Inuyasha the Movie: Affections Touching Across Time

Inuyasha the Movie: Affections Touching Across Time is a 2001 anime film directed by Toshiya Shinohara and written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa. It is the first of four films released in the Inuyasha movie series.

Initial release: December 15, 2001
Director: Toshiya Shinohara
Running time: 104 minutes
Adapted from: Inuyasha
Sequel: Inuyasha the Movie: The Castle Beyond the Looking Glass

Starring (Cast): The film's voice cast Kappei Yamaguchi, Satsuki Yukino, Kumiko Watanabe, Koji Tsujitani, Houko Kuwashima, Kenichi Ogata, Noriko Hidaka, Ken Narita, Yuichi Nagashima, Mamiko Noto, Hisako Kyoda, Toshihiko Nakajima, Tomokazu Seki, Hekiru Shiina, Tomoko Kawakami, Akiko Nakagawa, Asako Dodo, Katsumi Suzuki.

Storyline: A group of friends must stop a deadly demon bent on world domination.

InuYasha's father defeated a powerful Chinese moth yōkai named "Hyōga" two centuries ago, but a Shikon Jewel fragment has freed his son, "Menōmaru", who seeks revenge for his father's destruction and to free the tremendously infinite power and strength of his father sealed away with him. Menōmaru and his female minions, "Ruri" and "Hari", begin battling with InuYasha. Miroku and Sango have their hands full dealing with the duo, Ruri having copied Miroku's Wind Tunnel and Hari having stolen and possessed Sango's faithful companion, Kirara. Menōmaru curses Kagome so she turns against InuYasha.

When Menōmaru is finally able to access the tremendous demonic power of his predecessors, sealed away by InuYasha's father, he becomes the new Hyōga and exponentially much, stronger and more powerful as each generation gains the power of all of the preceding generations. Hyōga soon begins to change the essence of time and space as he absorbs the souls of countless people in order to fully merge himself with his family's demonic energy that causes the mind-control that he put on Kagome to awaken and an injured Kaede and search for InuYasha. As he's crossing a bridge, InuYasha thinks he sees Kikyo but instead it's Kagome who is wearing Kikyo's clothes. InuYasha greets her on the bridge while Kagome is trying to tell him to run, but unfortunately cannot be heard. Then walks over to InuYasha and puts her head on his shoulder. He embraces her after which Kagome says "InuYasha... get away.", warning him of her attack. He looks in amazement but is then stabbed by magical "claws" that come from Kagome's hands; afterwards, he realizes what Menōmaru has done. He then is chased by the controlled Kagome to the tree that he was sealed to. Regaining control of herself for a moment, Kagome tells InuYasha to run. After hearing that from everyone, InuYasha gets angry saying that he will not run and leave Kagome alone. It is with that Kagome loses control and shoots InuYasha to the tree (similar to what happen between him and Kikyo fifty years earlier) Kagome manages to break free of this control and tearfully cries out in pain to InuYasha and runs over to her, holding her close in his arms. Kikyo then comes along saying how ironic it was for that to happen, as Kagome is merely her look-alike reincarnation. Then she begins to tell Kagome that this happened because Kagome did not belong in this era that she needs to take the Shikon Jewel fragment and go to her own time. Kikyo then forces Kagome down the Bone Eater's Well to remove her once and for all since through Menomaru's manipulation and control of time, she thought that Kagome would be trapped in the distant future.

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2001 , Action , Adventure , Animated 2001 , Animation , English , Fantasy , Japan , Japanese ,

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie

Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, known in Japan as Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door Hepburn: Kaubōi Bibappu: Tengoku no Tobira?, lit. Cowboy Bebop: Heaven's Door), is a 2001 Japanese animated Space Western action film based on the 1998 anime series Cowboy Bebop created by Hajime Yatate. Multiple staff from the original series worked on the film, including director Shinichirō Watanabe, writer Keiko Nobumoto, character designer Toshihiro Kawamoto, and animation director Hiroshi Osaka, and composer Yoko Kanno. The original English and Japanese voice cast also reprised their roles.

Release date: April 4, 2003 (USA)
Director: Shinichirō Watanabe
Running time: 120 minutes
MPAA rating: R
Initial DVD release: June 24, 2003

Starring (Cast): English voice cast Steven Blum, Beau Billingslea, Wendee Lee, Melissa Fahn, Daran Norris, Jennifer Hale, Nicholas Guest, Dave Wittenberg.

Japanese voice cast Kōichi Yamadera, Megumi Hayashibara, Unshō Ishizuka, Aoi Tada, Ai Kobayashi, Tsutomu Isobe, Renji Ishibashi, Mickey Curtis.

Storyline: Cowboy Bebop: The Movie is set on Mars in the year 2071, forty-nine years after Earth was mostly abandoned after a catastrophe. Humanity has settled on other planets and moons in the solar system. The film's protagonists are legalized bounty hunters who travel together on the spaceship Bebop. They are Spike Spiegel, a former associate of the Red Dragon crime syndicate; Jet Black, a former police officer and owner of the Bebop; Faye Valentine, a woman who was once a fugitive from bounty hunters; Edward Wong (Ed for short), a girl with genius computer skills; and Ein, an artificial dog with human level intelligence.

Days before Halloween, a man explodes a truck in Mars' capital city, spreading what is assumed to be a new pathogen that kills or injures over three hundred people. In response, the Mars government issues a record bounty of 300 million woolong for the culprit's capture. Faye, who was pursuing Lee Sampson, a hacker that was apparently driving the truck, sees the terrorist and the Bebop crew decide to take on the bounty. Each follows different lines of inquiry. Ed, using a tattoo on the attacker's wrist, manages to identify him as Vincent Volaju, a former member of a military squad apparently killed in the Titan War. In reality, Vincent was the only survivor of a test involving the pathogen, having been immunized with a test vaccine: made an amnesic, he suffers from hallucinations, and his inability to tell dreams from reality eventually drove him insane.

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2001 , Action , Animated 2001 , Animation , Crime , Drama , English , Japan , Japanese , Sci-Fi , Thriller , United States ,

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a 2001 American computer-animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games. It was the first photorealistic computer-animated feature film and remains the most expensive video game-inspired film of all time.

Release date: July 2, 2001 (USA)
Directors: Hironobu Sakaguchi, Motonori Sakakibara
Writers: Hironobu Sakaguchi (story),
Adapted from: Final Fantasy
Sequel: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Budget: 137 million USD

Starring (Cast): The film's voice cast Ming-Na, Alec Baldwin, James Woods, Donald Sutherland,
Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Peri Gilpin.

Storyline: In 2065, Earth is infested by alien life forms known as Phantoms. By physical contact Phantoms consume the Gaia spirit of living beings, killing them instantly, though a minor contact may only result in an infection. The surviving humans live in "barrier cities", areas protected by an energy shield that prevents Phantoms from entering, and are engaged in an ongoing struggle to free the planet. After being infected by a Phantom during one of her experiments, Aki Ross (Ming-Na) and her mentor, Doctor Sid (Donald Sutherland), uncover a means of defeating the Phantoms by gathering eight spirit signatures that, when joined, can negate the Phantoms. Aki is searching for the sixth spirit in the ruins of New York City when she is cornered by Phantoms but is rescued by Gray Edwards (Alec Baldwin) and his squad "Deep Eyes", consisting of Ryan Whittaker (Ving Rhames), Neil Fleming (Steve Buscemi) and Jane Proudfoot (Peri Gilpin). It is revealed that Gray was once romantically involved with Aki.

Upon returning to her barrier city, Aki joins Sid and appears before the leadership council along with General Hein (James Woods), who is determined to use the powerful Zeus space cannon to destroy the Phantoms. Aki is concerned the cannon will damage Earth's Gaia (a spirit representing its ecosystem) and delays the use of it by revealing that she has been infected and the collected spirit signatures are keeping her infection stable, convincing the council that there may be another way to defeat the Phantoms. This revelation incorrectly convinces Hein that she is being controlled by the Phantoms. Aki and the Deep Eyes squad succeed in finding the seventh spirit as Aki's infection begins to worsen and she slips into unconsciousness. Her dream reveals to her that the Phantoms are the spirits of dead aliens brought to Earth on a fragment of their destroyed planet. Sid uses the seventh spirit to bring Aki's infection back under control, reviving her.

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2001 , Action , Adventure , Animated 2001 , Animation , English , Fantasy , Japan , Sci-Fi , United States ,

Spirited Away

Spirited Away is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli.

Release date: September 20, 2002 (USA)
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Running time: 125 minutes
Featured song: Always With Me


Starring (Cast): The film's voice cast Rumi Hiiragi, Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki, Takeshi Naito, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Tsunehiko Kamijō, Takehiko Ono, Bunta Sugawara,


Storyline: Ten-year-old Chihiro Ogino and her parents are traveling to their new home when her father takes a wrong turn. They unknowingly enter a magical world that Chihiro's father insists on exploring. While Chihiro's parents eat like pigs at an empty restaurant stall, Chihiro finds an exquisite bathhouse and meets a young boy named Haku who warns her to return across the river before sunset. However, Chihiro discovers too late that her parents have turned into actual pigs and she is unable to cross the flooded river, becoming trapped in the spirit world.

After finding Chihiro, Haku has her ask for a job from the bathhouse's boiler-man, Kamaji, a spider yōkai commanding the susuwatari. Kamaji and the worker Lin send Chihiro to the witch, Yubaba, who runs the bathhouse; she gives Chihiro a job but renames her Sen (千?). While visiting her parents' pigpen, Sen finds a goodbye card addressed to Chihiro and realizes that she has already forgotten her name. Haku warns her that Yubaba controls people by taking their names and that if she forgets hers like he has forgotten his, she will not be able to leave the spirit world. While working, Sen invites a silent masked creature named No-Face inside, believing him to be a customer. A 'stink spirit' arrives as Sen's first customer. She discovers he is the spirit of a polluted river. In gratitude for cleaning him, he gives Sen a magic emetic dumpling. Meanwhile No-Face tempts a worker with gold, then swallows him. He demands food and begins tipping extensively. As the workers swarm him hoping to be tipped, he swallows yet another two greedy workers.

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2001 , Adventure , Animated 2001 , Animation , Disney , Family , Fantasy , Japan , Japanese ,