Hello and welcome, everyone, to Feeling Animated’s fourth anniversary! How are you all holding up? I hope everyone has been keeping well and staying busy, at least as much as possible; it’s hard to believe that this whole pandemic mess had just started this time last year, yet here we are still stuck with it. Thankfully, the tide does seem to be turning at last, so let’s hang on in there and keep doing our part to keep each other safe – once again, I offer my deepest respect and gratitude to the key workers of the world, particularly our doctors, nurses and other medical staff. We never could have gotten through this without you.
As each year goes by, it’s nice to take the opportunity to thank you all again for your support. Visitor numbers have been climbing steadily over the last year, so to all my new readers – welcome to the blog! I hope you’ve been enjoying my work. Back in January, I was selling a book on eBay, and was humbled to find the recipient was a fan in Finland! It’s just remarkable, seeing people from all over the world in my stats – and last summer, I was delighted to find myself nominated for my first blogging award, courtesy of UpOnTheShelf (thank you again, it really helped to make a difficult time easier).
My regulars will roll their eyes, I’m sure, but I must offer my usual apology for the slower posting schedule over the last couple of years. When I first started this project, I was somehow able to pump out between five and eight articles a month but, looking back at some of those early pieces now, I cringe at how rushed they were; since late 2019, I’ve gradually slowed down and now take more time over each article to get them into the best possible shape before publishing. This means that since we last met for my third anniversary, I’ve only published an additional 21 articles, but I’ve honestly had more fun creating them without the stress of trying to meet a weekly deadline. Of course, I am still sometimes late even with the lighter workload – you’d think I’d have been more productive given the situation, but maybe that’s what’s been making me feel less creative.
From last April, I worked my way through some more DreamWorks films and other pieces, as well as starting a new, ongoing First Thoughts series to explore some of the underappreciated works I’d heard such good things about. Then, beginning in December, I turned my attention back to the world of anime, with reviews of Your Name, Only Yesterday, Paprika, The Tale of the Princess Kaguya and Arrietty – they are the works I’m most proud of from the last year and I had a great time writing them, so if you’ve not stopped by in a while, those would be a good place to start. I have been neglecting my book reviews and other articles a bit, though, so I’d like to try and fit some in over the coming months (my last was in the summer, but I have about 17 books still waiting).
If you journey back a bit further, you’ll find over 200 reviews of many other classic films from Disney, Pixar, DreamWorks, Ghibli, Don Bluth and beyond, as well as shorter reviews on other works, shows and books. For new readers wondering where to start, allow me to present you with a small selection (I know the formatting in the older articles is messed up; blame WordPress!):
Disney Canon Film Ranking {c. 2019} – This is a handy place to find links to all 58 current Disney canon film reviews, from 1937 up to 2019. If I may recommend a few favourites;
Film Review: The Jungle Book (1967)
Film Review: The Black Cauldron (1985)
Film Review: The Little Mermaid (1989)
Film Review: The Lion King (1994)
Film Review: Pocahontas (1995)
Film Review: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Film Review: Fantasia 2000 (1999)
Film Review: Lilo & Stitch (2002)
Film Review: Treasure Planet (2002)
Film Review: Brother Bear (2003)
A Disney Timeline – One of my all-time favourite posts to make, great for history nerds like me!
Film Review: A Goofy Movie (1995)
Film Review: Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002)
Film Review: The Prince of Egypt (1998) – My favourite animated film
Film Review: Spirited Away / Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
Film Review: The Red Turtle / La Tortue Rouge / Reddo Tātoru: Aru Shima no Monogatari (2016)
Film Review: The Iron Giant (1999)
Film Review: Anastasia (1997) – My longest review to date, at nearly 21,000 words!
Film Review: The Secret of NIMH (1982)
Series Review: Rugrats (1991-2004)
If you haven’t got much time and need something shorter, try these:
Short Review: Duck Amuck (1953)
Short Review: What’s Opera, Doc? (1957)
Short Review: A Grand Day Out (1989) – The first of three Wallace & Gromit reviews
First Thoughts on Allegro non troppo (1976)
First Thoughts on Big Fish & Begonia / Dàyú hǎitáng (2016)
First Thoughts on Loving Vincent (2017)
Top 30 Nostalgic Albino Blacksheep Creators – RIP, Flash (the site is still active, though)
Background Art of the Disney Canon {c. 2019} – A popular post with Pinterest users!
And for the book lovers among you, a few of my favourites from my library:
Book Review: Disney’s Art of Animation
Book Review: The Art of Walt Disney
Book Review: The Encyclopedia of Walt Disney’s Animated Characters
Book Review: The Illusion of Life
Book Review: The World History of Animation
Book Review: The Prince of Egypt: A New Vision in Animation
Book Review: The Fairest One of All
Book Review: The Art of Mulan – My favourite of the Hyperion editions, but they’re all well worth checking out; the ones from Lion King to Fantasia 2000 are especially nice.
The next reviews will be of Who Framed Roger Rabbit and Enchanted, two beloved hybrid features which should see us through to the end of spring (I see that I promised them sooner in my last anniversary post, so I’m sorry if you’ve been waiting for them). After that, it’s Pixar time – the entire second half of 2021 will be dedicated to the many Pixar favourites that I’ve not covered yet, beginning with The Incredibles, WALL-E and Up, then concluding with Coco and the full quartet of Toy Story films. I’ve been dying to sink my teeth into those! For the Ratatouille fans out there, don’t worry; I will be getting to that one too, but to break up the Pixar run, I first plan to cover my favourite stop-motion feature, Chicken Run, followed by the Rugrats film trilogy, the classic Disney show Recess and its accompanying 2001 feature. That should just about see us through to the next anniversary at my current posting rate, but there are still lots of goodies to get into after that (including some reader-requested Ghibli works), so I hope you’ll stick around for the rest of this exciting journey!
Alongside these main film reviews, I will of course be continuing to post my shorter First Thoughts reviews, the next of which will be on The Secret of Kells and should be out later this month. The remainder of the series will comprise The Tragedy of Man, It’s Such a Beautiful Day, The Garden of Words, Over the Garden Wall and, to cap it off in style, my first viewing of the classic Avatar saga from Nickelodeon (which I won’t discuss until I’ve seen it all). I’ll also discuss Soul, Raya, Luca and Encanto as soon as I’m able to see them. In addition to book reviews and other discussions and listicles, I’ll also see if I can get around to a few more short film reviews, the next of which will be on The Blue Umbrella, Get a Horse! and Duet.
There’s plenty to look forward to, so keep your eyes peeled in the months ahead! Animation is my passion and I love sharing that with you all; your comments are much appreciated and it’s always a thrill to find some of you leaving links to my work on other blogs or forums. If any of you have started up similar projects, please drop a link in the comments – I’d love to check them out! Having something to focus on has been a big help in dealing with this last year, but hopefully by this time next year we’ll all be looking back from a happier, healthier place.
Until next time, be safe and staaay animated!
Feeling Animated’s First Anniversary
Feeling Animated’s Second Anniversary
Feeling Animated’s Third Anniversary
Thank you, اﺮﻜﺷ, благодаря, děkuji, dank u, merci, danke, ευχαριστώ, mahalo, .תודה, dhanyavād, takk, terima kasih, grazie, どうもありがとう, 감사합니다, 谢谢, terima kasih, Xièxiè, dziękuję, спасибо, gracias, kop khun and ngiyabonga!
Feeling Animated 
Happy 4th!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person