Japan's madness for manga: BBC

The Japanese cartoon film Spirited Away, now showing in UK cinemas, stars a little girl wrestling with monsters after her parents are turned into pigs....

Manga's early roots lie in 9th century Buddhist scrolls which caricatured the aristocracy as bunnies and frogs....

But that freedom of expression is not limited to extraordinary creations. Cartoons allow the exploration of themes which exist at home, but may be uncomfortable to raise in realistic formats.