Tin House/Kim Moon-saeng

This company has only animated one feature-length anime movie. They are also the only company on this list that isn’t Japanese, they are South Korean. You may not have been aware that high-quality anime (or as it’s known in South Korea, manhwa-yeonghwa / 만화 영화) can originate from countries other than Japan, but Kim Moon-saeng certainly made a gem of a manhwa-yeonghwa movie proving that geography has nothing to do with the quality of an animated feature film.

Wonderful Days/Sky Blue  (2003)
Wondeopul Deijeu (원더풀 데이즈)

I’ll admit that I was a little wary of this anime (or manhwa-yeonghwa) at first due to its South Korean origins. It’s nothing against Koreans, but I was used to Japanese anime, and not keen to change things up. The first time I tried to watch this anime, I even stopped watching because the art style was so different than what I was used to (it turns out that this is because they used an unusual combination of CG and footage of real-world models to render the movie’s backgrounds). Both of these impressions were very much in error. Having watched the movie in its entirety several times now, I can definitely say that this movie is not inferior in any way to its Japanese counterparts. The art style is wonderful, the voices are good, in all technical aspects this movie is notably above average. Story-wise Wonderful Days is no slouch either, with a post-apocalyptic society struggling with an over-polluted world and dissension between its social classes. It also deals with love that transcends these class boundaries and the complications therein. A definite good time, not suggested for younger children though, as there is a good deal of violence that may not agree with younger viewers. A shining example of how truly good anime-style films don’t have to be exclusively produced in Japan.