Summary
Just as viewers enjoy the actual animation within an anime film,their promotional posters also make them stand out to fans. These artworks essentially represent the movie in a snapshot and play a significant role in attracting an audience.
Illustrators employ a variety of art styles, color palettes, and techniques to visually capture the essence of these stories. By utilizing chaos and color to exhilarate viewers or by bringing out emotion through simplicity and emptiness, these anime films’ posters are beautiful artworks in themselves.
10 Best Anime Movies Of All Time, Ranked
Anime has often produced masterful works in not only TV shows, but in movies, as well, and here are the 10 best anime movies that stand out.
Warm, Bold, and Evoking a Sense of Uncertainty
Paprika
Paprika (2007) is a Japanese animated science-fiction film directed by Satoshi Kon. The story follows Dr. Atsuko Chiba, a research psychologist who uses a device called the DC Mini to enter patients' dreams and treat their psychological disorders. When the device is stolen, it poses a threat to both the dream world and reality, prompting Dr. Chiba to transform into her dream alter-ego, Paprika, to retrieve it.
A mix of surrealism, sci-fi, and suspense thriller,Satoshi Kon’s filmPaprikafollows Dr. Atsuko Chiba, a scientist and moonlighting ‘dream detective’. With her colleagues, they work on a device to help psychiatric patients, but in the hands of the wrong people, it could destroy people’s minds. When a prototype is stolen, Atsuko, under her code name ‘Paprika’, springs into action to recover it before irreversible damage is done.
Behind Paprika’s face, are little mementos seen throughout the film, amalgamated under warm tones sitting beneath her eerie smile. Matching its dream-state animation and setting, the art is unearthly, detailed yet disordered.The movie’s cluttered promotional artwork perfectly represents its ambiguity, blurring the lines between dreams and reality.
Berserk
Berserkis a dark fantasy manga series by Kentaro Miura, first published in 1989. Set in a medieval Europe-inspired world, it follows Guts, a lone mercenary, and his struggle against demonic forces after his betrayal by Griffith, leader of the Band of the Hawk. The franchise has expanded into multiple anime series, films, video games, and merchandise.
Serving as the violent conclusion to the Golden Age arc, the third movie of theBerserkseries details Guts and the Band of the Hawk joining forces to rescue Griffith from Midland. The main poster portrays an imposing eclipse backing a thin figure, clad in helmet and bandages, kneeling in a pool of red.
The artwork is dark and intense, with rich crimson and overwhelming shadows. Alluding to a sense of agony, this dramatic poster forBerserkis a matching artwork for its infamous style. Fora gruesome, brutal, and nightmarish film of old bonds reforged and rebroken, the cover art is a perfect reference for long-time fanswhile also alluding to the dreadful events about to pass for new watchers.
A Beautiful Collaboration For this 80s Mind-Bender
Angel’s Egg
Angel’s Egg is a 1985 Japanese animated science fiction film directed by Mamoru Oshii. The film follows a young girl who finds a large egg in a post-apocalyptic world and care for it as if it were her own child, leading to a series of surreal and mystical events.
Angel’s Eggis a psychological, dream-like drama, following a lonely young girl who scavenges a post-apocalyptic cityscape while protecting a large egg. After meeting a mysterious boy, discussions about the egg and humanity ensue for a visual depiction of faith and existentialism.
Similar to the movie’s animation,the promotional art is airy and wistful, like smoke passing with the wind. The film was a collaboration between artist Yoshitaka Amano and director Mamoru Oshii, perfectly combining their dreamy, illustrative styles. The prints are cohesive with somber tones and soft yet crackled textures, overall evoking a feeling of simple nostalgia for this 1985 fantasy.
Yoshitaka Amano has artistically collaborated with other famous works such asFinal Fantasy,Vampire Hunter D,Speed Racer,Gatchaman, andGuin Saga.
Angel’s Eggwill get a remastered high-definition edition, so there is no better time for anime fans to add this masterpiece to their collection.
Bold and Emotional for a Fan-favorite Franchise Coming to a Close
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Gearing up again, watchers follow the teenage pilots and their Evangelion mechas working to protect humanity from grave threats. The film serves asan alternate ending to the final two episodes of theNeon Genesis EvangelionTV series, concluding the psychological, sci-fi, and dystopian coming-of-age story.
On theme with the rest of the saga,Neon Genesis Evangelion:End of Evangelion’s promotional art posters are graphic with deep coloring and striking figures, both metal and human. The piece is highlighted with bright whites, contrasting its deep coloring in the mind-bending setting. This poster is infamous amongst anime fans for a great reason, perfectly encapsulating the 90’s classic.
A Dark, Romantic Illustration for a Supernatural Fantasy
Vampire Hunter D
Set in a post-apocalyptic future, Vampire Hunter D follows the story of a mysterious and skilled vampire hunter named D. Directed by Toyoo Ashida, the film explores D’s mission to rescue a young woman from a powerful vampire lord, blending elements of horror, science fiction, and fantasy. With its captivating visuals and compelling narrative, Vampire Hunter D remains a seminal work in the genre of animated films.
Vampire Hunter D, set in the distant future, details the re-emerging human population being terrorized by the race of vampires known as the Nobility. As the tyrannical vampire Count Magnus chooses Doris Lang to be his bride, she seeks out the mysterious vampire hunter known only as D to defeat the Count and save her fate.
The film’s posters seem as though covered in a haze, illustrated with exaggerated silhouettes, long lines, and deep blacks. Fitting the elusive main character to his fantastical style, Yoshitaka Amano’s collaborative artwork is perfect for the dark romanticism overarching the supernatural genre.
Bold Sci-Fi Artwork that Questions How to Define ‘Humanity’
Ghost in the Shell
Ghost in the Shell explores the story of Major Motoko Kusanagi, a cyborg public-security agent in 2029 Japan, assigned to track down a mysterious hacker known as the Puppet Master. As she delves deeper into the case, she confronts questions of identity, consciousness, and what it means to be human. The film is directed by Mamoru Oshii and is based on the manga by Masamune Shirow.
Ghost in the Shellfollows cybernetic government agent Motoko Kusanagi tasked with finding ‘The Puppet Master’, a threatening computer virus capable of overtaking human hosts. With her fellow agents, Kusanagi embarks on an action-packed journey with themes surrounding technological development, identity, and humanity.
This anime front-runner’s art is easily recognized with the protagonist taking center. Her cyborg characteristics are on display, and her otherwise womanly body is exposed to the viewers,extending the question of how society socially defines the ‘human’ identity and where it is lost. The art is cooly colored and shaded, opposing the otherwise voidness it carries, greatly fitting the sci-fi genre.
Akira
A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath who can only be stopped by a teenager, his gang of biker friends and a group of psychics.
Thirty-one years after World War III, Neo-Tokyo homes a motorcycle gang that accidentally gets involved with a top-secret esper child who escapes his keepers. This sets off a great change within one gang member, thus altering his mind and triggering a domino effect on the whole of society.
Akirauses 327 different colors, a record in animation film, 50 of which were exclusively created for the film.
Based onthe groundbreaking manga by Katsuhiro Otomo,Akira’s art portrays dystopic destruction and the cyberpunk evolution of society. It is graphic, vibrantly colored, and stands out with its infamous imagery of the red motorcycle, the explosion, and main character Shoutarou Kaneda. While keeping the background cohesive, it draws attention to the center’s figure with the bold title looming over the image.The artwork ofAkiradrastically affected the world’s recognition of Japanese films, making a splash on the international stage and changing anime as a whole.
Grave of the Fireflies
Following the World War II bombing in Japan,Grave of the Firefliesfollows Seita and his four-year-old sister battling to survive through hunger, apathy, grief, and despair in the Japanese countryside. Simply depicting the battered children and a warplane hidden in the night sky, the illustration is highlighted by shades of red, a color signifying danger, pain, sacrifice, and courage.
Studio Ghibli’s art masterfully uses simplicity in one version of the poster, as black covers most of the illustration, yetthe watcher is filled with a sense of dread and impending sorrow. The film’s promotional art is somber, hinting at the suffering seen in the movie detailing how Japanese people were affected in the war’s aftermath.
2Belladonna Of Sadness
A Descent into Darkness Masked by Beautiful Colors
Belladonna of Sadnessfollows the beautiful peasant woman Jeanne. After she is raped by the local lord on her wedding night and scorned by her husband-to-be, she makes a pact with the Devil to get her revenge.
Perfectly capturing the energy of this 1970s film, the posters’ art is psychedelic, erotic, and supernatural, lightly lined and filled with an array of pastel pigments to give a watercolor effect. The collection of art pieces is mysterious and tinged with drama, suiting thispsychological fever-dream film about depravity, rebellion, and the occult.
Insanity Illustrated Beautifully in Blue
Perfect Blue
Perfect Blue is a psychological thriller directed by Satoshi Kon. The film follows Mima Kirigoe, a pop idol who transitions to acting, only to find herself stalked by an obsessive fan and plagued by mental instability. As she grapples with her evolving career and identity, Mima’s sense of reality begins to blur, culminating in a suspenseful and haunting narrative.
Pop star Mima wants to branch off into acting and modeling, but fans are reluctant to let her go. Encouraged by her managers, she takes on a role for a popular TV show, but some of her collaborators end up murdered. The young woman descends into guilt and paranoia as her stalker closes in in this renowned, frightening, and visually stunning psychological thriller by Satoshi Kon.
Touching on celebrity worship, expectations, and identity,Perfect Blueis another film exalted in the anime community. The promotional artwork is visually striking, using a cohesive color palette and simple yet attractive composition in each. Whether the blues are spirited or subdued, they mingle perfectly with shadow, creating a bold and graphic piece. Instantly drawing the viewers' eyes,the posters masterfully combine the madness and distortion of realityseen in the film.
