4 Animated Films with Environmental Messaging to Watch

japanese animation films to watch that feature climate or environment themes!

Hello everyone! It’s been an awfully long time since I’ve written here. About 5 of the last 10 months have seen either myself of my partner quite ill. When such things come up, it’s hard to keep a routine. I am hoping this is the start of re-establishing that routine though! I can’t promise once a week letters like I was doing before, but I’m going to aim for twice a month right now.

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For this issue, we’re combining two of my interests: environmentalism and animation. If you’ve known me long enough, you’ll know I really love anime and usually won’t shut up about it at some point. And I have a large breadth of knowledge about anime: where to start watching, what’s critically acclaimed, specific genre recommendations, what defies genres, common tropes, themes, etc (lol email me if you want my master rec list).

This list is going to cover a few films you can watch with specific environmental messaging that I recommend. Despite some of them being published decades ago, they’re all scarily relevant in themes today. In some ways, that’s amazing, and in other ways, perhaps a bit depressing that they’re still relevant now.

Environmental themes have always been a theme in Japanese art and film. Often, films are formed in response to world events (Studio Ghibli/Hayao Miyazaki’s work featuring anti-war themes in Howl’s Moving Castle, The Wind Rises, and The Boy and the Heron), films being made in response to major earthquakes and other traumas (Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name and Suzume in response to Japane’s 2011 Tōhoku earthquake).

Here’s my shortlist for best films that feature striking and relevant environmentalism in their messaging. Most of these films are available on Netflix or at your local library!

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STUDIO GHIBLI

Princess Mononoke (1999)

In many ways, I could list nearly every Studio Ghibli film here as Hayao Miyazaki has an enduring passion for nature (and airplanes). Many of Hayao Miyazaki’s films feature a reverence and deep appreciation for the natural world. But I am going to narrow it down to films that feature environmental messaging as a core theme or plotline in their narratives.

Princess Monoke is a film that while released before the turn of the century is incredibly relevant 20+ years later. It takes place in 14th Century Japan where humans and Gods live side by side. Men have begun to hunt the creatures of the forest and the Gods with iron bullets, causing impurities and corruption. The animals shot with these bullets corrupt and become demons attacking anyone and anything.

It’s a striking film that revolves around mankind’s influence on nature, the damage we can do, and how to restore balance with the world around us. The film focuses on the struggle of the main character trying to create peace between human settlements, the forest spirits/Gods, and the forest creatures.

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STUDIO GHIBLI

Pom Poko (1994)

Pom Poko is often overlooked in the Studio Ghibli catalogue in favour of more fantastical titles like Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. But what’s more fantastical than magic being sourced from raccoon balls? (Not joking, tanuki–raccoon dog’s–balls are actually part of Japanese folklore. If you want to read more about this, I’ll leave you with this interesting read, but I digress…

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, ”Rainy Day Tanuki”, 1881 – (Humans VS Tanuki Balls)

The film features a community of tanuki or ‘Raccoon Dogs’ that are living in the wilderness of Japan having their home destroyed by human infrastructure projects. The film switches often between depicting the tanuki as realistic, cartoon-styled tanuki, and in their human shapeshifting form as they go to battle against the developers encroaching on their land.

A highly comedic yet poignant film that softens the hard edges of the themes at play: how do we share our world with wild animals? How are our actions and lifestyles and trash affecting the other creatures around us?

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STUDIO GHIBLI

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)

Nausicaä is set in a post-apocalyptic world with humans in scattered settlements, surrounded by incredible fungi and insectoid life. The world is just really awesome here. Look at that scene above–our main character is collecting spores from a “toxic jungle”. These toxic jungles contain massive, intelligent insects that look kind of like pillbugs, and she can communicate with them, while most humans live in fear of them and want to wage war on them. Nausicaä is trying to restore peace between humans and the insects/environment. The film revolves around her empathy for both humans and the creatures that live in this desolate world.

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MAKOTO SHINKAI

Weathering With You (2019)

Alright, time for a NON-Ghibli recommendation. Makoto Shinkai is often considered the “next generation Studio Ghibli”, although he personally hates that moniker. His films feature incredibly realistic animation that’s just awe-inspiring and blow out the Japanese box office when he releases them.

The man has PERFECTED rain animation… (to Miyazaki’s aircraft, Shinkai has rain).

This film has overtones of climate anxiety masquerading as a love story; What if it never stopped raining in Tokyo? The story follows a boy who runs away from home to live in Tokyo and his adventures meeting a “rain girl” who can control the weather and make the sun shine with a simple prayer. But there are consequences to human interference with the weather, and their lives are swept into a story rich in mythology, personal and societal consequences to human efforts to control nature.

This film is gorgeous and emotional, although I think ultimately in story a bit weaker than his other blockbuster titles ‘Your Name’ and ‘Suzume’. If you like Weathering With You, definitely check out those other two for an incredible film experience. But don’t get me wrong, I still think Weathering With You is an 8/10 film–it’s just hard to compare when his recent cataglogue is so incredibly strong.

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It’s nice to be back! I’ll try and send more regularly from this point on! Sorry if this letter was a bit chaotic, I was salvaging a draft from like a year ago aha! But if you end up watching any of the films, let me know how you liked them!

Thank you for reading!