Recently, io9, a website from Europe and the United States, published an article titled "10 Japanese Anime Works That Changed Your Life (10AnimeThatWillChangeYourLife)", which aroused enthusiastic responses from readers. So far, there have been nearly 300,000 hits and thousands of comments.

io9, generally known as the "Daily Science Fiction Information Network" in China, is a comprehensive information site with science fiction as the theme, providing a variety of information about science, novels, pictures, entertainment, videos, comics, etc., so that you can find more fun in life. It can be said that it is a gathering place for European and American otaku and geeks, so the works selected by it must also reflect the level and taste of European and American veteran anime fans.

The following is the original translation:

There are very few works in the vast sea of human creation that can be hailed as "life-changing" that shape your outlook on life and your worldview, allowing you to understand things you never thought about. The following 10 animated works are such classics that can be rewarding and even change your life. Of course, this is not the only ranking. If you have your own "life-changing" work, write it in the comments!

10th place: PerfectBlue

Most of Satoshi Kon's late works attempt to examine the nature of nature and fantasy, separating the two with clear lines. However, Satoshi Kon's first animated film, "The House of the Mima", used rather vague lines to distinguish between the two, creating an animated masterpiece with a strong sense of live-action cinema.

The protagonist of 1997's "The House of the Mima" is an idol singer named Mima. She wants to transform into an actress, but a series of murders prevent her from doing so. The biggest suspicion of these murders is pointed at her, and in the entanglement of intricate murder cases, Weima gradually detached from reality, fantasy and nature become blurred. Weima tries to distinguish between life and film, trying to distinguish between what she does and what she doesn't, so to speak, this is a Hitchcock film that does not belong to Hitchcock. The film is deep and striking because of its rejection of traditional animation techniques, which guarantees the "authenticity" of the work and reinforces its themes. Of course, this work is also a highly entertaining thriller.

GraveoftheFireflies

There have been countless films about war throughout history that discuss the cost of war to the people who are involved in it, the cost it has to the soldiers involved in it, and the people they love. But none of the works has ever focused on those who are truly innocent. In "Grave of the Fireflies", there is a blameless protagonist: a 14-year-old boy Seita and his sister Setsuko. They struggled with the hunger and danger of World War II, and suffered to survive. Arguably one of the saddest works in film history, "Grave of the Fireflies" is a tragedy after tragedy: young Seita and Setsuko lose their mothers, are rejected by relatives and adults who only care about their own interests, and finally inevitably die in loneliness and helplessness. This is the truest horror of war, and "Grave of the Fireflies" asks the audience to experience this sad loss and pain with an uncompromising attitude, and conveys the work's desire that war must never happen again.

8th Place: SerialExperimentsLain

"Ringtone" is more realistic and surreal than most of the works on this list, including "Ghost in the Shell". This work depicts a visual network technology called "Wiring" and explores the relationship between consciousness and technology. The heroine, Lingyin, has limited interest in technology per se, and is more interested in how communication and perception create Lingyin's identity - that is, is she perceiving others, or is it someone else perceiving her? In the connected world, there are multiple Lingyin Cunzài, each of which is a different aspect of her personality and is not under her control; But Lingyin's perception of herself also depends on how she expresses herself to others, and how she communicates with them. Eventually, Reine discovers her power to manipulate reality in the world of "Wired" and erases all memories of her. Yes, Reine does have a mental problem, but the anime's exploration of self, loneliness, and perception is made more powerful by this mental problem.

7th Special She (FLCL)

Strange, surreal, eccentric – these are just the beginning of how bizarre "Special Her" is. Special Her is a six-episode OVA anime in which Kazuya Tsurumaki is determined to cram all the cool stuff he can think of into one anime, including baseball, bass, motorcycles, kiqì people, and the Japanese rock band thePillows. But at the end of the day, this is one of the most wonderful stories about the growing years that Kazuya Tsurumaki ever created. When 12-year-old Naota meets Naomi, a girl who intrudes into his life in an almost violent way, and when a huge machine slowly rises in front of Naota, the story is beyond our imagination. The work has an elusive theme, but that doesn't diminish the impact of "Special Her" in any way, nor does it diminish the fun and hilariousness of Naota as she goes through all sorts of confusing situations.

6th place Macross / Battlestar (Macross/Robotech)

Whether you like the original Japanese anime Macross or Battlestar, the American version of Macross and the other two titles, the McRooss legend is arguably one of the greatest romance works of the 20th century. There are many forms of love, love that brings joy, love that brings pain, love that brings sadness, love that brings madness, and only Macross tries to express love in all these forms. I've said it before, and I'm going to say it now: it's love that makes the commander of the most powerful warship in the galaxy, Lisa Hayes (Wasase Misa), willing to purge an amateur mecha pilot, Rick Hunter (Ichijo Teru), even though the object of Hunt's pursuit is not even her, but the Chinese-Japanese mixed-race singer Akemi Hayashi; Lin Mingmei also has no feelings for Hunter, the object of her admiration is his cousin Lin Kai, but Lin Kai throws the wine bottle at Lin Mingmei. This is love, this is humanity. Battlestar taught an entire generation how confusing love can be, so much so that even if we know it, we are powerless in the face of love.

5th Place: Ghost in the Shell (GhostintheShell)

When Masamune Shirou began serializing his cyberpunk manga Ghost in the Shell in 1989, no one thought it would be a monumental masterpiece. But today, Ghost in the Shell has become one of the most appealing animation brands, thanks to the dark, surreal, and talented animated film of 1995. While Shirou's manga version focuses on the impact of technology and cyber events on the form of crime, Mamoru Oshii's film version discusses the meaning of life and consciousness in a virtual world as real as reality from the perspective of the prosthetic human Kusa Suko. Ghost in the Shell has inspired countless filmmakers, especially in the animation world, and there are many imitators, but none of them have been so impactful.

4th Place: My NeighborTotoro

Yes, "Spirited Away" did win an Oscar, but perhaps Miyazaki's most classic work should be "My Neighbor Totoro". My Neighbor Totoro seems to be a simple story about a pair of young sisters who move to the countryside with their parents and inadvertently break into a magical world of hidden and interconnected, encountering giant Totoro, cat buses, and many more incredible things. My Neighbor Totoro knows how a child sees the world and presents the happiest, happiest, wonder-filled and dreamiest world to the child. It's a true taste of youth, and if you've ever been young, you're bound to be so fascinated by it that you can't help yourself that you want to get a fluffy chinchilla.

3rd Place: Neon GenesisEvangelion

This is a bold and genius re-creation of the subject of the machine, an inquiry into the instinct, the ego and the superego, a profound reflection on Freudianism, Jewish mysticism and the soul itself, and this is Evangelion, a work that is relatively easy to explain what it does not say. Hideaki Anno's classic has been on the road to commercialization for more than a decade, but Evangelion's appeal to audiences of all ages around the world has not diminished in the slightest, thanks to the work's powerful narrative. Whether or not you accept the optimistic but eerie self-actualization of the TV version at the end or the nihilistic ending of the movie version, there's no way you've watched Neon Genesis Evangelion without changing the slightest.

2nd Place: Nausica?oftheValleyofWind

As a child, Miyazaki already had the idea of becoming a manga artist. But when he became the most acclaimed director in the animation industry, he only adapted one of his own works into a manga, which was "Valley of the Wind". This post-apocalyptic work is set in a war-torn world in which the forces of nature re-emerge and create a forest called the Sea of Decay to slowly purify the polluted world, but humanity has once again slipped into the abyss of war. "Valley of the Wind" is not only a love letter to nature, but also an apology for Miyazaki's stupidity, destruction and obsession with humanity. Still, "Valley of the Wind" expresses a hopeful hope that we humans can see our mistakes before they become irreparable.

1st Place: Akira

When Katsuhiro Otomo released this monumental classic in 1988, many people's lives were changed because it wasn't until Akira came out that people first discovered that anime could be more than just entertainment for children. Twenty-five years after the release of Akira, the story of a young man in Neo-Tokyo with the military junta and the secret reality of the creator may no longer have that eye-popping shock, but it has definitely not lost its power to touch people's hearts. It's a Japanese anime through and through, but the story of how society deprives and restricts the freedom and power of young people, and embroils them in intrigues, has a profound and universal connotation.

In short, it is not difficult to see from this ranking list that European and American deep houses have a preference for cyberpunk style and content with connotation and depth. You can also call him "the ten Japanese animations recommended by European and American audiences, you must watch", because these selected works including Hayao Miyazaki, Katsuhiro Otomo, Mamoru Oshii, Hideaki Anno and other animation masters are not only milestone masterpieces that promote the transformation of Japanese animation again and again, works such as "Akira" and "Ghost in the Shell" have inspired the creation of many European and American science fiction works, and even had a great influence on the film and television works of some later directors.