Masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (3 January 2003)

(Original subtitled version reviewed)
Proof, as though it were needed, that the far-and-away best animators are in Japan. This is a magical story, and a true family film; and by that I don't mean a sickly-sweet singalong, which is what Disney would have produced.
I'm a recent convert to Japanese animation, for the same reason (ignorance) that still turns many people off it. For too long I thought that anime films were full of rampaging robots and huge masses of tentacles bent on nothing but rape and destruction. Admittedly there are plenty like that (some of them good) but there's much more to the genre. I've since discovered that anything from Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli leaves most other animated films way behind, and this, the most recent, is probably the best.