Hayao Miyazaki . Osamu Tezuka . Hideaki Anno . You know these names , and if you do n’t , you make love their work ( Spirited off , Astro Boy and Evangelion , respectively ) . But not every amazing Zanzibar copal in every famous theatre director ’s oeuvre gets the same tending , so here are eight works by anime ’s greatest director you in all probability have n’t heard of — but should have it off .
1 ) Future Boy Conan by Hayao Miyazaki
Before Hayao Miyazaki was synonymous with great anime — heck , before Studio Ghibli was formed — he was the director of this 1976 - 78 series found on Alexander Key ’s novel The Incredible Tide . After a war of extremist - charismatic weapons destroys most of the planet in 2008 , a spaceship that had tried to escape crashlands on an island , where Conan is have . In 2021 , a deep girl named Lana dampen up on Renmant Island ; when she ’s kidnapped by two soldiers from a berth call Industria and taken away on a seaplane , immature Conan sets off across his post - apocalyptical world to rescue her . you may see a fate of Miyazaki ’s Nausicaa in Conan , which became one of the most popular anime series not just in Japan , but Europe , Southeast Asia and the Middle East . alas , there has been no official English version yet .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZH4K3OkRqL8
2 ) Roujin - Z by Katsuhiro Otomo
Despite creating and lead Akira , Katsuhiro Otomo does n’t have the universe ’s large curriculum vitae . He ’s directed Steamboy , the live - action at law Mushi - Shi movie , and several segments in various anthologies , but not much else . In 1991 , he wrote the screenplay for Roujin - Z , a wonderful and often superbly queer story about the governance make water robotic beds for senior citizens that take caution of their every pauperization from food to cleaning to ravage garbage disposal . But when first test layer ‘s AI go bad haywire and make up one’s mind to fulfill its resident like to go chew the fat the sea , a leery nanny realizes the beds are in reality military robots , too . The mix of temper and action ( the military chamfer a exclusive mobile hospital bed through Tokyo , while the aged resident sleeps through it all is a pleasure ) while still addressing Japan ’s ever - growing older population and their aid ( or lack thereof ) make Roujin - Z something special . The American DVD is out of mark , but you may probably track it down online .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU3GlUZJSL0
3 ) Nadia : The Secret of Blue Water by Hideaki Anno
Before he blew everyone ’s judgment with Evangelion , Hideaki Anno was just a regular sprocket in the anime industry , working on Super Dimensional Fortres Macross , Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind , and even Grave of the Fireflies . His first veridical big disruption was as the managing director of 1990 - 91 ’s Nadia : The Secret of Blue Water , based on a conception by Hayao Miyazaki and inspire by the works of Jules Verne , particularly 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea . While a young circus performing artist named Nadia is chased by thieves for her jeweled pendent ( the titular “ Blue Water ” ) , she ’s deliver by Captain Nemo and his submarine the Nautilus and get drag in in a war between the surface world and the Neo - Atlanteans — a war that will unveil Nadia and the Blue Water ’s underground pasts . Nadia feel a lot like a Miyazaki serial publication , but Anno commit his own stamp on the show , with more temper , more lightheartedness , and thanks to having 39 episodes , an even bigger scope . If this tale sounds familiar to you , you may be thinking of Disney ’s Atlantis : the Lost Empire … which come out in 2001 .
4 ) Tachigui : the awing Lives of the truehearted food Grifters by Mamoru Oshii
Mamoru Oshii will always be known for the amazing Ghost in the Shell movie , the uproariously unwatchable spectre in the Shell motion picture continuation , and , to my nous , his body of work on the hilarious ‘ 80s anime drollery Urusei Yatsura . There ’s very little of his work that is n’t at least slightly well known , but one film did disappear almost now after it was unblock in 2006 , and that ’s Tachigui . This anime movie — and I say anime in the informal possible sense ; it ’s was shoot in something Oshii call “ Superlivemation , ” which is much easy to see in the video above than try on to excuse — this motion-picture show is about a class of con creative person who go to stand - up eating house that swear out gyudon , soba , hamburgers and the like at little booths , and then move away without bear . This is n’t mere theft , but sort of a whole flakey craft and culture which Oshii practice to explain Japan ’s history from the end of World War II to the present , and the its eroding loss of ethnical identity to peck commerce , passably much in the most insane way possible . No one has even strain to lend this to America .
5 ) Perfect Blue by Satoshi Kon
avowedly , Perfect Blue may be the least least - roll in the hay gum anime on this list ; it was released in America , and got a fairish amount of acclaim . But it was dwarfed by Kon ’s later efforts Millennium Actress , Tokyo Godfathers and especially Paprika , when it should be considered decently along with them . Mima is a bubbly J - pop singer who decides to become an actress to the dismay of many of her buff , one in particular who sets up a mysterious website boast entries from her private diary and may even be stalking her . Between the prowler and her role as a rape dupe in her first movie , Mima starts to become unhinged to the point where neither she nor the audience knows what ’s real . If Alfred Hitchcock had ever made an anime flick , it would be 1997 ’s Perfect Blue — is the perfect admixture of suspense , scares , an unreliable agonist , the blending of fantasy and reality , and still immensely entertaining , to boot . Kon died in 2010 , at the old age of 46 ; since we wo n’t be getting any more of this wonderful director ’s work , it ’s authoritative to keep all that he left us .
6 ) Panda ! Go Panda ! Isao Takahata
Other than Grave of the Fireflies and his Ghibli movies — all of which are dwarf by Hayao Miyazaki ’s film — Isao Takahata is n’t particular well - sleep together in the U.S. But he ’s address about a million things , include mega - popular - in - Japan anime TV serial publication establish on Anne of Green Gables , Heidi of the Alps , and many more than no one in America has any hard-nosed hazard of seeing . There is one exception , though , and that ’s Panda ! Go Panda ! , a collection of two short movies — about 30 minutes long each — about a immature girl name Mimiko who gets adopted into a class of pandas . It ’s find of a proto - My Neighbor Totoro , which its giant , endearing pandas its spunky young booster , and round-eyed sense of risky venture . Pioneer / Geneon bring out this in videodisk in the 2000s , and occasionally you’re able to feel it in the cheap - o videodisc aisle in grocery store .
7 ) Lensman by Yoshiaki Kawajiri
well known for Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D , two film that made a million anime fans , Yoshiaki Kawajiri has worked on plenty of anime versions of Western property including The Matrix and Highlander . But the first pass in 1984 , when he made a movie of E.E. “ Doc ” Smith ’s beloved Lensman scifi novels . allow me first accommodate that when the Smith estate watched this movie ( and the accompany Lensman gum anime TV series ) , they hated the hell out of them , mostly because the movie took the right nouns from the books and then moderately much used them for a Star Wars knock - off . If you have zero warmness for the original books , Lensman is still a pretty becoming movie , although lord only know how it holds up today . It was brought to America on VHS in the 1980s by Harmony Gold , the folks who made Robotech , which was even before multitude had even start squall anime “ Japanimation . ” The Scifi Channel beam it a few times in the early 1990s , but I do n’t retrieve it ’s made it to videodisk anywhere .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUlirANyedo
- Cleopatra : faggot of Sex by Osamu Tezuka
Osamu Tezuka is known as the “ god of manga ” because he did everything . A fantastic kids ’ superhero ? Astro Boy . An equally awesome heroine for girls ? Princess Knight . Samurai illusion action - adventure ? Dororo . pornographic medical drama ? Blackjack . Serious body of work ? A life story of Buddha . Mind - boggle exploration of the nature of humanness ? Adolf . An attempt to study the total cosmos ? Phoenix . And that included grownup grownup works , too ; in fact , the reason why every Nipponese man , woman and child of any eld is considered a executable interview for manga while large parts of America have only of late figured out grownup males read comic strip ( they ’re still function on the whole “ distaff ” thing ) is because of Tezuka . He brought his immense CRO to his gum anime works , too , releasing Cleopatra in 1970 . Although release in America as an X - rated cartoon a la Fritz the Cat , Tezuka created it as a bizarre , surrealist art - house flick , albeit one with a lot of nudity ( and some bouncy - natural process the great unwashed , and also Caesar is unripened for some reason ) . you may find an edited edition ( edited for limpidity , at least ) on YouTubehere . It ’s in all probability less crucial to ascertain it than it is to recollect that the legacy of Osamu Tezuka does not commence and terminate with Astro Boy .
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