Howl's Moving Castle is Hayao Miyazaki's follow up to his Oscar winning Spirited Away animated film. From the opening scene I was encouraged by the potential of this movie. The castle is shown right away and it's movement and visual appearance is intriguing, both ugly and attractive at the same time.

Regretfully, Howl's Moving Castle turned out to be only a slightly interesting film and a real disappointment overall.

The story is based on a book by Diana Wynne Jones which I have not read. I can only imagine that the novel allowed for more development and involvement with all of the little side stories, so that the reader felt more a part of what was going on. Unfortunately, Howl's Moving Castle in this film version seems like a fragmented explosion of rather sloppy storytelling.

With a story based on a book, Miyazaki cannot claim he had no idea where the story was going as he says is the case at the start of production for his other animated films. However, this movie still has that loose, uncertain feeling that also exists within Spirted Away.

A full selection of Posters, Masterprints, & Color Stills from the movie are available here.

In many ways Howl's Moving Castle shares the same weaknesses of Spirited Away, but instead of those weaknesses being acceptable as quirky traits of an unusual and distinctive film, in Howl's the scattered and rambling storytelling method becomes far too exaggerated. The film is going in so many barely explained directions that the viewer is left disconnected and not really engaged by the story.

Dragon Boy from Spirited Away was definitely cooler than Buzzard Boy
in Howl's Moving Castle. Prints of this image & more available here.

Both myself and a Japanese friend who was watching the film with me were having a hard time enjoying the story. My friend strongly dislikes slow movies, but I am known as someone that can often enjoy the slowest of films if the content is thought provoking or the story crafted effectively. However, even I almost fell asleep during Howl's Moving Castle. Granted, it was late at night, and I was tired and sprawled out on the couch as I surrendered my maximally positioned home theater "chair and a half" recliner to my friend. But falling asleep or nearly falling asleep during a movie is a very rare thing for me.

My Japanese friend who is a fan of Spirited Away, tried to put a positive spin on things with Howl's. After viewing, she described Howl's Moving Castle as interesting, but a movie to be watched only once in a lifetime.

I would have to agree with that short assessment, but I might add regretfully that even one viewing may not truly be necessary for Howl's Moving Castle.

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A few nifty things that stand out after watching Howl's Moving Castle.

*The European fantasy settings were very beautiful.
*The castle was quite fun to see marching along.
*I liked the element of the color coded magical doorway to different locales.

Hmmm... I think I am running out of things to list now.
Oh yes...

*The bouncing scarecrow was cool.
*And my friend liked the little dog, red legs and all.
Though I did recognize the humor the stubby red legs added to the dog's movement, the odd legs were strangely disturbing to me personally.

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Savage Japan Misc. Tidbits
The Japanese friend I watched Howl's Moving Castle with told me one of the reasons the film might have done so well at the box office in Japan (in addition to the celebrated status of its director Hayao Miyazaki) was because of the very popular "pop idol" used for the voice of the effeminate male lead character Howl.

About that character...
I was a little confused by one of Howl's behaviors in the movie. At one point his hair gets messed up and he has a very vain and silly tantrum. It made little sense and seemed strangely inappropriate for the character, though it may have been the best thing Miyazaki could come up with to quickly indicate the character's potential for selfishness and immaturity. If that was an element in the book, I wonder how that aspect of the character's personality was explored in the original story.

My friend told me that there is a trend toward young men acting very vain and silly about their hair and such in Japan. It is apparently considered appealing by some Japanese women if men act more effeminate and less masculine. Some young men in Japan are starting to use a lot of hair care products and developing feminine behaviors, and apparently being rewarded with the approval of females.

I guess I am not going to be getting too many dates during my upcoming study trip to Japan.

If this particular silly behavior was added to the boy wizard by Miyazaki or exaggerated from the book, it is really amazing to me to see senior citizen Miyazaki adding such a silly and faddish Japan youth culture element to a movie that I am sure he hopes will be viewed for generations to come.

I would assume (and hope) the popularity of ultra-effeminate men is a fairly brief blip in Japanese culture. Just as the inappropriate jitterbug dance scene was removed from The Wizard of Oz before its release, we could have probably done without the "bad hair day scene" in Howl's Moving Castle.

Note that in the DVD special features, it is mentioned that because there are no really effeminate male hero characters in Western culture, the Disney folks in charge of reworking Howl's Moving Castle for US release decided to cast a masculine voice for the English language version. The abundant feminine aspects of the lead character Howl were simply ignored in an attempt to make the film more palatable for Western audiences.

Cool title, cool visuals, cool poster, but unfortunately not the coolest movie.
This attractive poster and more interesting imagery from Howl's is available here.

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