Animé enthusiast Andrew Osmond writes:

Hayao Miyazaki is Japan's foremost living fantasy film-maker. In the 1980s and 90s, his animations stormed the Japanese box-office, and his recent animé, Princess Mononoke, is currently the biggest-earning Japanese film ever. Miyazaki is a fan of such books as The Wizard of Earthsea; The Prisoner of Zenda; the novels of Rosemary Sutcliffe; and a mix of classic SF. As a teenager, Miyazaki saw Legend of the White Snake (Hakujaden) (1958), the first colour Japanese feature cartoon. He was entranced by its heroine Pai-nyan, a snake spirit who becomes human. Ever after, Miyazaki's films have been noted for their strong, self-reliant heroines.

Through the '60s and '70s, Miyazaki worked on numerous animé projects, usually in design and key animation but sometimes with substantial input into story and characters. His cinema directorial debut came in 1979 with Castle of Cagliostro (Cagliostro no Shiro) which featured an idealised European setting, a fairy-tale princess and much swashbuckling adventure. It has just been re-released on American video

At the time, though, Cagliostro was a commercial failure and Miyazaki suffered a career hiatus. It was then that he started writing his thousand-page manga serial, Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind (Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa), about a poisoned future Earth, with a courageous, gentle girl as its saviour. Miyazaki was persuaded by his publisher Tokuma to turn Nausicaa into animation, beginning the line of films for which he is best known.

Nausicaa (1984) (edited in the West as Warriors of the Wind (1986), was successful enough for Tokuma to create Studio Ghibli, specialising in theatrical feature animation. It was Ghibli which produced Miyazaki's Laputa: The Flying Island (Tenku no Shiro Laputa) (1986), a retro-world fantasy partly modelled on South Wales. Its heroes are another pair of young children, drawn into an escalating series of adventures.

Bigger hits were to come: Kiki's Delivery Service (Majo No Takkyubin) (1989, re-voiced in English 1998), about a pubescent trainee witch; and Porco Rosso (Kurenai no Buta) (1992), about a 1920s ace pilot who happens to be a pig. (Flight is a recurring Miyazaki motif.) The blockbuster Princess Mononoke (Mononoke Hime) appeared in 1997. A thematic sequel to Nausicaa, the title character is a feral, wolf-raised girl who fights human invaders on the side of animal Gods, though the Nausicaa role is taken by a boy trying to mediate between both sides.

This July Spirited Away, Miyazaki's new movie, opened in Japan. In its first four days the film grossed more than fifteen million dollars, a domestic record. At the time of writing (late August) it still occupies the number one spot, and looks likely to beat not only Mononoke but also Titanic, Japan's all-time box-office record holder.

Apart from Cagliostro, none of Miyazaki's films were available in Britain until now. On October 22nd, Mononoke will be released on video and DVD by Buena Vista. The video is the US dubbed version, with voices including Gillian Anderson, Minnie Driver and Claire Danes. The English script was adapted by Neil Gaiman, creator of Sandman. For purists, the DVD will hopefully include the original Japanese soundtrack. In America, Cagliostro, Mononoke, Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service were all released on video.

Summing up Miyazaki isn't easy. His work straddles traditional 'girl's' and 'boy's' animˇ, while his concerns and themes stretch far past generic children's entertainment. He produces action-packed adventures and slow meditations. He is also a master of the reflective pause and his settings are at once convincingly naturalistic and lovingly idealised.

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Animé expert Jonathan Clements told me: 'Miyazaki is the best director in Japanese animation, truly a genius, and he is also an avowed Anglophile.'

See the Miyazaki fan website for more details on the artist and his works.

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And what about Howl's Moving Castle itself? This is set in the most fairy tale-like of DWJ's fantastic worlds, with witches and wizards, seven-league boots, a walking scarecrow, a talking fire demon, a king in a castle, and a crucial riddle to be solved.

Sophie feels sure she is doomed to be a failure. After all, who's ever heard of a fairy tale in which the eldest daughter of three gets to be the heroine? Her fatalism doesnÕt help at all when she meets the Wicked Witch of the Waste, but when she decides to live in the moving castle of the magician Howl, whose reputation is no better than the witch's, she gets caught up in even more magical challenges. It's a great fun, lively story, with plenty of action and entertaining characters.

John Donne's 'Song' has an important, if puzzling, part to play, and I spotted one other reference to his works in the book. After the praise heaped on Miyazaki, it's going to be a impatient wait for the animated version.

(Written in 2002!)