The world of animation has been transformed by the magical images emerging from a modest back street in Tokyo. SHEILA JOHNSTON goes behind the scenes at Studio Ghibli. 

YOU could easily walk straight past the cluster of low-rise, vine-covered buildings facing each other across a rain-swept Tokyo back alley. There is no self-important signage, no porter’s lodge, no barrage of security checks. But here, in this quiet residential suburb, be dragons – dragons with whiskers, scurrying black dust-bugs, eerie faceless spirits and huge flying bus-shaped cats with 10 legs and headlamp eyes. These weird and wonderful creatures are born in the brain of animator Hayao Miyazaki and incubated here in the Ghibli studio.