Visual Effects
A young drifter named Joe Yabuki wanders through the slums of Tokyo, but when the local ruffians try to give him a hard time he teaches them a rough lesson with his fists. The spectacle sparks a gleam in the eye of an old drunk who happens to be watching—Danpei Tange, a failed boxer and former coach who sees something special in the boy. He pleads with Joe to train with him off, but the cocky young fighter brushes him. Later, though, when Joe is arrested and put in a juvenile detention facility, he realizes that he’s going to need to hone his raw fighting skills if he wants to survive. Thus is born a partnership that might just take Joe all the way to the top…
A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath that only two teenagers and a group of psychics can stop.
While the Second World War rages, the teenage Mahito, haunted by his mother's tragic death, is relocated from Tokyo to the serene rural home of his new stepmother Natsuko, a woman who bears a striking resemblance to the boy's mother. As he tries to adjust, this strange new world grows even stranger following the appearance of a persistent gray heron, who perplexes and bedevils Mahito, dubbing him the "long-awaited one."
A young witch, on her mandatory year of independent life, finds fitting into a new community difficult while she supports herself by running an air courier service.
Cobra lived an adventurous life until his enemies began to hunt him down. He surgically altered his face and erased his own memory in order to hide from his foes and lead a normal life. Eventually, he regains his memories and re-unites with his old partner Lady Armaroid and his ship Tortuga. Cobra travels the galaxy, fighting the outlaw Pirate Guild, but also fleeing the law-enforcing Milky Way Patrol.
Haruto Tsukishiro wakes up in a dream world dominated by strange and powerful entities called Witches. To survive, he gets the assistance of research professor Katsumi Kanzaki and a mysterious white-haired girl called Lily. With their help, Haruto must outsmart the witches and find a way to return to the real world.
Prince Pietro is the half-human, half-dragon prince of the kingdom of Popolocrois. After the evil GamiGami tries to take over the Kingdom, a mysterious girl named Hyuu appears in the forest near Popolocrois Castle, which is the beginning of an adventure for Pietro, his witch friend Narcia, and all their friends.
Indestructible to his enemies and irresistible to women, the professional assassin codenamed Golgo 13 is shrouded in mystery and anonymity. If you're on his hit list, you're already dead. Always hired on his reputation alone, Golgo never breaks a contract. Can he survive the combined forces of the FBI, CIA, the Pentagon and the U.S. Army? Has the nameless agent finally met his match against the superhuman powers of the Snake and the twin evils of the psychopathic mercenaries, Gold and Silver?
Mr. Takazawa, an elderly invalid who is cared for at his home by Haruko, a young nursing student, is chosen by the Japanese Ministry of Public Welfare to test the Z-001, a computerized hospital bed with robotic features that allegedly displays more efficiency and skills than any human nurse, but Haruko mistrusts a machine unable to consider human feelings.
Japan, 1943, during World War II. Young Suzu leaves her village near Hiroshima to marry and live with her in-laws in Kure, a military harbor. Her creativity to overcome deprivation quickly makes her indispensable at home. Inhabited by an ancestral wisdom, Suzu impregnates the simple gestures of everyday life with poetry and beauty. The many hardships, the loss of loved ones, the frequent air raids of the enemy, nothing alters her enthusiasm…
A cursed dancer and a blind musician — both ostracized by society — become business partners and inseparable friends as their larger-than-life concerts propel them to stardom in 14th century Japan.
The seven short films making up GENIUS PARTY couldn’t be more diverse, linked only by a high standard of quality and inspiration. Atsuko Fukushima’s intro piece is a fantastic abstraction to soak up with the eyes. Masaaki Yuasa, of MIND GAME and CAT SOUP fame, brings his distinctive and deceptively simple graphic style and dream-state logic to the table with “Happy Machine,” his spin on a child’s earliest year. Shinji Kimura’s spookier “Deathtic 4,” meanwhile, seems to tap into the creepier corners of a child’s imagination and open up a toybox full of dark delights. Hideki Futamura’s “Limit Cycle” conjures up a vision of virtual reality, while Yuji Fukuyama’s "Doorbell" and "Baby Blue" by Shinichiro Watanabe use understated realism for very surreal purposes. And Shoji Kawamori, with “Shanghai Dragon,” takes the tropes and conventions of traditional anime out for very fun joyride.
Cobra, a notorious space pirate, is enlisted by bounty hunter Jane to rescue her sister from the strange being known as Crystal Bowie, but then finds himself drawn into a complex struggle over the fate of a mysterious wandering planet.
"Kin no Tori" is an adaptation of the homonymous fairy tale "The Golden Bird" by Brothers Grimm. A golden apple is stolen from the King's garden. The King orders his three sons to guard the apples in turn and to find out who is the thief. When the youngest son, Hans, presents a feather that he got from the golden bird that stole the apple the king sends his three sons to bring this bird to him and so Hans' journey begins.
An anthology of various tales with robots being the one common element among them. It consists of nine shorts by different well-known directors, many of whom started out as animators with little to no directing experience. Each has a distinctive animation style and story ranging from comedic to dramatic story lines.
Goemon's wedding to Murasaki Suminawa, daughter of a samurai clan's leader, is interrupted when the Fuma ninjas attack, kidnapping the bride-to-be and demanding her family's ancient treasure as ransom. Lupin, Jigen, Goemon and Fujiko work together once again to try to save Murasaki and get to the treasure before the Fuma can steal it.
The story is about a young boy named Lubicchi and a trashman named Poupelle who meet on a Halloween night in a city that is full of tall chimneys. The chimneys pour out black smoke and the true sky cannot be seen.
An anthology of various tales told in various styles with robots being the one common element among them.
A young boy named Jiro finds his mother and sister murdered in his home. Falsely accused of the crime, he flees from his village and meets a priest named Tenkai, who has him kill a rogue ninja named Tarouza. After fulfilling that task, Jiro undergoes training to become a master assassin. Many years later, Jiro finds out that he was an orphan and his real father was Tarouza, who had worked for Tenkai until he aborted his mission when he fell in love with an Ainu woman. The young ninja discovers that the Shogunate was to retrieve the lost treasure of Captain Kidd and use it to once again isolate Japan from the rest of the world. Using the clues that Tarouza had kept secret, Jiro - along with the female ninja Oyuki and a slave named Sam - travels to Russia and America to search for the treasure in hopes of using it to extract revenge from Tenkai.
