If you loved Dragon Quest: Your Story, try Friends: Naki on Monster Island
A bridge between a film you've already seen and one most people haven't. Friends: Naki on Monster Island has roughly 8.4× fewer votes than Dragon Quest: Your Story — it's a deeper cut, not a mainstream recommendation. Here's what they share, and what the second one does that the first one doesn't.
What they share
Both films are directed by Ryuichi Yagi, Takashi Yamazaki, and they both carry the playful mood tag, and they sit in Animation / Comedy / Family territory. If that's the register that drew you to Dragon Quest: Your Story, the second film will land in a comparable space — through a different lens.
What Friends: Naki on Monster Island is
Mushroom stumbles onto a fog-shrouded monster island where the locals faint at human contact. Once discovered, the monsters panic harder than the kid ever could. At least the island’s animators had experience with terrified facial expressions.
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