The Best Animated Film!

Rating: 10/10 (9 April 2001)

The first time I saw this movie (even the dubbed version, although it was exceptionally done) I was completely blown away. I had liked a couple forms of anime before hand, but was never totally interested in the subject until I saw the Princess Mononoke. After that, I dropped all the anime I had liked before. This movie is nothing like what Americans classify as anime. The movie isn't choppy, loaded with neon colors, and doesn't involve weird hybrid midget animals or gigantic robots (sorry guys, but Pokemon and all those kiddie shows ruined Japanese animation's rep). Instead it involves a piece of history, and true-to-life characters that nearly everyone can relate to. What interested me was that there were no black-and-white characters involved with the story: no truly evil or good people, unlike the popular Disney movies over here in the states. And the characters don't break out in song every five minutes either. On the contrary, this is a very serious film (something like ages 11 and up), and it isn't one of those stories where the most evil people on Earth are mowing through the forest of the cuddly, dewy-eyed animals.
I hear people complain that they're not interested in "that Japanese stuff", but I'll only respond with the fact that this is far from the quality of those kiddie shows, and it's only the style of how people are drawn that's foreign to American's style (i.e. Batman, Marvel stuff, Disney movies). Once you experience this film, however, what will really catch your eye (and I mean in an extreme way) is the beauty of the simulated backgrounds (there's even a bit of 3D-simulated scenes - very cool); the mist filled mountains, the wondrously painted backdrops of the forest, the detail in every scene is astonishing: you have to watch the movie 5 times plus just to make sure you absorbed everything! The animation itself is also incredible. The majority of each scene proves very smooth action and rarely is there a shot where there's more that 9 seconds of stillness.
If you, by now, have yet to see this movie, then by-golly why are you still sitting here?! Order it, or preview it first from your local Blockbuster or whatever's closest by. Better yet, go to the official site and download the theatrical trailer (they did a nice job with that too^_^).