One of the great oddities of cinema in the past few years is the growth of mainstream interest in anime, and Hayao Miyazaki and his Studio Ghibli are the poster children of the movement. Princess Mononoke and the highly successful Spirited Away both featured gutsy female leads, inventive characters and magical settings.

Howls Moving Castle has all these things too, but if anything is more dazzlingly inventive, and set against a broader sweep of a world in conflict. Young Sophie, a solitary milliner, becomes cursed by a witch to take on the form of an old woman, and finds sanctuary in the titular moving, groaning, clanking castle. There she bonds with an oddball cast, including a fire spirit (voiced by an overly maniacal Crystal), scarecrow, and young apprentice. And of course Howl himself, also cursed: he has no heart, even though he fights evil and oppression wherever he can.

Pity about the ending, then, which feels like Miyazaki (who also wrote the screenplay) hit his word limit but wanted to wrap up all the loose ends regardless. Still, Howl's Moving Castle is ambitious, beguiling, and universally appealing.'