The Tale of The Princess Kaguya

Last May saw the release of anime supremo Hayao Miyazaki's swan song, the elegiac The Wind Rises. Upon his retirement, arthouse buffs and Studio Ghibli otaku began fretting over the future of Japanese animation. In the rush to anoint the new King of Anime, many of them neglected one thing: Isao Takahata, Miyazaki's 78-year-old colleague and Ghibli co-founder, had yet to play his last card.

Studio Ghibli, The Tale of The Princess Kaguya.

For his final film, Takahata casts back to the dawn of Japanese literature. Studio Ghibli The Tale of The Princess Kaguya is based on a millennia-old folk tale about an ageing woodcutter who discovers a diminutive girl inside a bamboo shoot. The girl – like bamboo itself – grows at an alarming rate, and her magnetic charm soon starts to attract suitors. A striking hybrid of animist myth and proto-science fiction, the story is rendered by Takahata in an unusual impressionistic style that stands out from run-of-the-mill anime. Japanese critics preferred the film to The Wind Rises – high praise indeed, though anyone who's seen the director's stunning Grave of the Fireflies won't need convincing.