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Curated playlist

Japanese adult animated films

  • Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (film)The English version of Nausicaä was cut by about 22 minutes and renamed her Princess Zandra.
  • Only Yesterday (1991 film)Ghibli's color team spent roughly a year hunting one shade of red for Only Yesterday.
  • Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)Ghost in the Shell flopped in theaters, then became a video hit. In August 1996 it topped Billboard's video sales chart.
  • The Wind RisesIn The Wind Rises, a boy with weak eyes builds planes instead of flying them. It follows engineer Jiro Horikoshi.
  • The End of EvangelionThe End of Evangelion, a 1997 Japanese animated film, carried a startling line on its poster: "Wouldn't it be nice if everyone would just die?" Japanese media seized on the contrast with the poster for Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke,…
  • Akira (1988 film)Akira opened in Japan on the same date its story says Tokyo was destroyed. Otomo chose that symmetry on purpose.
  • The Boy and the HeronThe Boy and the Heron reached Japanese theaters with one poster and no trailer.
  • Final Fantasy: The Spirits WithinThe film Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within named its heroine Aki after the director's mother.
  • The Lord of the Rings: The War of the RohirrimIn Tolkien's appendices, King Helm Hammerhand's daughter has no name, so a film gave her one.
  • Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XVThe climax of Kingsglaive was an invasion scene cut from the game Final Fantasy XV.

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