The best Ritsuo Sawa’s animation movies
If you love cinema, you will share this ranking of the best Ritsuo Sawa’s movies, although you may have ordered them differently. In any case, we hope you love it and with a little luck discovering a movie that you still don’t know about Ritsuo Sawa.
Urusei Yatsura: Remember My Love
6.6/10
The third film finds Ataru transformed into a pink hippopotamus, which sends Lum chasing after the wicked magician responsible, with catastrophic results. With Lum gone, her friends decide that there is no reason to remain, and so Tomobiki slowly returns to normal. The highlight of the film is a high speed chase scene with an angry Lum flying after the mysterious Ruu through the city at night and into a hall of mirrors (and illusion ). Ataru's true feelings for Lum are probably more obvious in this film than any of the others.
Urusei Yatsura: Always My Darling
6.1/10
Lupika, an alien princess, is in love with a tofu seller. To make him love her too (at least, announce his love. He obviously fears the social taboo of a tofu vendor marrying a princess), she needs to get a love potion, which is in a certain temple. Legend has it that the only person that can obtain this love potion is the most lecherous man in the universe. That man turns out to be Ataru Moroboshi. Lupika kidnaps Ataru to make him get the potion, and Lum and her friends go out to search for Ataru.
Urusei Yatsura 5: The Final Chapter
7/10
The fifth film is an animated adaptation of the final story of the manga and is also the official ending of the anime series, in which Lum and Ataru must repeat the game of tag played out in the first episode of the television series, or the Earth will be infested with mushrooms larger than buildings. Further, should Ataru lose, Lum will leave forever and everyone's memories will be changed so that they don't remember she, or her friends, were ever there. Finally, Lum refuses to allow Ataru to win unless he says to her those three words "I love you," that he has steadfastly refused to say over the entire series.
Fight!! Spirit of the Sword
4.8/10
Yonosuke Hikura appears to be an ordinary high school student. Yet he has inherited the important role of protecting the harmony between Heaven and Earth. With the help of the magical sword Chitentai, and Tsukinojo Inbe, he courageously battles the demons, sending them back to the Earth World, from which they have escaped.
Take the X Train
6.8/10
Ishihara Toru is an everyday guy with an on-and-off girlfriend and a position working for a train buff. Things become complicated when a ghostly vehicle dubbed the X Train begins to ride the rails, destroying everything in its path. Somehow, it seems that Toru is connected with the X Train by a strange power, which draws the attention of some very dangerous and power hungry people who would wield it for their own...
Wrath of the Ninja: The Yotoden Movie
5.5/10
The year is 1580, and the unholy armies of Lord Nobunaga Oda spread across Japan, murdering all who oppose them. Narrowly escaping the slaughter of her clan, a young ninja steals into the shadows. She is the last of her kind, and the dagger she wields is one of three mystical blades that can end Lord Oda's rule. On her quest to overthrow the tyrant, she is joined by two other renegade ninja, possessors of the sacred sword and spear. Together, these shadow warriors must unite their weapons and skills to fulfill the Prophesy of the Enchanted Swords... or die trying.
Adachi-ga Hara
6.5/10
A science-fiction fantasy based loosely on the classical Japanese Noh theatre drama Adachi-ga Hara about the demon Onibaba, of which lyrical extracts are quoted at intermission-like intervals throughout the film. The plot centres on a journey made by a space pilot named Yūkei who arrives at a planet upon which a murderous "witch" is said to reside.
White Wolf
5.2/10
A gray wolf raised on a farm kills the family dog, and to save him from being destroyed, a boy named Lasset makes a trek through the wilderness with the wolf to a wilderness sanctuary 300 miles to the north. The BGM in the film consists entirely of Dvorak's Serenade for Strings, making it perhaps the only anime since Gauche the Cellist to make use of a single piece of classical music as the soundtrack. The plot of the film is simple and the outcome obvious, but the atmosphere of the film is genuine, and it is very moving in parts thanks to Dvorak's music (which is scored entirely for the most emotional of the instrument groups, the strings). This is a straightforward drama about the friendship between a boy and his wolf, and it pushes all the buttons you'd expect, but it's very enjoyable despite all that.
White Fang Story
White Fang is born on the planes of Alaska to a wolf father and a half-wolf, half-dog mother. One day he and his mother run into an Alaskan inuit boy Mit-sah, who has long dreamed of a dog of his own, and by a marvellous twist of fate, the wolves are taken in by him and his father. But life in Alaska is harsh for humans and wolves alike, and as winter comes, hardships lie in waiting for White Fang and Mit-sah. Facing the extreme coldness of their habitat and that of humans' greedy hearts, the two journey towards what they hope to be a happier environment.
