Good anime to watch on Halloween:
Vampire Hunter D - Classic movie about a half-vampire vampire hunter with a creepy left hand, there’s also a more recent movie (Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust).
Hellsing - Dark and gothic tale of a vampire vampire killer, Alucard who works for the mysterious Hellsing Organization.
Boogiepop Phantom, I haven’t seen this but it seems like this series would make for appropriate Halloween viewing.
Kiki’s Delivery Service - Something for the kids! This is a Hayao Miyazaki movie about a young witch who moves to a small town and starts a delivery service aided by her flying broom.
Perfect Blue, a dark psychological thriller about a pop idol.
Witch Hunter Robin - This series reminded me of X-Files a bit. A young girl named Robin is set to join a witch hunting organization called STN-J that has just lost a member. Robin can control fire, and her new teammates are immediately suspicious of her. The STN-J team tracks and captures out of control witches, but there is an undercurrent of conspiracy — things might not be what they seem!
X/1999 - I’d recommend the tv series instead of the movie, which is incoherent. The ultimate battle between good and evil begins as Kamui must fight his old friend Fuma to determine if the world will be saved or destroyed.
Before I saw Perfect Blue, I didn’t think it was possible for something that was animated to be any scarier than a Scooby-Doo episode. I had trouble going to sleep for a week after I watched it.
I know! The trauma! Perfect Blue really freaked me out too.
Whee, trauma! I’ve also found that Perfect Blue is a good movie to have people watch if they think that they don’t like anime.
Ummm … Boogiepop Phantom is not a horror anthology series. Although it contains plenty of horrific scenes, it’s all one tale, centering on a series of grisly murders that happened five years in the past — but there are rumours Boogiepop, an almost urban legend-like figure thought responsible for the slayings, has returned. Since it’s told in non-chronological order through a series of flashbacks, often overlapping as the various characters encounter one another, it ends up being quite incoherent. Repeated viewing (or copious note-taking) helps. The style is much like that of Serial Experiments Lain.
Whoops! That’s what I get for listing something that I haven’t watched yet
I’ve edited the entry above. For whatever reason some of the online reviews that I was reading of Boogiepop Phantom left me with the impression that it had more of an anthology series than it actually is. Perhaps the people who were reviewing it weren’t taking notes
I’ve got Kiki’s Delivery Service memorized. Sad, eh? I’m also checking out your suggestion on My Neighbor Totoro for her. Hope she likes.
My Neighbour Totoro was the film that first hooked me on anime. I remember very well when (and why) I bought it — I’ve always liked animation, so it was an easy enough sell, but it came with a small, plush, blue Totoro gift. Now who can resist a small, plush, blue Totoro? Free? I had no idea what to expect. Oh, my word, what a charmer it turned out to be … Beautifully rendered, keenly observed (the children most especially), absolutely magical. I’ve been a fan of Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli, and anime (pretty well in that order) ever since. And very glad that Ghibli’s contract with Disney stipulates no changes (although I do wonder how the squeaky clean Disney folks handled the bathing scene; my copy pre-dates the deal).
As for the impression Boogiepop was an anthology — easy enough impression to get, I suppose, depending on how the reviews were written. The plot unfolds through flashbacks from the point of view of several characters, and the whole is rather disjointed because nothing is really in chronological order, so it’s not ulike watching a set of interlocking stories. I’ll be interested in seeing your reaction, if you ever do get a chance to watch it.
For me it was Castle of Cagliostro that got me into anime! That was one of the first anime movies I watched as a young teenager, although when I was in elementary school I loved watching Battle of the Planets and Robotech.
I’ve added Boogiepop Phantom to my Netflix Queue, so I’ll be getting around to watching it sometime…