When a small boy discovers a goldfish in a bottle by the shore, he names it Ponyo and brings it home. It's clear that this Studio Ghibli effort was heavily influenced by Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid. Still from Howl's Moving Castle © 2004 Studio Ghibli - NDDMT 5.
To this day, Studio Ghibli is regarded by anime fans around the world as the gold standard in animated storytelling. Is it any surprise that Chihiro's adventure is so high on the list? Hayao Miyazaki's classic tale of a little girl's quest to rescue her parents from the clutches of the wicked witch Yubaba is as good today as it was back in 2001.įeaturing other memorable characters like Haku, Sen, and Kamajī, the film was voted the 4th best film of the 21st century in a BBC poll in 2016. The pair switch bodies every once in a while, living a day in each other's lives before promptly swapping back.Ĭritically acclaimed and near-universally revered, Your Name was the first non-Studio Ghibli film to break ¥10 billion (approximately $100 million) at the Japanese box office. Mitusha is a girl from a rural background who wonders what life is like in a major city Taki has very strange dreams of being a girl in a rural village. Your Name is a familiar story of two young people who feel disillusioned with their lives. People walk past a poster for "Demon Slayer: Mugen Train," which was a surprise runaway hit during the pandemic.
We join him as he travels alongside other aspiring demon killers riding on the Mugen train, in search of a monster that has been murdering and devouring passengers.ĭemon Slayer: Mugen Train-which is based on the Japanese teen manga and TV series Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba-was the highest earning movie in the world in 2020. Young Tanjiro Kaado's family is killed by demons, prompting him to become a demon slayer, hungry for revenge. Demon Slayer: Mugen Train (2020) Global box office: $455,633,546 So here they are: the 20 most popular anime movies of all time. To figure it out, Newsweek looked at data from Box Office Mojo, which tracks box office revenue using a sophisticated algorithm. We wanted to know which anime movies were the most popular with audiences the world over. Anime simply means "animation" in Japanese, but in the West the term is used to describe cartoons originating in Japan that are characterized by stark colors, vibrant characters and action-filled plots.įor decades, television shows like Pokémon and films like Akira, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke have been global hits, raking in millions of dollars.