A couple years ago my dad bought a book called 500 Essential Anime Movies – The Ultimate Guide by Helen McCarthy. It’s huge, weighs a ton, and, as all good books should be, is full of colorful pictures. Aside from the occasional flip-through, though, the book has remained largely untouched, sitting on a bookshelf or under my bed for the better part of it’s stay in my house. Well, 500, the time has finally come. Since this is a book that has boldly declared all the anime within its pages to be worthwhile viewing and technically worth buying (for the most part) since they’ve all been released in an English-speaking country at one point, I figured why not actually go and watch all these plus tell all you lovely folks whether I, the 18 year old anime fan whose watching habits have been erratic at best over the past year, think these are actually worth your time.
Contrary to what my title suggests, I won’t be watching a movie/OVA a day because 1) I don’t have time for that and 2) chances are I might try and knock more than one out at the same time, especially if they’re short OVAs. Furthermore, I also plan to watch any major series connected to a particular OVA or movie (e.g. I’ll watching the Chobits series before the OVA) since watching them without the series doesn’t feel quite right. That said, I won’t be watching, say, all of Yu-Gi-Oh! because I’m probably past the point in my life where I can really enjoy it.
Because the book is divided into nine sections — Science Fiction; Robot and Mecha; Fantasy and Fairytale; Action, Adventure and Games; Love and Death; History, Politics, and Life; Mystery, Crime, and Horror; School, Sports, and Animals; Experimental — and these sections are further divided into a top 10 for each followed by a “Best of the Rest” section, I’ll be tackling the book section by section, working my way up from the “worst” (the one stars) to the best (five stars). Though I don’t want to rely on them too much, posts will probably, at some point, look at and compare and contrast the reasons Ms. McCarthy has included to defend each title with my own opinions after watching.
Also! If you’ve seen any of the movies/OVAs I’m watching, as always, don’t be afraid to comment and let me know what you thought, whether or not you would buy it, etc. I’d love to hear what you guys think and make this more of a group experience. Haha
Though you and I both know my track record for keeping up with project type posts is kind of crappy, since this one doesn’t have a time limit and I plan on lugging this book off with me to college, I’m optimistic (at least for now) about being able to eventually reach the end of the book. So cheers to discovering new stuff and hopefully having a blast along the way.
First up, Adventure Kid.
Amateur Rambling 