Princess Mononoke
Hayao Miyazaki, often referred to as the Walt Disney of Japan, has made plenty of genre defying anime movies (there are a few more on this list), and although he had done numerous movies before, Princess Mononoke was his breakthrough movie in the Western world. It was the highest earning movie at the Japanese box office before Titanic, which not only shows Japan’s love for anime, but just how popular the movie was in its home country.
