2002 was a bit of a dud year for Japanese animation. Ghibli Studios seemed to have hit their peak with the box-office busting Spirited Away in 2001, with last year's The Cat Returns going off like a damp squib in comparison. Elsewhere, amongst the usual backdrop of kids holiday releases such as the most recent instalments of the Crayon Shinchan and Doraemon, only the belated release of Satoshi Kon's Millennium Actress, despite garnering mixed reactions from viewers, inspired much in the way of hope for future developments in the medium. Insiders have drawn attention to the number of those working in the field leaving in droves for the computer game industry, and much of the hands-on work being farmed out to Korea or China, where the workforce is cheaper. All this compounded with the costly flop of the Japan/US co-p