Compared to so much American animation, which seems hellbent on putting a global audience of addled kids in a paradoxical manic stupor, the work of Japan s Studio Ghibli sets its own pace, establishes its own, meticulously observed realms of the fantastic and respects a moviegoers senses any moviegoers, of any age.

 The Secret World of Arrietty  is the latest import from the collective responsible for  Princess Mononoke,  Spirited Away, Howl s Moving Castle  (a clear inspiration for Disney-Pixar s  Up ) and, more recently,  Ponyo.  A big success in Japan and elsewhere, Arrietty  opens this week in a slightly Americanized edition overseen and released by Disney. It s lovely, both in spirit and in its simple, supple, hand-drawn visual allure.

The story comes from the Mary Norton s book  The Borrowers  (in Japan, the film was titled  The Borrower Arrietty ), so if you or your child happened to read one or more of the  Borrowers books, there is another access point for you. 

Arrietty, 14 and ready to bloom, lives under the floorboards of a house with her equally miniature father and mother. While dodging the odd house cat, they  borrow  what they need to survive from their unwitting, full-size human hosts: a sugar cube here, a knickknack there.

When a visiting full-scale human teenager discovers Arrietty, the wee family s safety is threatened, and the full-size cranky housekeepers suspicions become well and truly roused. But this tale of friendship, and of responsible, imaginative recycling of the earth s material goods, is a warm, comforting breeze of a picture. The perils remain ever-present in Arrietty s world, and her family s plight echoes once and future refugees the world over. But the narrative breathes; it does not conspire every minute to work on an audience is nerves or its sense of narrative dread.

Three years ago Disney s American release of  Ponyo did not find the audience it deserved.  The Secret World of Arrietty  is even more deserving of an audience, though its voice casting neither helps nor hinders those chances. Disney TV star Bridgit Mendler brings an effective if limited friendliness to Arrietty; Will Arnett and Amy Poehler are relatively restrained as her parents; Carol Burnett runs through a career's worth of vocal flourishes and aural panic attacks as the housekeeper. Disney can be thanked for leaving first-time director Hiromasa Yonebayashi s feature more or less alone.