Charles Solomon

Director Kenji Nagasaki pulls out all the stops in the climactic battle, serving up a dazzling array of explosions, lightning, punches, kicks, storm clouds and more explosions. The brilliant palette infuses the sequence with a striking visual beauty, even if the result is a foregone conclusion.

The filmmakers give Hinako weaknesses and doubts as well as strengths and talents. She’s a more complex, fully realized character than many heroines in recent American features.

“Weathering” is a luminously beautiful film. Shinkai’s artists capture both micro- and macroscopic: the wonder of a raindrop acting a prism, casting refractions onto the surrounding surfaces and the glow produced by light shining through clouds.

Zilbalodis’ storytelling is intriguing but oblique.

The Tower is an angry, ambitious and often moving film from an underrepresented group, but its story might have been told more effectively in live action.

Some of the special effects are genuinely spectacular, but the narrative is often difficult to follow.

The nonstop mayhem will delight “One Piece” fans, but the uninitiated may find the film exhausting.

Rezo Gabriadze comes across as a genial, unpretentious man. But the viewer sees too little of the internationally respected artist and leaves feeling shortchanged.

After seeing every leaf on every bush in so many features, it’s fun to sit back and enjoy a film that pushes its look and palette beyond mere reality to create a fantasy world that could exist only in animation.

Director Shinsuke Sato’s film may lack nuance, but fans of martial spectacles will have an enjoyable if exhausting time.

The film suffers from a surfeit of characters, many of whom remain underdeveloped.

In a divisive era, Okko’s Inn carries a welcome message of acceptance and inclusion.

Sadly, Laika’s new feature, Missing Link, fails to match the striking visuals and compelling characters in its Oscar-nominated 2016 film Kubo and the Two Strings.

Chance is a well-intended but heavy-handed denunciation of the barbaric blood sport of dog fighting.

At 44 minutes, This Magnificent Cake may be a long short or a short feature. Either way, it’s an intriguing, disturbing film, utterly unlike American studio animation.

Hardcore “Hunter” devotees may enjoy “Last Mission,” but the film lacks much of the good cheer and frisky élan of the broadcast series.

“Broly” delivers exactly what “Dragon Ball” fans want from a feature; newcomers may find themselves lost in places.

Liz and the Blue Bird may appeal to fans of “Sound Euphonium,” but many recent Japanese features have dealt with teen friendships and angst in more interesting ways.

In divisive times, Pig and his friends, who consist of maybe a dozen drawn lines apiece, provide much-needed laughter in the tradition of the great Warner Bros. cartoons.

MFKZ is obviously modeled on Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s “Akira” and Taiyô Matsumoto’s “Tekkonkinkreet,” but it lacks the gritty brilliance of the former and the underdog poignancy of the latter.

The film is alternately intriguing and frustrating. The visuals are often strikingly handsome and oddly funny. But the movements are stiff, the characters chatter endlessly, and the unnecessary songs bring the plot to a grinding halt.

At almost two hours, the film feels a bit long and suffers from multiple endings, but Okada is clearly a talent to watch.

Yuasa's bold imagery and sometimes convoluted storytelling defy the conventions of traditional animated filmmaking, but he is clearly an artist with an individual vision whose work offers something genuinely new and eye-catching.

The filmmakers seem to have been trying for the kind of animated film noir that has been done so skillfully in Japan, but Cinderella the Cat never approaches that level level.

Its wrenching honesty provides a potent counter to the simple-minded let’s-all-be-friends-and-sing-a-song inanities of “My Little Pony,” “The Emoji Movie” and other recent American animated features.

Inventive and imaginative, Napping Princess confirms [Kamiyama] as one of the most interesting writer-directors working in Japanese animation.

“Girl” is a welcome reminder that animation doesn’t have to be synonymous with realistically rendered CG, but can be a means of artistic expression as uniquely personal as a signature.

The flashy battle sequences will delight “Yu-Gi-Oh” fans. Viewers not familiar with the game will themselves be hopelessly lost.