‘Earwig and The Witch’ marks Studio Ghibli’s first new theatrical feature since 2014’s ‘When Marnie Was There’, as well as the studio’s first entirely 3DCG animated feature.

Directed by Goro Miyazaki, ‘Earwig and The Witch’ is based on the novel of the same name by Diana Wynne Jones, who also wrote the source material for ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’.

The narrative of ‘Earwig and The Witch’ is straightforward enough: Growing up in an orphanage in the British countryside, Earwig has no idea that her mother had magical powers. Her life changes dramatically when a strange couple adopts her, and she is forced to live with a selfish witch and a volatile warlock.

As the headstrong young girl sets out to uncover the secrets of her new guardians, she discovers a world of spells and potions, a talking cat and a mysterious song that may be the key to finding the family she has always wanted.

Music and songs are essential ingredients in this potent potion of magical animation and Satoshi Takebe’s score is amazingly eclectic and surprising, a mixture of pop, jazz, orchestral, as though he has thrown riffs and themes into a cauldron to cast an aural spell over the film.

Visually true to its English authorship and setting, the original version is in Japanese which is oddly discombobulating and funky.

The Australian distributor will be releasing an English language version as well, with Richard E Grant voicing the Warlock role, the image of which bares a striking resemblance to the Swaziland thesp.

The film’s theme song, ‘Don’t Disturb Me’, may well fall on deaf ears with some of the wide eyed visual weirdness disturbing some children, but the coddled and cotton wooled will miss out on a strikingly realised fairy tale complete with feisty heroine and the determination needed in the pursuit of truth.