Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 all the way until his death in 2013. He was so well known for his work that in 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Ebert had many followers who adored his film reviews and hung on his word like gospel. Even now, his reviews are seen as highly accurate and very insightful. Although anime films weren't his primary selection for watching, he did write some words on different anime works. In an article about Japanese anime movies, Roger Ebert claims,

"To watch these titles is to understand that animation is not an art form limited to cute little animals and dancing teacups. It releases the imagination so fully that it can enhance any story, and it can show sights that cannot possibly exist in the real world.

Ebert wrote an article for his blog, rogerebert.com, titled "Japanese animation unleashes the mind" in which he discusses different anime films and what they mean to him. Some of the titles include My Neighbor Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies. As Ebert said in a review on Princess Mononoke, "great animation can make the mind sing." One common thread that Ebert mentions in his reviews of these anime movies is how people are underplaying animation. The American audience expects animated movies to be soft, tame, and mostly for children. But many anime movies are full of intense emotion and art that makes viewers rethink how simple animated movies have been all these years. The anime movies Roger Ebert comments on have moved him in a way that drives him to descriptions of how beautiful animated movies can be.