Far north-west of Shinjuku on the Chu-oh Line sprawls a Tokyo suburb called Kokubun-ji - a shopping district for the hip illuminated with the kind of soft white lights found on a festive Christmas tree and yuppified by the kind of cobblestone sidewalks found in American commercial districts that attempt an antiquated tone. It's December and the air is crisp.

I walk down a street that branches out from the main road leading into the train station. The shopping district slowly yields to a residential area where tall, gray apartment buildings press up against each other like jizou statues. Turning onto an even smaller street, I approach what looks like a recently built apartment building, except that its tenants are neck-deep in story boards and acetate.

This is the 3 Studio of Production I.G, the animation production house responsible for such high-quality anime as "Video Girl Ai," "Please Save My Earth," both "Patlabor" movies and not least, "Ghost in the Shell."

Usually filled with bicycles, mopeds and scooters, the front lot outside the building is nearly empty. It's December 31st, the last day of the year, and though I hoped to lay witness to the hustle and bustle of a thriving animation production house, I expected desolation. I walk up the short flight of stairs, open the door and am greeted by a full-sized mannequin of the wolf-brigade soldier from "Jin-Roh." But his degrading placement underneath a staircase compromises his fearsome form.

"It's usually standing in the front of the building," Ryuuji Mitsumoto, theatrical release producer of Production I.G, explains to me as we pass by the $10,000 doll. "We're doing our end-of-the-year cleaning, so we put it there for now."

He explains that all the offices throughout the building are being re-arranged, a circumstance apparent as soon as we stroll into the computer graphics room. Monitors run loops of the CG spaceship from "Megami Kouhosei" ("Pilot Candidates") while the CG artists busily clean out their desks. "Megami Kouhosei" is produced by Xebec, a subsidiary company of I.G - I.G's CG department worked on the CG sequences for the vehicles.

At this point, I'm asked to take off my shoes and wear slippers. 3 Studio is an apartment building that's been converted into a studio - each of the rooms in the building are actually individual apartment units whose walls have been knocked out. I.G retained the domestic hardwood floorings and therefore requires everyone to take off their shoes as if they're entering a traditional Japanese home.

The digital-paint room houses the animation staff for I.G's television series such as "FLCL," but today it's virtually deserted. I longed to be able to see animators at work and steal glimpses of scenes from the sixth episode of "FLCL" (it wasn't released at the time). A flyer posted on the wall invites the staff to a bounen-kai (a year-end party) - a good excuse to get drunk, and an effective incentive to clean up for the year as fast as possible.