With my having already talked about The Wings of Honneamise as my favorite movie of all time and Robin Hood as my favorite childhood movie, I’ll have to go with my third favorite movie as my favorite animated film. Released in 1984, Urusei Yatsura Movie 2: Beautiful Dreamer was directed by Mamoru Oshii and showed just how malleable the property is. Going in a far more serious approach than the ongoing TV series at the time, and the first movie as well, what we got was something that really explored the characters and their workings within the entire folktale aspect. It’s a sprawling feature that each time you watch it, if you’re invested in the characters, you notice tiny little elements about it that helps to expand the work overall. Oshii spent a lot of his years working on this property overall and he went on to do some really big films along the way, with the Ghost in the Shell franchise, Jin-Roh, Patlabor and more. But for me, there’s something a bit more honest in this work for me because it’s not dealing with the more intense and serious adult worlds of those other properties, but rather works with these kids and puts them into a dark and dangerous situation that slowly creeps in around them. The slow path of realization, acceptance and fighting back is done beautifully throughout, taking familiar characters and adding new weight to them in a fantastic way.
Plot concept: Not all is normal in Tomobiki, even by its standards. The students have been preparing feverishly for the first day of the student fair, which is scheduled to go on the next day. However, problems arise when some begin to notice that the next day simply will not come. As the students begin to try to find the reason for the problem, their beliefs about reality and the world of dreams are challenged.
