Radrappy wrote:Only yesterday and My Neighbors the yamadas are both wonderful.
YES YES YES, these are amongst my favourite films ever.
Incidentally, Yamadas is one of about 2 or 3 japanese things I prefer watching with the English dub.
Grave of the Fireflies didn't do so much for me, but I just seem to respond poorly to WW2 films in general for reasons I can't fathom.
For my views on other films not by Miyazaki:
Pom Poko (Takahata) is great fun, though there's a fair bit of preaching about the environment you'll have to look past.
Ocean Waves (Tomomi Mochizuki) is very different, since it's practically a straight romance story, but it's very well observed and worth seeing.
Whisper of the Heart (Yoshifumi Kondo) felt a bit naive in its ending, but is wonderful overall (also the guy who directed it was expected to succeed Miyazaki and Takahata, but he died of an aneurysm three years after his directorial debut with this film, apparently caused by work-related stress)
The Cat Returns (Hiroyuki Morita) wasn't terrible, I thought, but not fantastic either. To be honest I don't remember much of what I thought of it.
Tales from Earthsea (Goro Miyazaki) I haven't seen yet. All reports indicate it was a trainwreck, however. I want to read the books before watching this one anyway.