This is a book for people who love Studio Ghibli's movies, and who also love huge books as physical artifacts in their own right. There is, of course, no shortage of Ghibli art books already. You can find individual ones in English for all of the Ghibli films directed by Hayao Miyazaki, as well as for The Tale of the Princess Kaguya and The Secret World of Arrietty.

Some picture-heavy books cover the studio's whole oeuvre. They include Studio Ghibli: Architecture in Animation, which focuses on the buildings in the studio's films; Ghibliotheque: The Unofficial Guide to the Movies of Studio Ghibli, based on the British Ghibliotheque podcast; and Studio Ghibli Dream Artists.

So, given there are enough Ghibli art books to fill multiple bookshelves, what does Painting the Worlds of Studio Ghibli have to offer to readers, given its very hefty price tag? As of writing, it's retailing at over $120 from American retailers, and around £80 from British ones, although those prices might fall. Essentially, you're paying for the book's size and scale. It's massive – a large-format hardback tome of 568 pages, that takes the reader through Ghibli's filmography from Nausicaä to The Boy and the Heron.

Just to make clear, that includes Hayao Miyazaki's eleven Ghibli films and Isao Takahata's five (from Grave of the Fireflies to Kaguya), plus the studio's other features such as Whisper of the Heart, When Marnie Was There, and From Up On Poppy Hill. The TV film Ocean Waves is included, and the French film The Red Turtle, which Ghibli co-produced. On the shorts side, there are also a few pages given to Miyazaki's 1995 music video mini-epic On Your Mark, and to the 2002 short film Ghiblies Part 2. But for anyone wondering, there aren't any images from the short films which the studio has made to be shown at the Ghibli Museum and Ghibli Park in Japan, such as Miyazaki's Totoro sequel, Mei and the Baby Cat Bus.

Another thing to make clear is that the book is background art. The great majority of the paintings show the film's scenery without characters in them – the only two films where that rule lapses are The Red Turtle and Takahata's My Neighbors the Yamadas. In other words, if you're looking for a book which celebrates Ghibli's characters, from Nausicaä to Kaguya and Ashitaka to Mahito, this is absolutely not the book for you. There's also very little text – this book is almost all about the visuals.

In effect, it's offering something similar to Japan's Ghibli Museum and Ghibli Park – the chance to explore the painted worlds of Ghibli at your leisure, going in any direction you want. You can wander Japan's country paths or its city streets; the modest country house in Totoro or the outsized towering palaces in Spirited Away and the Boy and the Heron; the grim wartime ruins of Grave of the Fireflies and The Wind Rises; or other places, such as the verdant tranquil marshlands of When Marnie Was There or Europe's most beautiful (imaginary) city, Koriko in Kiki's Delivery Service, which is displayed in one of the book's best double-page spreads.

You can consider what is effectively the rich, mainstream Ghibli style, established in the Miyazaki-directed films and followed in several others as well (Whisper of the Heart, When Marnie Was There). Though the style isn't always the same, even in Miyazaki's films. For instance, there's something uniquely earthy and homely about the scenery in his steampunk adventure Castle in the Sky. Then you can contrast the Miyazaki approach against the white spaces and abbreviated backgrounds of Takahata's Kaguya and Only Yesterday; there's also a comparable approach in the non-Takahata Ocean Waves.

It's little surprise that The Red Turtle, directed by Michael Dudok de Wit, stands out from the other films in the book, with its bold, near-monochrome color schemes for its story of a man stranded on an island. What's more of a surprise, though, is how little one Ghibli film stands out in the book. That's Goro Miyazaki's Earwig and the Witch, which was made in CGI and was angrily rejected by many Ghibli fans… and yet, when you subtract the characters, it's remarkable how well Earwig's British backdrops fit with Ghibli's other films.

As mentioned earlier, there's very little text. As other reviewers have noted, the names of the painting's artists aren't given, an omission some researchers will find frustrating. I can see that adding the credits within the body of the book might have made it a less immersive experience to look at, but of course, they could have still been listed at the back.

The opening pages have brief but useful notes on some fundamental principles of creating backgrounds. The last few pages feature an interview with Yōji Takeshige, who has Art Director credits on The Boy and the Heron, Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, Howl, and the non-Ghibli Summer Wars. As you'd expect, his comments are interesting, especially about combining background paintings with CGI. He also credits the creators of some particular paintings in the book, which were made by some of Ghibli's other top background artists: Yoshikazu Fukutome, Noboru Yoshida, Nizo Yamamoto, and the most famous in the field, Kazuo Oga.