Kagirinaki Rakuen

Hiroshi Harada is primarily known as the man who made the notorious Midori: Shoujo Tsubaki. While it's largely infamous for its extreme violence and generally perverse subject matter, it's also noteworthy in that Harada largely worked on the project by himself. This has been a constant throughout his career, and Limitless Paradise is particularly impressive since he made it by himself (except the music) when he was only a teenager. While considered lost media for a long time by his small but dedicated fanbase, it finally saw the light of day in its entirety last year and I'm glad it did.

The film's narrative is ... a deceptively simple one as it revolves around a teenage boy who is regularly accosted by bullies and his cruel, authoritarian teachers. Limitless Paradise uses this as a springboard to vent palpable anger at the Japanese school system, which is depicted as callous and fascistic. The film similarly does this through its incredibly expressive animation and imagery, conjuring up imagery of imperialism, war and Hell all in order to articulate the film's core message in as visceral and incendiary a manner as possible. This is punk rock in animated form. Raw and crude but also sincere and bluntly impactful. This deserves to be seen by more people.