The Japanese anime style we're familiar with has - until now - tended to feature vast expanses of nuclear wasteland inevitably ruled over by some shady despot.

So it's encouraging to see the style winningly applied to Britain's Victorian era and the age of the industrial revolution.

Rather than endless sci-fi vistas, director Katsuhiro Otomo uses the technigue to conjure up vast 19th century machines, including tanks, submarines and airborne contraptions.

The story revolves around Ray (voiced by Anna Paquin), a resourceful Young Indiana Jones-type who is entrusted with the all-powerful "steam-ball".

However, the plucky chap is kidnapped by arms manufacturers who spirit him off to Steam Castle, a wondrous, vapour-spouting collision of a traction engine and medieval fortress.

Ray then flees, taking the steam ball along with him, with the help of Robert Stephenson (yes, that one)...but escape is never going to be that easy.

This is the sort of thing that might have been dreamed up if Jules Verne and HG Wells got into a drunken conversation with wacky inventor Heath Robinson.

Fortunately, director Otomo is well up to the task of realising the visual possibilities thanks to his flair for graphic invention.

It's also difficult not to warm to a anime machine-monster where the characters sound like they've stepped out of the snug of the Rovers Return.

Tim Evans