More Japanese films

Ever since GPG and I saw Miyazaki's Spirited Away, we have been on something of a Japanese animated film kick. (Is that a Japanimation kick? I am not sure what Japanimation includes. Somehow I always got the impression that it is more a Yu-Gi-Oh! kind of thing, but what do I know?)

Anyway, we started watching movies by Satoshi Kon, who is apparently another big figure in Japanese animation/Japanimation. So far we have seen Millennium Actress and Tokyo Godfathers, and I would recommend both. They are pretty different from each other, but both are certainly entertaining, interesting, and much more engaging than American animated films. All the Japanese animated films that GPG and I have seen target a much more mature audience than American animated films do, which is refreshing. It's nice to see animation companies that don't think that their movies have to be covered in sugar and sunshine, chock-full of overbearing moralistic lessons, to be successful and entertaining.

Go check out these movies; they're good. I'll warn you that I thought Millennium Actress was pretty sad, but not in a bad way. And it had some really clever story-telling, too.