Howl's Moving Castle
| Howl's Moving Castle | |
|---|---|
 Movie poster. | |
| Original Manga | none |
| Director | Hayao Miyazaki |
| Format | Anime (Movie) |
| Made By | Studio Ghibli |
| Length | 119 minutes |
Contents
Genre
Sum it up in a Sentence:
A young woman (in an old woman's body) becomes the housekeeper to a vain wizard who lives in a walking castle.
Main Description
Loosely based on a novel by the same name written by Diana Wynne Jones. Sophie is a timid and plain girl who lives and works at her family's hat shop. One night, a witch visits and changes Sophie into a feeble old woman. The curse doesn't allow Sophie to tell anyone how it happened and fearing what people would say, she runs away. Unfortunately for her, Sophie's old body can't handle running, let alone walking great distances any more. Luckily an animated scarecrow leads her to the wizard Howl's moving castle. Figuring she has nothing to lose, Sophie hops on and declares herself the new cleaning lady.
She quickly befriends Calcifer the fire demon that lives in the fireplace and Markl, Howl's young apprentice. Howl seems to take a liking to her and allows her to stay. All is going well until Sophie discovers that Howl is actively fighting in the ongoing war by turning into a giant bird monster. The more he turns into a bird, the harder it is for him to turn back into a human. And the more danger Howl gets himself into, the more Sophie realizes how much she cares about him.
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Personal Opinions
Night Gaunt
The first half of this is a fairly faithful adaptation of the book. There are a lot of differences though. By the end, I wasn't sure if this was based on the same book I remembered or not. It's still an excellent movie though. The characters are just as lively as they are in the book. Miyazaki really took this in his own direction and the result is very dramatic but still very enchanting.
