Mostly, it is a beautifully observed meditation on the value of purpose, the fear of mediocrity, and a particular type of Japanese suburbia. The film’s marketing has always sold itself on her fantastical visions of another world featuring Cary Elwes as a talking cat dandy, which make up a tiny fragment of the screen time. It tells the story of Shizuku, a bookish girl who falls in love with the boy who reads all her library books, but who wants to move to Italy to study violin making. Whisper Of The Heart was released back in 1995 with a perfectly of-the-era voice cast (Brittany Snow, Ashley Tisdale, Jean Smart, all fantastic). But - as you’ll see a few times on this list - we would argue Ghibli are at their absolute best when they’re working with magical realism: stories of everyday Japanese life, peppered with their rich visual language. Studio Ghibli became icons in the west for their ability to create dark, magical wonderlands that used vivid references to Japanese culture or twists on Western medieval fantasy.

From some of the country’s biggest films to some of its most influential, surreal limited series, this list will make an otaku of anyone. So, below, we’ve picked out some of Netflix’s best animations. Many of the classics are still hard to find online, but Netflix is beginning to step its game up and get a few of the big names – and some weird, interesting alternatives – up on its streaming service. But there are tons of smaller, quirkier shows that have become iconic cultural artefacts for reasons you might relate more to as a nascent weeb. Big shounen anime such as Dragon Ball, Naruto or One Piece – basically serialised adventures for young boys – are intimidatingly long-standing (and filled with “filler arcs” so the manga could get far ahead enough for the anime release schedule). This is where we can step in to give you a bit of help.

But you might also be a bit disillusioned: after all, anime has reached most people via Pokémon, Dragon Ball Z or Sailor Moon, brilliant shows in their own right but which are the anime equivalent of big blockbuster cinema or Saturday morning cartoons. So maybe – just maybe! – you’re beginning to wonder if anime is something worth watching. Proliferous in its homeland of Japan because it's such an affordable way of showing spectacle, anime is an art form of endless complexity: even the cheapest, tackiest stuff is filled with specific ideas, terminology and artistic processes that are born from the conventions of decades of anime and, at times, centuries of Japanese artistic tradition. Once so maligned you couldn’t even pick up a dubbed VHS without knowing someone who knew someone, anime has now become one of the most influential genres in the world. The last few years have seen a surprising art form become a major inspiration for fashion labels, musicians and filmmakers: anime.

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