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All-time Masterpieces▲▼
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Rating▲▼
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Comment▲▼
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| Castle in the Sky (movie) |
Masterpiece |
Perhaps not only the best film by Hayo Miyazaki, but one of the best full length animated films ever made. There is also a great English dub featuring Mark Hamill as the villain. |
| Cowboy Bebop (TV) |
Masterpiece |
Widely considered to be one of the best, possibly THE best anime series of all time. |
| Excel Saga (TV) |
Masterpiece |
This inspired piece of satire simaltainiously lampoons and tributes every genre of anime at once. One of the funniest things I have ever seen, anime or otherwise. Hands down, the very best parody anime ever. |
| FLCL (OAV) |
Masterpiece |
A middle school boy struggles with loneliness and his budding sexuality, as represented by robots, alien girls, and a series of mysterious ailments and injuries. There are only six episodes, but one can watch this series 100 times and get something new out of it with each viewing. This is the one to own. |
| Galaxy Express 999 (movie) |
Masterpiece |
This movie does an excellent job of summing up one of Matsumoto Leji's most exciting and memorable series. A masterpiece in its own right. |
| Ghost in the Shell (movie) |
Masterpiece (dub & sub) |
One of the finest works of one of the the finest directors in anime, Mamoru Oshii's cyperpunk masterpiece explores the nature of identity as a woman in a cybernetic body flirts with the idea that she is no longer a real human being. |
| Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (movie) |
Masterpiece |
Miyazaki's post-apocalyptic fantasy masterpiece. Based on his classic (and only) manga. |
| Neon Genesis Evangelion (TV) |
Masterpiece |
This anime is mind-blowing and life-changing. The series' incredible popularity is largely due to the fact that, like other true classics Trigun and Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion is not only visually stunning, superbly voiced and well plotted, but also easy to appreciate. The final four episodes are so good that you may die of amazement. |
| Ranma ½ (TV 1/1989) |
Masterpiece |
Priceless. |
| (The) Sky Crawlers (movie) |
Masterpiece |
This is some of the best work Oshii has ever done. It is also his most brutally devastating mindfuck ever- not to mention the most insightful look at otaku alienation since Murakami's seminal work. That is probably the reason why garbage like Spirited Away wins Oscars and this will barely even chart at the American box office. |
| Star Blazers (TV) |
Masterpiece |
One of the greatest and most influential works in anime history. Yamato is an incredibly emotional, brooding, and filmic anime. It follows the journey of a Japanese battleship sunk during World War II which is refitted as earth's first faster-than-light spacecraft and sent to the planet Iscandar. Their mission: retrieve a radiation purifier needed to save an Earth which has been ravaged by interstellar atomic warfare. A rigid chronology and dated captains log at the end of each episode counts down from 364 days, growing ever closer to the end of the world. This subtle touch gives the whole show an incredible sense of urgency. Viewers who cut their teeth on slick-looking, modern anime may be put off by the comparatively crude techniques used to animate the hand painted cells here. Indeed, Yamato is hardly flashy. It is the way in which the animators effortlessly mimic the editing and camera work of a live action film which makes this series so striking. Notice also how the characters move, making the kind of small, unconscious gestures a live action actor might. The crew of the Yamato breathes with life in a to a degree which is truly astonishing, especially considering the limitations of the medium at the time. Yamato does more with less, and it established Leji not only as a truly great director of anime, but as one of the greatest Japanese filmmakers to ever live. |
| Trigun (TV) |
Masterpiece |
I cry every time I watch episode 25. Every. Single. Time. |
