A beginner's guide to the films of anime master Mamoru Hosoda

With Belle garnering critical acclaim, here are other films to check out from the Academy Award nominee

Juan Barquin

Image for article titled A beginner's guide to the films of anime master Mamoru Hosoda — Photo: Gkids

If you’re a fan of anime, you’ve probably heard the name Mamoru Hosoda. The filmmaker is one of the best-known directors working in the form today, and he’s responsible for some absolute cinematic treasures, including (but certainly not limited to) the Academy Award-nominated Mirai and his most recent feature, Belle, which is out in select theaters January 14.

Much like his contemporary Makoto Shinkai (Your Name, Weathering With You), Hosoda has been haphazardly compared to Hayao Miyazaki by American critics. But the reality of Hosoda—and every other director at whom people lob that comparison—is that he’s his own auteur, a filmmaker who engages with narrative, characterization, and genre in a way that’s completely unique.

With a number of shorts and features available, it’s hard to know where to start with the director. (Some of them are harder to find than others, thanks to U.S. distribution rights. But you’ll find several of these films on the anime streaming service Funimation.) It’s a vast, fantastic world, and we’re here to drag the uninitiated down the rabbit hole that is Mamoru Hosoda. Here are five choices of what to check out.

2 / 7

Digimon Adventure (1999) /Digimon Adventure: Our War Game (2000)

Many Americans were first exposed to the animation of Mamoru Hosoda unknowingly, through a little motion picture called Digimon: The Movie. For nerdy kids, the film was the coolest thing since Pokemon: The First Movie. But adults can see it for what it is: a Frankenstein’s monster of a movie that reworks three Japanese short films into one very messy feature, and adds a prologue featuring the characters of fellow Fox acquisition Angela Anaconda.

Dragon Ball Z director Shigeyasu Yamauchi directed one of the shorts, but it’s Hosoda’s segments, Digimon Adventure and Our War Game, that are the true highlights—and a fascinating start to his career. Despite being a prequel and sequel to the original Digimon TV series, these shorts feature all the themes that would be expanded upon in Hosoda’s future work. One part kaiju film and another part slice-of-life, Digimon Adventure stands alone, lovingly drawn and featuring Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro” as a recurring musical motif. Our War Game jumps forward in time, and though it requires some vague knowledge of Digimon, its animation and digital world building is enough to make it worth a watch on its own.

3 / 7

One Piece: Baron Omatsuri And The Secret Island (2005)

Back in 2005, after making a wonderful Louis Vuitton commercial with Takashi Murakami, Mamoru Hosoda directed the absolute best film in the sprawling One Piece series: Baron Omatsuri And The Secret Island.

It may seem like an odd choice to include this film instead of something like Hosoda’s adaptation of The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (not to be mistaken with Nobuhiko Obayashi’s live-action adaptation of the same name). That film is a tender and enjoyable feature about teen angst and the follies of our youth, but Hosoda’s One Piece film is maybe the most attractive of his earlier films, blending 2-D and 3-D animation.

Hosoda’s typical design and animation style, full of long limbs, fluid movements, and delirious set pieces, takes Eiichiro Oda’s characters and makes them look cooler than ever. And the narrative, framed around the pirates of One Piece landing on a mysterious island and being thrown into a strange competition, is a surprisingly emotional mini-arc that gives nearly everyone a chance to shine. That this film, as delightful as it is horrific, has never been released on home video in the United States is a crime—and not a fun one, like stealing treasure.

4 / 7

Summer Wars (2009)

Digimon Adventure: Our War Game was Hosoda’s blueprint for engaging with a unique digital world. Summer Wars perfects that model. Where Our War Game envisioned the internet as a grander concept being traversed by digital monsters, Summer Wars features a virtual world known as “OZ.” The action is still there, but the stakes seem even higher. And the film gives its world room to grow, instead of relying on established characters. Even though entire set pieces are lifted directly from Our War Game, it’s a testament to Hosoda’s talent as a filmmaker that each and every scene feels fresh—not simply because of a new narrative and characters, but thanks to some incredibly breathtaking animation as well.

The film doesn’t limit itself to the web, deftly bouncing between “reality” and “virtual reality.”But more interesting is the way Hosoda binds them together. This isn’t the kind of film that lectures those who enjoy cyberspace to go “touch grass,” but it does understand that true balance comes in recognizing the harm—and beauty—that comes with any lifestyle. Just as our own families and friends can harm or heal us, the communities and experiences we have online can do the same. It’s a perspective that ultimately leans into sentimentality, but it also acquaints viewers with the tone and themes of Hosoda’s future works.

5 / 7

Wolf Children (2012)

It’s been said that Wolf Children is more or less what you’d get if Yasujirō Ozu made an animated film about a single human mother raising werewolves. And it’s hard to disagree. Hosoda follows up the grand scale of Summer Wars with his most intimate film, a simple tale of a woman raising the two children she birthed after falling in love with a werewolf. Though many of Hosoda’s previous works are explicitly about family—be it the family you choose, as in One Piece, or the one you’re saddled with, like in Summer Wars—Wolf Children feels like a mature exploration of what that word really means. It’s a quiet, lovely film, diving deep into the way this mother and her kids navigate their unconventional lives.

While the film doesn’t take the viewer into new worlds, it’s no less gorgeous to look at, with both the werewolf transformations and the world around them gorgeously designed. And as fantastical as the premise is, it’s the intimacy with which Hosoda and co-writer Satoko Okudera approach these characters that makes it so easy to suspend one’s disbelief. It’s as much a film about growing up queer as it is about raising queer kids, as well as a film about how loving someone sometimes means understanding that they will grow beyond your hopes and dreams for them.

6 / 7

Mirai (2018)

Following Wolf Children, Mamoru Hosoda delivered what was maybe his most lackluster (though not quite bad) film with The Boy And The Beast. But his next picture, Mirai, is a masterpiece. Nominated for Best Animated Feature at the 2018 Oscars, Mirai takes the themes of both parental and childhood insecurity that were present in Wolf Children, and blows them up into an entire family tree. Hosoda is interested in familial warmth and growth, and how the smallest moments in someone’s life can drastically change how they see things—and how they see themselves.

Mirai’s episodic structure allows us to witness the lives of young siblings Kun and Mirai in short bursts. Where there was a peace to the way Wolf Children contrasted melodrama with playfulness, Mirai is a film that’s constantly in motion. Repetition, from major tantrums to minor breakthroughs, is a key element, turning the smallest event into something major. Life is no longer grounded in this film—instead, it’s made of one imaginative experience after another. Each changes us as we move through it, and every world we’re introduced to is somehow more stunning than the last.

The film itself moves through time, through frames, through worlds, and through history, all without ever betraying its core characters. It’s Hosoda’s most mature piece of cinema, the kind of ambitious story that’s as human as it is fanciful, and as personal as it is grand.

7 / 7