Creator: Tove Jannsen

Directors: Hiroshi Saitô, Masayuki Ojimaen, U, 1990

Out to buy on DVD

The Finnish children's writer Tove Jannsen published the first of her books about a family of hippo-snouted trolls in 1945, and since then they have been brought to the screen several times - this is the version that was shown in Britain in the early 1990s, rather than the one that aired in the preceding decade.

Like many of its forebears, it's the product of a Japanese anime studio, Moomins being big business in the Land of the Rising Sun. Jannsen allegedly turned up her nose at it, perhaps because it is milder in tone than her books. Despite this, and a scratchy digital transfer, there is plenty for smaller viewers to enjoy, as Moomin and his friends lark about on flying pink clouds in their flower-strewn idyll. This is timeless Nordic storytelling, cloaked in the eerie surreality that anime does so well.

DVD extras None

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