed into one. The last one has a twist you’ll probably see coming because that story has existed as long as The Magi were delivering gifts, but it’s effective nonetheless. The middle section in the weakest, in part because of how the story doesn’t give enough time to both sisters (the youngest gets shafted). However, that first story plays like a beautiful poem. You smell and feel everything the narrator does, and the glossy way the story is shot makes the steam from the ramen feel like it evaporates directly into a memory. So at least watch the first one. |
| A Silent Voice (2017) |
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| What is it about?: A young boy who bullies a deaf girl hopes to amend for his youthful sins and seeks to right his past with the girl he hurt. |
| What makes the movie special?: This is simply one of the best and most ambitious stories about the effect bullying has on a student populous. Remember earlier when I said anime films more often have adult themes? Suicide, nuanced methods of bullying and how systemic they are, can you every right a past wrong? A Silent Voice has your mind working overtime taking it all in. The story’s unafraid to make this movie uncomfortable sometimes and sad more often than not, trusting the audience to buy into this grounded reality (with some again, spectacular visuals) and pull off the near impossible: make a truly vile character redeem themselves from their horrific beginnings. |