Forum - View topicRanking the Films of Mamoru Hosoda
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Hagaren Viper
 Posts: 764 |
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I've never quite understood the high praise Wolf Children gets admittedly, it definitely has it's good points but felt like the story cast it's net too wide to be as effective as some of this other works. I really enjoy Hosoda's work anyway so even a work of his I don't like as much is pretty shelf worthy though.
My personal ranking would be... 1. Summer Wars 2. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time 3. The Boy and the Beast 4. Wolf Children ...Haven't seen Mirai, and it's been so long since I've seen the One Piece movie that I couldn't properly rank it at this point - it would be nice if Funimation were to grab it if not just to grab the last Hosoda film they might be able to, haha. Realistically speaking Our War Game is probablly my top favorite, but that's more for the nostalgia/fun/I like Digimon a lot rather than it actually being a better film than the others. |
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steelmirror
 Posts: 342 |
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Summer Wars is one of my go-to's for introducing people who haven't had many experiences with anime, or even who actively avoid anime because certain tropes or stereotypes surrounding it that they find off-putting. Summer Wars is a very fun and inoffensive introduction for the uninitiated to maybe get a little interested in anime in general. And it's a darn good family film just in general.
None of the other films rank up in my favorites, though I've at least enjoyed all of them that I've watched (haven't seen the One Piece movie or any of the Digimon films). Looking forward to catching Mirai, if I ever find the time. |
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joisu
 Posts: 28 |
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I would put The Girl Who Leapt Through Time as my number 1 because it’s my favorite and I love everything on this movie especially of how fun it is. I didn’t watch all of Hasoda’s works so I’m only going to rank what I’ve seen so far:
1. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time 2. Wolf Children 3. The Boy and the Beast 4. Summer Wars |
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3875 Location: New York state. |
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At least as far as what I've seen of Hosoda's work thus far...
1. Summer Wars- An all-around great film that does very well balancing its plot focus between Kenji's mingling with Natsuki and her family, as well as dealing with the Love Machine virus wrecking havoc on the virtual reality world of Oz. 2. Girl Who Leapt Through Time- Entertaining coming-of-age film showing Makoto learning her use of time travel to run away from personal issues and responsibilities can do more harm than good. 3. Wolf Children- A poignant film exploring Hana's bond with two children she had with a wolf man. Lacks the memorable charm and presence of Hosoda's earlier two films due to Wolf Children's more subdued mood, but I was entertained and touched by the story it had to tell. 4. The Boy and the Beast- Perhaps the one blemish I've seen of Hosoda's work thus far. The film attempts to juggle several ongoing plot threads that don't seem smoothly integrated well, and I wasn't hooked on the film's attempts to try painting a father/ son bond between Ren and Kumatetsu since I found it difficult to connect with their characters. I do have interest in seeing Mirai, but will hold off on it until it gets a physical media release. |
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Zof
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Summer Wars is one of my favorite movies of all time. If you love watching ordinary people step up and become amazing heroes when it matters. It had everything I love in a movie.
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myfairx
 Posts: 87 |
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1. Summer Wars
2. Girl Who Leap Through TIme I won’t watch the heartbreaking Wolf Children again. Boy and Beast is weak. Don’t really dig one piece nor Digimon. Will watch Mirai. In my opinion Summer wars and Girl are his best movie, and Wolf Children being his best effort so far. I still watch Summer and Girl every now and then but none of the other. I still firmly belive Mamoru Hosoda is better than Makoto Shinkai. But the latter is learning fast and catching up. . IMHO |
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HK16
Posts: 496 |
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1. Digimon Adventure Bokura no War Game!
2. Digimon Adventure Movie 3. Summer Wars 4. Bakemono no Ko. I find it weird that you included OP, but not Digimon. Both are not original works by Hosoda. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
 Posts: 4821 |
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If someone isn't that familiar with Digimon, I can understand excluding them from the list because they do require you to have some knowledge of the show to understand them. And as much of a Digimon fan that I am, I recognize most of my love for Hosoda's Digimon films is more out of nostalgia. But I do still think Digimon Adventure and Our War Game are important to watch if you're a hardcore Hosoda film if you want to see what his earliest directorial work was like. I especially think Our War Game is the one worth checking out because of it's heavy influence on Summer Wars and I think it's visuals still hold up pretty well even so many years later.
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Lord Starfish
Posts: 154 |
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1. Wolf Children
2. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time 3. One Piece: Baron Omatsuri and the Secret Island 4: Summer Wars 5: The Boy and the Beast 6: Digimon Adventure: Our War Game 7: Digimon Adventure 8: Mirai ...Mirai just did absolutely nothing for me. About the only thing I can praise it for is the animation, but what good is that when I was either indifferent to or actively disliked every other aspect of it? I agree with the earlier comment that Kun is, if anything, too believable as a bratty 4-year-old. Sure, it's realistic... but it makes him, shall we say, rather hard to get attached to. It stands as the first and so far only Hosoda movie that I just thought outright sucked. The Digimon movies are fine for what they are, Boy and the Beast is a bit of a mess but is still quite enjoyable, and everything above that I would consider outright fantastic. |
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BasketBalljones
Posts: 58 |
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1. Wolf Children
2. Summer Wars 3. Mirai 4. The Boy and the Beast 5. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time |
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jenthehen
 Posts: 835 Location: Cincinnati, Ohio |
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I am going to see Mirai this weekend. Since I haven't seen it yet, I can't be sure, but I suspect most people who have problems with it just don't understand parenting (from lack of experience). A lot of the (admittedly few) complaints I keep seeing is that they don't understand who it's for (not really for kids), that it doesn't make sense or is preachy or boring, or that the kid is annoying ... but I am kind of picking up that it's something for parents of young children to appreciate the "view" from a little kid while still having the thoughts / emotions / themes relevant adults - particularly parents.
I just know I'm looking forward to seeing it! |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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There's Summer Wars, and then there's everything else. That's the only one that really worked on all levels for me, and can officially declare a Good Movie. Ironically, it's the most creative of the bunch despite being a remake of some Digimon movie (which I've never seen), and the complicated cast of characters fits together surprisingly well, with nothing feeling unimportant or cliche.
Wolf Children was emotionally effective, but that just ended up bothering me because of its transparently conservative messages. It's like one giant ode to traditional gender roles and rugged country life. spoiler[The dad dying under vague and mundane circumstances to create a single-mother situation] felt a bit contrived, as did the whole concept of wolf-people who still need to keep their existence secret even in modern times, for some unexplained reason. Girl Who Leapt Through Time is good most of the way through but ruined by the ending, where spoiler[the climactic conflict is resolved by one of her male friends, who out of nowhere turns out to be from the future and spends most of the final scenes lambasting her for her stupidity. She has no agency whatsoever in the ending, but it's fine because she gets to meet up with him for romance in an uncertain apocalyptic future she accidentally stopped him from preventing, so... yay...?] Oh and there's that gender bias again, what a coincidence. I never watched Boy and the Beast, but it sounds like it had similar issues. |
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