With how much anime there’s available to watch nowadays, there’s so many anime that fall through the cracks. This gets even worse when you consider about the many anime movies released. Some anime movies get less marketing than others. Not every movie receives a well structured theatrical release. Over the years, absolutely incredible movies fall through the cracks and become hidden gems. I’d like to introduce some of these gems to a new audience, so that you can watch your next favorite movie.

Dead Leaves

Dead Leaves is 52 minutes of pure insanity. There’s balls to the walls action, stylized animation, and a breakneck pace with barely any time to breathe. The two main characters Retro and Pandy wake up naked in the middle of a field. They have no memories of who they are and how they got there. The two then go on a crime spree that lands them in the titular Dead Leaves security prison, which spend the rest of the movie trying to escape from. Retro and Pandy get some insight into their pasts. It’s just enough to give the barebones of a story and personality to their characters. They’re more agents of chaos that keep the action going.

When it comes to the production, the environments have a kind of comic book style shading to them. Fights go through different camera angles and editing techniques. To keep the action from going stale, each fight is radically different from one another. You have a chase sequence on a train, and a battle against an eldritch being. This movie puts its pedal on the gas for basically the entire time, and it’s better for it.

Even if Dead Leaves has a very shallow plot and characters, the spectacle and incredible fights are so incredible that the movie is worth the watch. If you’re a fan of fun action, Dead Leaves is the movie for you.

Tokyo Godfathers

The director Staoshi Kon made some incredibly popular movies in Perfect Blue and Paprika. What most people don’t know about is his other film, Tokyo Godfathers. The movie centers around three homeless people with different backgrounds. There’s a transgender woman, a normal middle aged homeless man, and a runaway high school student. The three find an abandoned baby on Christmas Eve, and spend the rest of the movie trying to find the baby’s parents.

This movie is a much more typical adventure story grounded in the real world. However, there’s still elements of surrealism and absurdity. In this movie, the absurdity comes from unbelievable coincidences happening one after the other. For example, the group rescues a yakuza boss, who then takes them to a fancy party where the baby’s mother used to work. At the party, they’re caught up in a sudden assassination of the yakuza boss!

The movie is a series of miracles, and these miracles guide the main cast to reuniting with and dealing with their families and pasts. The movie takes a sympathetic look at the lives of homeless people and how they got to the positions they were in. It’s a fun, wholesome adventure film that still has Satoshi Kon’s signature surrealism, and it’s the perfect movie to watch around Christmas time.

Lupin The Third: The Castle of Cagliostro

What happens when you take Hayao Miyazaki, one of the most legendary directors of all time, and put him in his directorial movie debut? You get an absolute classic of a movie. In the Castle of Cagliostro, main character Lupin attempts to stop a plot by Count Cagliostro of stealing a late duke’s treasure through the forced marriage of her daughter. This is a standalone film that doesn’t require watching anything else to enjoy.

Castle of Cagliostro tones down the crass nature of the Lupin TV show significantly. Lupin comes across as a thief with a heart of gold. He wants to save the girl out of the goodness of his heart. The series’ other characters, like Jigen and Mine Fujiko, are friendlier and are involved in more slapstick moments. But while the show has more humor, it also deals with serious political and social subjects. This ranges from how crimes from rich people can go unpunished thanks to their immense wealth to how women are used as objects against their will to support the whims of the rich and powerful.

Castle of Cagliostro established Miyazaki as an incredible filmmaker. In one scene between Lupin and the princess, the moon shines into her prison. The moon represents how the princess is allowed to dream of escaping from her prison and becoming her own person. Thought-provoking scenes like these are scattered throughout the movie. With a mix of slapstick action and great banter, Castle of Cagliostro is a fun adventure film that anyone can enjoy.