but this part looks more like an Alpine chalet it has a steep roof oriel windows, a

veranda, a pergola, plantation shutters.

veranda a pergola plantation shutters there's a beautiful dissonance about

that's the secret of the Studio Ghibli effect

Here in the West Ghibli's films are often thought of as the pinnacle of

here in the West jubblies films are often thought of as the pinnacle of

Japanese animation with a perspective that's inseparable from the national

identity of their artists and filmmakers but so much of what makes Ghibli Ghibli

comes down to the way their films wriggle into the space between cultures

so that wherever you're from they have that elusive fairy tale quality of

Studio Ghibli was founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata

although the two men had already worked together for years

first at Toei where Takahata made his first feature The Little Norse Prince.

out of its early Disney hero-worship with its mature, morally-nuanced

storytelling and dizzyingly dynamic framing and movement.

was inspired by an epic saga of the Ainu, the marginalised indigenous

people of northern Japan. Fearing political fallout Toei demanded

that Takahata ensure the film couldn't be identified as a specifically Ainu story.

wove in elements from other epic and mythic traditions he saw that the world

and plot of the film had both become excitingly hard to pin down and

that Takahata ensure the film couldn't be identified as a specifically I knew

sense of wonderment. That discovery later became Ghibli's MO. Look at

its inspirations come from far further afield. The architecture and landscapes

were inspired by Miyazaki's visits to Wales in the early 1980s where the

strange iron sentinels came from an early animated Superman short by the

sense of wonderment that discovery later became Ghibli Zemel look at Laputa

Swift its title. Even in the real world this technique

can be just as effective. Take this sequence from the studio's unsung

masterpiece Only Yesterday. A present-day Japanese safflower harvest is

accompanied by a traditional Bulgarian folk chant creating an astral pastoral

mood that's dreamily unmoored to particulars of time and place

Ghibli's magpie eye for great ideas and images from all cultures and their

Swift its title even in the real world this technique

their work feels so culturally alive. Among their most fruitful finds have

been three children's books by English writers Diana Wynne Jones' Hell's

Moving Castle, Mary Norton's The Borrower's and Joan G Robinson's

When Marnie Was There. All of these were brought into the Ghibli canon with a

cross-cultural twist. The latter two by director Hiromasa Yonebayashii who has

since set up his own studio Ponoc with some former Ghibli artists.

children's book Mary Stewart's The Little Broomstick

it feels ineffably English but also ineffably not. Characters greet one

Moving Castle Mary Norton's the borrower's and Georgie Robinson's when

cloth. By now that artistic dissonance is familiar but the effect of its magic is

cross-cultural twist the latitude by director hiramasa Yanni by Oishi who has

This half has traditional Japanese furniture and fixtures there's even a family bath

There's a beautiful dissonance about

When it was released in 1968 that film redefined Japanese animation shaking the industry

The little Norse Prince, which was originally released as The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince Of The Sun

At first he resisted but as his team

Laputa, Castle In The Sky the first film produced under the studio brand.

Its art style is typical anime: wide expressive eyes in a heightened fantasy setting but

Ponoc's first film was Mary And The Witch's Flower, an adaptation of another English