Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
Angel’s Egg is not only unlike anything Mamoru Oshii has ever done as a director, it’s arguably unlike anything else in the medium of anime, period. Created during the period of Oshii’s career following his departure from Studio Pierrot, Angel’s Egg is not so much a narrative as it is a bizarre tableau of gothic imagery and thematic sobriety that seeps across the screen like a living painting throughout its 70-minute duration. Rather than offering a concrete premise that’s paced out through story beats and revelations, the film itself explores the question of why we search for meaning in anything in the first place, a visual meditation on how reality and our idea of reality is shaped through what we choose to believe in. The film ponders the question of whether anything exists at all, on whether ideas of the past that haunt the collective consciousness of humanity can reify themselves in the present tense, of whether belief in the perception of anything is worthwhile or reliable. These are themes that Oshii would go on to further explore, particularly through his work on Ghost in the Shell, but nowhere near on this level of abstraction. Angel’s Egg offers so much room for interpretation and nuance, but what’s unmistakable is this: it’s a must-see anime that no two viewers will watch or interpret quite the same way.— Toussaint Egan Of all of Miyazaki’s most persistent tropes and motifs, there are none more consistently threaded throughout the body of work than that of the depiction of flight. So it’s no surprise that The Wind Rises, his eleventh and final feature film to date, would focus squarely on depicting the life of Japanese aviation engineer Jiro Horikoshi and the complicated legacy his creations relate not only to the pacifist cultural identity of contemporary Japan but also, on a personal level, to Miyazaki himself. A story of how a creator cannot control what their work becomes, only the dedication and craft to which they pour into the work itself. The Wind Rises is nothing short of Miyazaki’s final artistic testament to humanity’s paradoxical capacity for both the redemptive act of creation and dogged pursuit of self-annihilation. A film that is in no uncertain terms a conclusion, if not to Miyazaki’s venerable career as one of the undisputed patriarchs of modern Japanese animation, then a thematic coda that ties together an elegant knot at the end of his venerated and storied career as a director. — Toussaint Egan At Paste, we believe there’s an anime for everyone. With lists like this, diverse demographics are often left unconsidered, effectively sidelining female and LGBT viewers. Hobbyists and fandoms have long had distinctive, individualized communities, lively groups that often do not intersect except, maybe, at anime conventions, given over half of North America’s attendees are female. So why is it that lists like this leave out anime made by women, for women? And why can’t these anime be enjoyed by men, too?
We’ve been to this suspect’s house several times," Smith said, adding there was "absolutely no indication that it would lead to this." Think of watching YGO Abridged without ever having seen the original Yu-Gi-Oh! It may be funny, but a lot will go over your head. Howl’s Moving Castle was the Miyazaki film that almost didn’t happen. Conceived in 2001 amidst the height of Spirited Away’s success, Mamoru Hosoda was originally slated to direct the adaptation of Diana Wynne Jones’ 1986 novel before he and Ghibli had a falling out due to a conflict of creative visions. Miyazaki seized the reins and made the film his own, crafting the source material into a creative vessel through which he could forge his impassioned contempt for the then-ongoing U.S. invasion of Iraq into a parable about a fruitless magical proxy war between two nations in a steampunk fantasy setting. Howl’s is a whimsical if occasionally tepid adventure of a timid young woman who, after being cursed with the body of an old crone by a jealous witch, is rescued by a charismatic wizard who lives in a gigantic walking house. The film’s titular castle is one of Miyazaki’s finest creations, resembling a bow-legged fish armed with stumpy wings and turrets hobbling across the countryside and shuffling debris to and fro. To be sure, though its finale is a bit muted and the abrupt resolution of a love story in the movie’s denouement is a bit too neat and tidy, the film is a quintessential Miyazaki effort nonetheless that’s sure to please both newcomers and enthusiasts who might have somehow not seen it yet.— Toussaint Egan The beloved manga and TV series known as Sailor Moon has been ever popular ever since its debut in the early 90s, and not just for fans of cosplay or the magical girl genre. The story follows Usagi Tsukino, a young schoolgirl who was bestowed with some pretty miraculous powers thanks to a talking cat named Luna. She transforms into her magical alter ego, Sailor Moon, a hero tasked with battling the evil forces of the Dark Kingdom, led by Queen Beryl, alongside her fellow moon princesses. Queen Beryl, meanwhile, summons monsters called Youma that sap the energy from humans. She's set her sights on the Silver Crystal, a gem capable of unlimited power.Makoto Shinkai’s debut is a testament to his skill as a director, and a primer for every broad emotional and aesthetic through line that would go on to define his work. When middle-schooler Mikako Nagamine is recruited by the UN Space Army to serve as a mecha pilot to fight off an alien threat striking at human civilization from the fringes of the solar system, she leaves behind her friend Noboru Terao on Earth. Initially committed to being pen pals, the gulf of time between their responses grows longer and longer given the relative distance of Mikako’s ship traveling from Earth. Produced almost entirely by Shinkai himself with music composed and performed by long-time friend and collaborator Tenmo, Voices of a Distant Star hones in on the themes of time, space and distance, and how they impact the fragility of human relationships in a way that few other works can, securing Shinkai’s status as one of anime’s premier auteur directors.— Toussaint Egan Time travel stories aren’t easy to pull off, but Steins;Gate almost makes it look easy. (And that’s while having a semicolon it its title.) We follow a self-proclaimed mad scientist who likes to joke around with crazy inventions, until he accidentally invents a phone that can send messages across temporal space. Now he and his friends find themselves trapped in a murder loop, as the show uses the butterfly effect to demonstrate the increasingly complicated consequences of trying to change the future. The story is airtight, and though the time travel gets complex, it’s never too confusing. As much a head-scratcher as it is a thrilling roller coaster, this is a sci-fi show you don’t want to miss. One of the longest-running anime ever with over 700 episodes, it’s pretty hard to never have heard of Naruto before even if you’re not into anime. The show follows an orphaned boy named Naruto, who lives with the soul of a nine-tailed demon fox trapped inside him, and dreams of one day becoming a ninja. The value of friendship and determination is at the core of this show, which offers plenty of interesting characters, both friend and foe, and a story that grabs your attention and never lets go despite having hundreds of episodes. Of course, this all wouldn’t work if Naruto himself weren’t an amazing protagonist. Indeed, he’s one of the most well-developed and charismatic characters in anime history, and we witness him evolving from from aspiring ninja, to leader, to even a father. This is a peaceful place," Smith said. Through tears, Smith said the community and numerous law enforcement agencies helped in the shooting response.
Written and storyboarded by Mamoru Oshii, Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade is Hiroyuki Okiura’s feature film debut and the third and final installment in Oshii’s Kerberos trilogy. Jin-Roh follows a member of an elite anti-terrorist police unit who, after failing to subdue a mysterious suicide bomber in the midst of a heated riot, is plagued by disquieting visions and doubt regarding the virtue of his service. The film is as thematically complicated as it is aesthetically breathtaking, with superbly realistic animation, deafening firefights and oppressive melancholic ambiance owed in part to Hajime Mizoguchi’s score. Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade is an audacious reimagining of Charles Perrault’s “Little Red Riding Hood” set in an authoritarian alternate history Japan where the lines between the wolf and the girl, the hero and the villain, become blurred to the point where the two are rendered tragically indistinguishable by their fallibility.— Toussaint Egan The deceased victims were all involved in the dispute over easements, Smith said. An easement is a portion of a person's property that is legally granted to others to use. Smith said an easement on the suspect's property allowing his neighbors to drive through his property was a "source of irritation for him." Mamoru Oshii’s work on the anime series Patlabor and its subsequent feature film are considered by many, including the director himself, as the turning point in his career. After leaving Studio Pierott and striking out on his own as a freelancer on a few projects, Oshii would join the independent creative collective Headgear and become a major influence in shaping the aesthetic of their first project, Mobile Police Patlabor. Although Patlabor: The Movie can be described as a pure pop entertainment film, it still manages to incorporate the elements of history, politics and religion that define Oshii’s signature as a director. With a solid mix of action, mystery, and not-so-subtle post-WII era commentary, the first Patlabor film is not only an essential installment in Oshii’s filmography but in the canon of anime history.— Toussaint Egan Hanime could be a reasonably animation that has its origin in Japan; Hanime.tv is a web platform on that you can enjoy free hanime series and films that too fully HD quality. Through this app, the user gets unlimited access to the series simply once the launch and it guarantees you the simplest quality as well as high Japanese animation and Manga movies of all time and every one the best hanime songs and even wallpapers which will revive your recollections of hanime movies from time to time.
An action/adventure show with an upbeat tone, amazing action scenes, excellent world-building and characters you can easily fall in love with, it’s easy to see why Fullmetal Alchemist is considered one of the best anime series of the 2000s. As upbeat as it is, the story has loss and grief as a central theme. The series follows two brothers who venture out to look for the legendary Philosopher’s Stone and regain the bodies they lost after trying to resurrect their dead mother using alchemy. Also worth noting is the equally fantastic Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which was a more faithful adaptation of the original manga, whereas Fullmetal Alchemist took many liberties with the source material. It’s a world where nearly everyone has some sort of superpower, and Izuku Midoriya is born with nothing. That doesn’t stop the kid from enrolling into one of the most prestigious superhero schools, setting out on an improbable journey to become the number one hero on the planet. My Hero Academia takes everything you love about superhero movies, and mixes it with a coming-of-age tale with lots of heart, eye-popping action, a supporting cast of well-developed and memorable characters, a protagonist who isn’t afraid to show vulnerability, and references and homages to your favorite comic books. Whether you want a first entry into the world of superheroics, or have seen all that Marvel and DC have to offer, this show has something for everyone. The sheriff said deputies have responded to numerous complaints from the suspect about his neighbors, and from the neighbors about the suspec t. Property disputes like the one that spurred the shooting happen "almost every day" in the area, Smith said. The reason Fullmetal Alchemist is the best fantasy anime of all time is that it paints a fully realized, unique world with internally consistent rules that have real consequences. Building on that foundation, it delivers a story about two brothers that's as grounded as the setting is fantastic. In Kakegurui Hyakkaou Private Academy is a place for the rich. But it has a special curriculum. If you are rich, it’s not about athletic prowess or book smarts that keep you ahead. It’s about reading your opponent and understanding the art of the deal. There’s no better approach to polishing those talents with a rigorous gambling education than living like a king. The winners live like kings at Hyakkaou Private Academy, but the losers are put through the wringer; nevertheless, when Yumeko Jabami joins, she’ll teach these kids what it’s like to be a high roller.
The final two episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion are notorious among fans of the series.Titled “Do you love me?” and “Take Care of Yourself,” the two-part finale infamously sidelined the climactic finale to the series’ central conflict, instead opting to take place entirely away from the action within the subconscious of the show’s protagonist, Shinji Ikari, as he wrestled to resolve the self-loathing and hatred which plagued him throughout the story’s duration. The unconventionality and unsatisfying nature of this conclusion prompted disgruntled fans to issue death threats on Anno’s life and Gainax’s building to be defaced with graffiti. In response, Anno set to work on an alternative ending to the series to be produced in two parts and aired in theaters. If you were looking for a light, campy and celebratory conclusion, End of Evangelion is not that movie. Instead, what fans were treated to was perhaps one of the most fatalistic, avant garde, and oddly enough, life-affirming endings to an anime series ever produced. In short, it is the best and worst of everything that is Evangelion combined to create a film that is unlike anything that had come before it. Despite its unrelenting darkness, End of Evangelion remains true to the ethos of its subtitle, that the joy of death is in the act of rebirth.— Toussaint EganIn a medium that too often feels at times constricted by the primacy of masculine aesthetic sensibilities and saturated with hyper-sexualized portrayals of women colloquially coded as “fan service,” Naoko Yamada’s presence is a welcome breath of fresh air, to say nothing of the inimitable quality of her films themselves. Inspired by the likes of Yasujiro Ozu, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Sergei Parajanov, Sofia Coppola, and Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Yamada is a director par excellence, capable of arresting attention and evoking melancholy and bittersweet catharsis through delicate compositions of deft sound, swift editing, ephemeral color palettes, and characters with rich inner lives rife with knotty, relatable struggles. A Silent Voice, adapted from Yoshitoki Oima’s manga of the same name, is a prime example of all these sensibilities at play. When Shoya Ishida meets Shoko Nishimiya, a deaf transfer student, in elementary school, he bullies her relentlessly to the amusement of his classmates. One day when Shoya goes too far, forcing Shoko to transfer again for fear of her own safety, he is branded a pariah by his peers and retreats into a state of self-imposed isolation and self-hatred. Years later, Shoya meets Shoko once again, now as teenagers, and attempts to make amends for the harm he inflicted on her, all while wrestling to understand his own motivations for doing so. A Silent Voice is a film of tremendous emotional depth, an affecting portrait of adolescent abuse, reconciliation, and forgiveness for the harm perpetrated by others and ourselves.— Toussaint Egan
The shooting began with a dispute over property lines, the sheriff's office said. In a news conference Tuesday, Smith said a dispute between the suspect and his neighbors had been ongoing for some time. Gurren Lagann is a 2007 anime produced by Gainax. This mech anime is initially about a young man named Simon and his older brother figure Kamina as they fight in the titular Lagann against the oppressive Spiral King and his army of Beastmen. Not content to redefine the mecha anime genre once with Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gainax did it again with Gurren Lagann, and the result is just so over-the-top that it's hard not to love. Dragon Ball is a massive franchise that shaped a generation of millennials. Like most anime, Dragon Ball was initially a manga series. This one was created by Akira Toriyama in the early 1980s. The first installment was 1986's Dragon Ball. This anime opened up by focusing on the young Goku. The next series, Dragon Ball Z, was released in 1989. It takes place five years after the end of the first installment. This sequel focused on a young adult Goku, alongside his son, Gohan. Genzaburo Yoshino’s 1937 novel How Do You Live? is a time capsule, preserving the virtues of the society it was made and circulated in. It’s about how to live as a good person in this world, about the childhood experience of discovering difference, disparity, and loss—and, thus, turning to philosophy. The influence of the text is apparent in Miyazaki’s work at Ghibli. While the protagonist of his latest film, Mahito (Soma Santoki), is styled around Miyazaki’s childhood, Miyazaki himself appears as he is today more directly in the figure of Mahito’s granduncle (Shōhei Hino), a man who built a mysterious library on the family estate decades ago before disappearing into his stories forever. The Boy and the Heron, released in Japan with the same name as Yoshino’s novel, becomes a firm reminder of the need to grow up, but one that recognizes the importance of the ephemeral experiences of childhood. Unlike Miyazaki’s semi-biographical 2013 swan song The Wind Rises, the quasi-autobiographical The Boy and the Heron is styled as the fantasy Bildungsroman that he became famous for—with a mature, edgier bent. The opening sequence depicts a 1943 firebombing, rendered with striking animation that entirely breaks with the art style of the rest of the film, veering into the abstract. Mahito’s ill mother dies in the flames. Afterwards, the 12-year-old moves to the countryside as his father Shoichi (Takuya Kimura), an industrialist contributing to the war effort, remarries his late mother’s younger sister, Natsuko (Yoshino Kimura). Endless Waltz was originally produced as a three-part OVA wrapping up the story of the Gundam Wing TV series, which takes place outside the normal continuity of the Gundam “Universal Century” timeline. The movie cut is the superior viewing experience, however. Endless Waltz takes place one year after the events that wrapped up Gundam Wing, and involves the Gundam pilots, and their enemy Zechs Merquise, coming out of retirement to battle one last threat—and in some cases, each other. Where the Gundam Wing TV series had a plot that tended to meander, and sometimes used cheap animation or repeated cels, Endless Waltz is a feast for the eyes—filled with gorgeous, fluid battle scenes that any fan of giant robots will appreciate. Add to that the very smart decision to have the great Katoki Hajime ( Short Peace, Gundam 0083) redesign the Gundams into their “evolved” forms, and this becomes much more than a simple end of series cash-in. For this film version, several shots from the OVA were retouched, and there are some mild adjustments to the original animation. As a payoff to the TV series, it’s a great way to visit with the Gundam pilots one last time, and as a stand alone, it works well enough that even if one is not familiar with the source material, it’s a fun ride. The usual questions about the cost of war, the price of peace, and human determinism that run through virtually all Gundam series are on full display here. If you want a concise example of what Gundam does so well relative to other types of giant robot anime, this is a dance worth taking. —J.D.Have you ever wanted to do something extraordinary, but then life just got in the way? That’s the premise of A Place Further Than the Universe, which follows a teenage girl who’s always wanted to do something big before graduating high school, but can never figure out what. That is, until she meets a group of girls her age who convince her to journey to Antarctica together. The show is relatable, funny, comforting, and upbeat while still managing to be very emotional. It perfectly captures the youthful optimism of the teenage spirit, as no matter how many adversities the girls face, they still manage to overcome them with each other’s help. Before you burn me for comparing it to Family Guy let me explain. This show parodies and references anything and absolutely everything. Which is its biggest strength and weakness.
Great Deal 
New Comment