17 Japanese cartoons everyone should watch

Makoto Shinkai

Makoto Shinkai is an animation artist, director and screenwriter. He prefers to work alone with minimal resources. He drew his first cartoons without anyone's help on his home computer. For the high-quality and detailed traced picture, Shinkai has been called “the second Miyazaki” more than once, but the artist himself is too modest to agree with this.

Your name

Fantasy, drama, melodrama.
Japan, 2016.
Duration: 110 minutes
IMDb: 8, 5.

Mitsuha is a high school student from a small town lost in the mountains. She dreams of growing up as soon as possible and moving to a bustling metropolis. Taki is an ordinary guy living in downtown Tokyo. They have never met and never met, but an unusual connection between them still exists. In a dream, Taki and Mitsuha change bodies and acquire the ability to live each other's lives. At first they see it as a fun game, but over time it gets much more complicated.

Garden of graceful words

Melodrama.
Japan, 2013.
Duration: 46 minutes
IMDb: 7, 6.

Takao wants to devote his life to making shoes, so he regularly runs away from boring school classes to a Japanese kindergarten to calmly draw sketches. One day he meets the mysterious woman Yukio, who only goes for walks in the rain. Takao falls in love with her, but the rainy season is drawing to a close and it is unknown if they will ever see her again.

Catchers of Forgotten Voices

Drama, adventure.
Japan, 2011.
Duration: 116 minutes
IMDb: 7, 3.

Asuna's girlfriend lives in a small Japanese village. She has very few friends, so she spends most of the evenings on the hillside listening to the old radio with the help of a magic crystal. Once, on the way to the hill, a strange creature attacks the girl, from which the young man Xiong rescues her. After this incident, a friendship is struck between them, but unexpectedly Xiong tragically dies, and Asuna goes on a risky journey.

5 centimeters per second

Drama, melodrama.
Japan, 2007.
Duration: 63 minutes
IMDb: 7, 8.

Three beautiful and sad stories about love, time and distance, organically linked into one well-drawn cartoon with amazing soundtrack. They are about the life and growing up of the main character Takaki Tohno and his attempts to maintain relationships at a distance.

Mamoru Hosoda

Mamoru Hosoda is a director and screenwriter for animated films. He made his first film in high school when he was still just a boy. In many interviews, Hosoda says that life experience is often the basis and stimulus for new scripts of his films. That is why the director has so many works devoted to the family, the process of growing up and the formation of a personality.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Science fiction, drama, melodrama, comedy.
Japan, 2006.
Duration: 98 minutes
IMDb: 7, 8.

Having survived a terrible accident, seventeen-year-old Makoto suddenly discovers her ability to travel in time. Inspired by an extraordinary gift, she begins with all her might to improve her life, repeatedly returning to the past in order to fix something. But it soon becomes clear that time travel is not a gift at all, but simply the operation of a special device that belongs to the boy Chiaki, who came from the future.

Child of the monster

Fantasy, adventure.
Japan, 2015.
Duration: 119 minutes
IMDb: 7, 7.

The story of the street boy-orphan Kyuta and the bear-man Kumatetsu. The boy and the monster live in different worlds, which should not intersect, but it so happens that the inhabitants of a parallel universe take the orphan to themselves. Kyuta becomes a pupil of Kumatetsu and begins to learn various combat tricks from him in order to prepare for an impending natural disaster.

Hiromasa Yonebayashi

Hiromasa Yonebayashi is considered the youngest director of the Ghibli Animation Studio. In 2016, his feature film Memories of Marnie won an Oscar for Best Animated Film.

Arietti from the land of the midgets

Fantasy.
Japan, 2010.
Duration: 90 minutes
IMDb: 7, 6.

Twelve-year-old Syo comes to visit his aunt's old house and accidentally saves an unusual tiny girl named Arietti from a cat. So he learns that in the neighborhood of ordinary people live midget "prey" who are trying their best to keep their existence secret. Despite all the prohibitions, a friendship is struck between Syo and Arietti, but it does not last long.

Memories of Marnie

Drama.
Japan, 2014.
Duration: 123 minutes
IMDb: 7, 8.

Anna is an incredibly lonely girl who neither her adoptive parents nor anyone else can understand. Her only consolation is drawing. Once, during a lesson in the park, Anna is experiencing a severe asthma attack, after which her parents decide to send her to her relatives in a house on the coast for medical treatment. There she meets the mysterious Marnie, who after a while disappears somewhere.

Hayao Miyazaki

Hayao Miyazaki is the most famous Japanese animation director, writer, and one of the founders of the animation studio Ghibli. In his works, he often draws attention to such complex topics as war, pacifism, environmental problems, man's attitude to nature, and growing up.

Porco Rosso

Fantasy, melodrama, adventure.
Japan, 1992.
Duration: 94 minutes
IMDb: 7, 8.

A cartoon about the virtuoso pilot Marco Pagott, who became so disappointed in people that he incurred a curse and became like a pig. After the Nazis came to power in Italy, Marco began working for the state, protecting merchant ships from attacks by hijackers. They didn't like it very much, so they decided to eliminate Marco, forcing him to fight the real king of flight - ace pilot Curtis.

The wind is getting stronger

Drama, biography, history.
Japan, 2013.
Duration: 126 minutes
IMDb: 7, 8.

The extraordinary life story of Jiro Horikoshi, the man who designed Japanese fighter planes during World War II. According to Miyazaki, "The Wind Rises" is his only cartoon, filmed for adults.

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind

Science fiction, fantasy, drama.
Japan, USA, 1984.
Duration: 112 minutes
IMDb: 8, 1.

A terrible ecological catastrophe occurred on Earth: almost all of its surface was covered with a poisonous sea. The only island of tranquility in this world is only the Valley of the Winds - a serene kingdom ruled by an unusual girl Nausicaä and her wise father. This piece of paradise haunts the inhabitants of other surviving states who decide to fight for the remaining natural resources.

Goro Miyazaki

Goro Miyazaki is a Japanese artist and director, the son of the famous Hayao Miyazaki. Miyazaki's father was opposed to his son doing directing, arguing that he still lacked experience. But Goro still started working on his own animated series and has already released several independent works to date.

From the slopes of Kokuriko

Drama.
Japan, 2011.
Duration: 91 minutes
IMDb: 7, 4.

Since childhood, Umi is used to being independent and solving problems alone. She was not taken aback even at the moment when it was necessary to go to Tokyo for an important meeting with the sponsor of the school in order to save the building from demolition. While all these events were happening, the girl did not notice how unexpectedly she fell in love.

Yoshifumi Kondo

Yoshifumi Kondo is a Japanese animator, designer and production director who worked at Studio Ghibli with Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata. Sadly, Kondo died of an aneurysm, but he left behind some great works of his own.

Whisper of the Heart

Drama, melodrama.
Japan, 1995.
Duration: 111 minutes
IMDb: 8, 0.

Shizuku is very fond of books and tries to spend every free minute reading. Soon she notices that all the books she borrows from the library have already been read by a certain Seiji Amasawa. Shizuku decides to find out who this mysterious stranger is, with whom she has such similar interests, and to get to know him better.

Isao Takahata

Isao Takahata is a director, screenwriter, producer, and co-founder of Studio Ghibli. His works are wise, melancholy and in many ways realistic, so if you want to see something fabulous and light, then choose something else from the list.

The Legend of Princess Kaguya

Fantasy.
Japan, 2013.
Duration: 125 minutes
IMDb: 8, 1.

Anime based on the ancient Japanese folk tale "The Tale of Old Man Taketori". One day, while walking through the forest, old Taketori came across a strangely glowing bamboo stalk. When he took a closer look at him, he discovered a tiny girl who changed his life forever.

Grave of fireflies

Drama, military.
Japan, 1988.
Duration: 89 minutes
IMDb: 8, 5.

The anime is about the hard and dramatic fate of two orphans who lost their parents during World War II and are now forced to survive in a cruel post-war world on their own.

Satoshi Kon

Japanese director Satoshi Kon is not well known, but his work has inspired directors such as Christopher Nolan and Darren Aronofsky, and that already means something. In his films, the director likes to touch upon various acute social problems.

Once Upon a Time in Tokyo

Drama, comedy, adventure.
Japan, 2003.
Duration: 88 minutes
IMDb: 7, 9.

Wandering the streets of Tokyo, three vagrant beggars find an abandoned newborn baby on the street. The homeless people decide to help the little one find their parents, whatever the cost.

Paprika

Detective.
Japan, 2006.
Duration: 90 minutes
IMDb: 7, 7.

In the not too distant future, the DC Mini was invented, allowing doctors to enter patients' dreams and fantasies. It was not dangerous until it fell into the hands of intruders, who, with its help, began to drive innocent people crazy.