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Who is your favorite anime director? (movies only)


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Who is your favorite anime director? (movies only)
Hayao Miyazaki (Princess Mononoke, Castle in the Sky)
23%
 23%  [ 18 ]
Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies, Pom Poko)
3%
 3%  [ 3 ]
Hiroyuki Okiura (Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade, A Letter to Momo)
1%
 1%  [ 1 ]
Shunsuke Tada (Bungaku Shojo, (The) Prince of Tennis: Eikoku-shiki Teikyū-jō Kessen)
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, Baby Blue)
6%
 6%  [ 5 ]
Mamoru Hosoda (The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars)
11%
 11%  [ 9 ]
Satoshi Kon (Millennium Actress, Paprika)
34%
 34%  [ 27 ]
Tatsuya Ishihara (The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya)
2%
 2%  [ 2 ]
Yasuhiro Yoshiura (Time of Eve)
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Masahiro Ando (Sword of the Stranger)
0%
 0%  [ 0 ]
Makoto Shinkai (5 Centimeters per Second, The Place Promised in Our Early Days)
6%
 6%  [ 5 ]
Other
10%
 10%  [ 8 ]
Total Votes : 78

Author Message
FullmetalHeart1



Joined: 20 Jun 2013
Posts: 4
Location: Jacksonville,FL
PostPosted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 9:30 pm Reply with quote
Well, I've never watched any of these movies but Cowboy Bebop:The Movie what a shame Sad .
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
Posts: 1767
Location: South America
PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 11:21 pm Reply with quote
Satoshi Kon best anime director ever? Really? Satoshi Kon's work is very cool but his films lack the emotional power of truly great art. He is pretty much like a more cerebral version of Tarantino working in the medium of anime movies, making cool mind-bending movies that appeal to a young adult demographic.

I would certainly rank him behind the likes of Isao Takahata, Makoto Shinkai, Mamoru Hosoda, Mamoru Oshii and Keiichi Hara, and I know a rather small number of anime movies. These directors managed to attain the sublime, something that I found lacking in Kon's work.

And Miyazaki is obviously the greatest director of animated movies who ever lived by a long shot (at least from those I have watched). The fact that he is losing against an artist of a tiny fraction of his stature in this thread is a tragedy. Not that Kon is a second rate director but you cannot compare him to a first rate grandmaster.

I guess that the superficial "adult" quality of Kon's work (contrasted with the superficial impression that Miyazaki's work is for children like Disney's), the post-modern coolness of his mind bending movies combined with his more western flavor explains his popularity among western anime fans and western film buffs.

In Japan, Satoshi Kon is not considered a major anime film director, in fact, in a Japanese ranking where anime critics voted for the 13 top anime movies, 9 director's showed up: Miyazaki (4 movies), Takahata (2 movies) 7 others (1 movie each) and Kon did not show up. Indeed, Takahata is probably the second greatest anime filmmaker, thanks to his emotionally powerful masterpieces, Only Yesterday and Grave of the Fireflies.

I still greatly respect Kon's work but I deduce that if someone likes Kon's work over a giant's such as Miyazaki, he or she failed to really grasp the finer layers of the latter's work. Miyazaki's work is just too beautiful and elegant to be even compared to the work of lesser artists such as any other director I mentioned (including Takahata).

Miyazaki movies have a massive re-watch value: I watched Nausicaa a dozen times over a period of two years and it always gets me. It's amazing.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
Posts: 1767
Location: South America
PostPosted: Sat Jun 29, 2013 11:26 pm Reply with quote
Ambimunch wrote:
Shinkai > Miyazaki but just by a little Smile Both are amazing!!! Though I can't believe you left out Anno!!!!??? You'know the master mind behind Evangelion---even though he's the biggest troll out there, but you have to be a genius to be a troll of that high level


I think this only applies to movies. In terms of TV there are probably many artists that can be compared to Miyazaki (the staff that made Madoka, for example). But in terms of movie it sounds almost ludicrous for me that anybody familiar with Miyazaki's work to think that his work is not enormously superior to anything else ever made (with the exceptions of Grave of the Fireflies and Only Yesterday) by a very long shot.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
Posts: 1767
Location: South America
PostPosted: Sun Jun 30, 2013 12:01 am Reply with quote
ikillchicken wrote:
Hayao Miyazaki: A little overrated (although more by virtue of his staggering reputation and not any lack of talent). Princess Mononoke is excellent. More or less as good as anything out there. But his other stuff has always been just okay. Spirited Away, Porco Rosso, Laputa...all real fun movies but I wasn't truly blown away by any of them. Naussica is not especially good.


People are not uniformly affected by works of art, I personally wasn't strongly touched by Jean Luc Goddard's work, who is considered one of the greatest directors of all time.

However, when they touched by Miyazaki's work, people can be very deeply affected. Even more deeply than by any other anime director that I know about.

When someone says that something is overrated in art that only means that he or she hasn't been touched like other people were. That occurs all the time and I think that make the use of the term to be nonsense.

Interesting that you didn't like Nausicaa and like Princess Mononoke, given that the two are very, very similar movies. Princess Mononoke is basically a less tame version of Nausicaa, more visceral and aggressive, where the main characters lack the kawaii and feminine qualities of the heroine of the former - hence, more superficially adult. I find both movies to be extremely moving and worthy of being watched over and over again.

Princess Mononoke is also a bit more nilihistic about the environmental themes than Nausicaa, reflecting Miyazaki's evolving though about these themes, the evolution of his though was induced by the fall of the Soviet Union, which lead to his abandonment of Marxism and his 13 years of work done in the Nausicaa manga. Both movies are very bleak in their environmental message, depicting worlds where mankind appears either doomed to extinction (Nausicaa) or at least doomed to destroy the rest of the Earth's environments to survive (Princess Mononoke).

I find that those that characterize the environmental themes of those movies as tree hugging stuff are clearly far from understanding these quite complex and gloomy movies.

Quote:
Isao Takahata: No opinion. His more family friendly stuff doesn't interest me. I do definitely plan to watch Grave of the Fireflies but you have to be in the right mindset I think so it hasn't happened.


Takahata made one family movie: Panda Go Panda and 8 adult movies, including Horus: Prince of the Sun (yes, it was described in a Japanese documentary as the first animated film made for young adults, truly a monumental achievement and probably the greatest animated film ever made up to the year of 1968, as Miyazaki explained it was the film that proved that animation could attain a high level of emotional depth like live action movies do), Chie the Brat, a slice of life comedy movie based on a manga, Gauche the Cellist, a very sweet and subtle movie about a mediocre musician struggling in an orchestra, the 3 hour live action documentary film, The Story of Yanagawa's Canals, and his two masterpieces, Only Yesterday and Grave of the Fireflies. Later he directed Pom Poko, which is his worst movie in my opinion, though it was voted the best movie of the year of 1994 by readers of the Kinema Junpo film magazine, and his slice of life comedy My Neighbors the Yamadas which is very similar to Chie the Brat.

Takahata can be considered as the successor of the more humanistic side of Japanese cinema represented in it's golden age by directors such as Ozu and Naruse. His best works touch the human soul and are quite unlike most other anime, being more similar in tone to the European and Japanese cinema produced before 1960 rather than the more fantasy oriented anime. He is very influenced by Italian neorealism and classic French cinema besides Japanese directors like Ozu.

I have watched all of his movies and I think that he is probably the second greatest anime film director in history, after Miyazaki, of course.

However, his films lack's the complexity and re-watch value of Miyazaki's work. I watched Grave of the Fireflies and Only Yesterday only 3 times and it's emotional power has already waned. While I watched all Miyazaki's films at least 4 times and they always impress me again and again, given their massive complexity and disciplined sense of formal beauty present in Miyazaki's works.

Takahata's films feel less cohesive and more manipulative than Miayazaki's after being re-watched.

Quote:
Hiroyuki Okiura: Haven't gotten to Momo yet but obviously will. Jin Roh is a masterpiece. He could easilly jump to the top of the pile if Momo is on par.


I found these two movies to be quite good but nothing that touched my sould, unlike the works of the two directors above.

Quote:
Mamoru Hosoda: Haven't seen Girl but I was very underwhelmed by Summer Wars.


He is widely regarded as one of the top two greatest anime directors to emerge since Miyazaki and Takahata, the other one is Keiichi Hara, director of Summer Days with Coo and Colorful.
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yotsubafanfan



Joined: 28 May 2011
Posts: 653
PostPosted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 12:08 pm Reply with quote
Its hard for me to pick either Isao Takahata or Hayao Miyazaki, both are such brilliant artists with such amazing films! I love Miyazaki's "My Neighbor Totoro" and Kiki's Delivery Service" however I do adore Takahata's "Only Yesterday" and "Grave of the Fireflies" over all I've picked Miyazaki only because when I saw Pom Poko, it was a major disappointment and left me feeling very awkward by the end of the movie (spoiler[Especially when the racoons transformed their "pouches" into a giant ship and sailed it to suicide.]
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vanfanel



Joined: 26 Dec 2008
Posts: 1239
PostPosted: Mon Jul 08, 2013 6:14 am Reply with quote
Not voting, cause I can't pick just one.

My short list would include:

Hayao Miyakazi
Isao Takahata
Mamoru Oshii
Mamoru Hosoda

I'd also give honorable mention to the late Yoshifumi Kondo, because "Whisper of the Heart" is that doggoned good.

Miyazaki's recent work has been a little uneven for me, but that can't take away his earlier films. Cagliostro, Laputa, Totoro, Kiki, Porco Rosso...ask me which is my favorite, and it'll probably be whichever of those I'm in the mood for. "Princess Mononoke" and "Spirited Away" are pretty amazing too. Only a couple weeks out from the release of "Kaze Tachinu" now, and I'm hoping for a return to the greatness of his earlier work.

Isao Takahata is just as good in his own way. Oddly, "My Neighbors the Yamadas" -- as it gradually turns into a mosaic of life in an average family -- is one of Takahata's most moving films for me. "Jarinko Chie" I've only seen once, and it's the only thing he's done that I'm not entirely crazy about. I can't wait to see his Kaguya Hime movie. About time for a new Takahata!

Naturally, Mamoru Oshii doesn't move me emotionally like the Ghibli directors do, but he can sure get inside my head like no one else. "Urusei Yatsura 2," Patlabor 1 and 2, "Ghost in the Shell," and "Sky Crawlers" are all classics AFAIC. "Innocence" has a great start and finish, but there's a long dry spell in the middle of it that always makes me impatient. Oshii's films demand and reward multiple viewings, though, and I'm so glad there's someone like him making challenging SF films like he does.

Since "The Girl Who Leapt Through Time," Mamoru Hosoda hasn't made a film yet that I don't love, and even "Digimon: Our War Game" and "One Piece: The Island of Baron Matsuri" are good fun. (He also directed an episode of "Ashita no Nadja" set at Alhambra palace in Spain that is stunningly beautiful -- it stands out even moreso because the absolute worst episode of that series is on the same R2 volume).

I was lucky enough to see TGWLTT in a Japanese theater during its initial run -- it played for two days in my town as part of a children's movie festival and I had to drag myself out there early in the morning to see this thing by the guy who quit/got fired as director of "Howl's Moving Castle." I came out wishing I could travel to a parallel world and rent a Hosoda-directed version of "Howl's Moving Castle" to compare, since I considered Miyazaki's version a huge mess.

"Tales From Earthsea" had all the bookings and advertising it could hope for that summer, while this vastly superior film had to hop along on the festival circuit, slowly building word of mouth. But things worked out in the end for it. Some say Hosoda is Miyazaki's successor as the leading guy in family oriented theatrical anime, and I do think he has the best shot of anyone out there. Oddly, getting kicked out of Ghibli may only bolster the case, because like Miyazaki he's got his own vision he's determined to express. If that's not compatible with what Ghibli's doing, so what? There's room for more than just one style, and he's proving it.
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meepsheeps



Joined: 16 Jun 2014
Posts: 399
PostPosted: Thu Jun 19, 2014 10:33 am Reply with quote
My top three:
1. Satoshi Kon - so far I've seen four (iirc) of his works and they've all been at a 8/10+ level! Very good stuff indeed.
2. Mamoru Hosoda - favourite is still Wolf Children but I love his directing.
3. Makoto Shinkai - love his visuals. Some of his movies are a delight (Garden of Words, 5 cm/sec, Cross Road) while others are just borefests.
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yyarizakura



Joined: 26 Dec 2014
Posts: 2
Location: Singapore
PostPosted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 8:42 am Reply with quote
That's a TOUGH list. Miyazaki is a classic and the undisputed king. But if he wasn't in this list, I'd say Hosoda comes a close second for me. His storytelling just sucks you in.
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Zethus_Thorne



Joined: 28 Jan 2015
Posts: 21
PostPosted: Thu Jan 29, 2015 10:28 am Reply with quote
Hideaki Anno?
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Seadevil



Joined: 13 Dec 2014
Posts: 5
PostPosted: Sun Feb 01, 2015 11:10 pm Reply with quote
I have to automatically remove Hayao Miyazaki from the list to make it remotely fair, since he is the obvious choice for most people. So I have to say Hiroyuki Okiura. I enjoyed Jin-Roh and Hashire Melos. I fell in love with A Letter to Mom, and Miyaki's unique flow to the story and striking emotional journey makes him my guy on this list.[/list]
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