A Silent Voice (2016)
This reminded me quite a bit of ^
Colorful actually, although this is much more widely-known. They both feature really nice animation (though the style is more striking here), deal with a suicidal teen boy protagonist, and make him pretty insufferable. In fact, I actually wrote up
Colorful thinking it was this one!...
"This animated drama makes the ballsy move of going all-in on having the protagonist being about the worst piece of $#! humanly possible and then trying to win you back over to feeling sympathetic for him the rest of the film. The development of other characters is pretty thin, and I can't say that I ever really saw enough genuine growth to be on the protagonist's side again. However, I
loved the animation and score, and
other people might respond better to this than me."
Mind Game (2004)
Another animated film that's much-lauded in critical circles and I found incredibly overrated. In this case, I actually
absolutely hated it and turned it off after 30 minutes. Aside from the "stylized" animation just being cheap and the story having really no theme, character, or development beyond otaku incel power fantasy, I just couldn't laugh at any of the comedy when so much of it stemmed from sexism, rape, and commodification of women.
Crimson Bat, the Blind Swordswoman (1969)
This was like a refreshing sake' palate cleanser for the two misogynistic anime flicks, and go figure: it seems to be completely off the radar of any film critics. I thought it might end up being one of these rape-revenge takes on female empowerment that populated the '60s/'70s, but no, despite the heroine having an incredibly tragic origin, there are a number of kind men and really her own mother is the worst of everyone.
I liked this a lot more than the Zatoichi films that clearly inspired it!