Part 2! Rules same as before.

#8 ) Millennium Actress

Ahhh, a lovely movie in which we look back at the memories of a Japanese actress now in her old age. She was born before the war and it affected her life too and many times her real life crossed paths with the movies she was in. We come along for the ride with an interviewer and his camera man and the ending is so very bittersweet.

#7) Ringing Bell

My second entry from Sanrio, what can I say? They made some great anime movies. Ringing Bell is a rather sad movie because of the "future badass" trope as we see a loss of innocence at the price of something that may not have been entirely worth it for the main character after all is said and done.

#6) Junkers Come Here

Junichi Sato is one of my favorite directors, there's not question about it for me, and here's a movie he did rather early on. He didn't do a whole lot of movies and it's a shame because this one is so good. A lonely girl has a magical talking dog, but don't let the magical talking dog fool you into thinking that her loneliness will be solved with mere magic. It may help her along, but seeing the girl come to certain realizations is wonderful to see.

#5) Perfect Blue

Ahh, here's a delightfully twisted story. I showed this to two friends last semester and for the first 45 minutes or so, they thought it mostly normal, but I could see that they gradually began to notice something was strange with the movie. "It hasn't hit the weird part yet" I had to tell them quite a few times as the movie just got progressively twisted. It is some of the very best in the genre of psychological horror and Satoshi Kon's very first movie. For being such a wonderful psychological drama movie, it was great to see that his second movie (also on my list, Millennium Actress) didn't succumb to the pitfalls of trying to imitate his last great work as they are completely different genres, but both still great. He sure makes a lot of weird stuff, but it's all great

Well, I know I've done in general favorites, but I've decided to do a more concentrated list on what are my top 12 favorite anime movies as of now! Part of the rules are that it cannot be related to a TV or OVA show, it has to be its own thing and it must be at least 30 minutes long. Why top 12? Because they all deserve to be listed.

#12) The Sea Prince and the Fire Child (aka The Legend of Sirius, Sirius no Densetsu)

Here's a bit of an odd movie, it's made by Sanrio of all people. Not the least bit huggy feely like Hello Kitty though, it's another form of Romeo and Juliet and just as tragic. The prince's friend is annoying though.

#11) Memories: Magnetic Rose

This might technically just be an episode in a 3 part OVA, but it's really more not. It's beautiful and haunting and it's easily the best of the three Memories segments. More good sci-fi mystery stuff!

#10) They Were 11

For as much of the plot of this sci-fi shojo is to guess at (like why there are 11 members instead of 10), the "who" is not quite as obvious still leads to a lot of mystery and tension between the characters. The 11 university entrees for the best university in the entire galaxy must survive on a ship for 60 days and maintain it. Even this isn't made as easy as it sounds and it's not just a test in avoiding cabin fever and you get the feeling that if they all met in a bar or at a summer camp, they'd all be great friends, but under suspicious circumstances, relationships will change. It does tend to show its age though, computers beep and boop and they all have super 80s shojo eyes and hair. I think the main character looks particularly stupid.

#9) Piano no Mori

To some degree, it's a Prince and the Pauper story with pianos, but the slice of life just works so well here. We see them both try to achieve their dreams of playing piano well, one who has been practising since he was very young and one who simply has extraordinary natural skill.

Believe it or not, it's Space Ghost Coast to Coast, a joke talk show in which Space Ghost talked to real people through a TV screen. It first aired in 1994, but the importance doesn't come from just that, it comes from what spun off of SGCtC: Toonami and [adult swim].

Toonami's first host was Moltar, a side character who came from Space Ghost. Toonami started off as a programming block on weekday afternoons of action series but eventually began to air anime and became an important part of introducing many fans today to anime. Eventually, Tom took over Toonami as the host, but it started off with Moltar from Space Ghost hosting in 1997. And they aired Reboot, ooooh did they ever! Their early selection of shows was also top notch most of the time, before they were forced to move to Saturday evenings only and start showing nothing but Naruto and Pokemon. The block was finally cancelled in 2008, I can't say if it's for better or for worse though, but back when I got to watch Toonami from 2001 until they moved to Saturday nights only in 2004 or so, those memories are still sweet. Bittersweet at this point.

[adult swim] is the slightly more obvious spawn of this show too. It started a few years later than Toonami in 2001, which became my main introduction to anime. Back when I first began watching it, it aired on two nights: Saturday for action and Sunday for comedy. It's original comedy line up included Space Ghost, but Space Ghost also served as the blueprint they still use for their 11-minute original comedies to this day. One of their early shows, The Brak Show, was also a direct spin off of Space Ghost. From time to time, Space Ghost will still make cameos in other shows on [adult swim].

So, thank you, Space Ghost Coast to Coast for ushering in my love for anime and the two programming blocks you spawned.