Review of Howl’s Moving Castle / ハウルの動く城, directed by Hayao Miyazaki

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

For three years I worked professionally as a film critic, and while going to all of the film festivals and interviewing directors and actors was cool for a while, but I wanted to reclaim my time and watch movies I wanted to watch. Sometimes watching all of the new releases is great, and behind ahead of the curve, but I feel like I was falling so behind on movies I was genuinely excited about.

I recently fell into a spell of unemployment probably during the worst time to be unemployed, as it was very hard to find a job. I was applying to hundreds of jobs, getting interviews, but no offer was manifesting for me in the near future. So during this time, I had a lot of free time, and spent a good chunk of it chipping away at the blog.

Which has been hit or miss in itself, as I’m very aware AI is stealing my content. The amount of ChatGPT referrals has been concerning, especially when combined with my traffic drops. How many people are being shown my content but aren’t clicking the link? Lots to think about when it comes to this, as AI has completely changed blogging.

Anyways, I was watching a lot of movies during this time as well in order to keep reflecting on the current state of my life. I caught up on everything I hadn’t watched when I was working as a critic, finally giving some breathing room to do what I want when I want.

That means I watched all of the Studio Ghibli movies, which was a delightful time. Today’s blog post is going to be dedicated towards Howl’s Moving Castle, which I first watched with my sister several years back.

Let’s get into it! Don’t want to ramble too much in the introduction.

After a young girl is turned into an old woman, she gets caught up in the life of a wizard and a war.

Our main character in this movie is Sophie, who’s pretty young, but still the oldest of three sisters. When she’s on her way to visit her sister Lettie one day, she comes across the wizard Howl, but that’s the beginning of her troubles. As she continues down the road, the Witch of the Waste, who is up to no good, turns her into an elderly woman.

Unable to break the curse herself, Sophie decides to set off on her own and find someone who can break the curse. First, she meets a scarecrow called Turnip Head, who helps her find the way to Howl’s castle, which moves throughout the land slowly. It’s in there she meets Markl, Howl’s apprentice, and the flame Calcifer, a fire demon who provides the source of the castle’s movement.

Sophie negotiates with Calcifer, and he agrees to let her stay and break her curse if she helps him become unlinked from Howl. Howl then shows up, and Sophie introduces herself as his new cleaning lady. He doesn’t question this, but the outside world has a new source of trouble: war has broken out.

A nearby kingdom has lost its prince, and Sophie’s kingdom has gone to war with it. The King asks Howl to come in and fight for the war, but he sends Sophie, masquerading her as his mother, and she tells the King he is a coward who cannot fight. He gifts her a ring that will let her find Calcifer, then brings her to Suliman, his sorceress, and the Witch of the Waste.

Suliman drains the Witch of the Waste’s magic and power, turning her into an old woman. Suliman then tells Sophie Howl will meet the same fate, then he actually shows up to get Sophie. Suliman attempts to turn him into a monster, but Sophie narrowly helps him remember who he is and they get out of there with the Witch of the Waste and Suliman’s dog.

Sophie discovers Howl has been interfering on both sides of the war anyways by turning into a creature similar to a bird. Soon, he will be unable to return to his human form. They return to her home and he ties the castle to it, but then the nearby kingdom shows up to bomb the town soon. When Howl leaves to see what’s happening, Sophie grabs Calcifer and accidentally destroys the castle.

The Witch of the Waste sets herself on fire trying to get to Calcifer, but then Sophie accidentally extinguishes Calcifer. The castle then breaks apart completely and Sophie is separated, but she’s sent into a reality where she sees how Calcifer and Howl met. She tells the past versions of them to find her in the present, and she returns to reality. Howl finds her, then Sophie takes Howl’s heart and puts it back inside of him, freeing Calcifer and fixing Howl’s problems while transforming.

Sophie also returns to her regular form, and something else happens when she kisses the scarecrow on the cheek: he transforms into the missing prince from the other kingdom. He sets off home to stop the war, and Suliman ends the war while watching through a crystal ball. The movie then ends with another war, while Sophie and crew head off in a new castle in the distance as Sophie and Howl share a kiss.

Overall Thoughts

After having seen pretty much all of the Studio Ghibli movies at this point, I will say Howl’s Moving Castle is towards the top for me. While I enjoy movies like Kiki’s Delivery Service, I find that it’s something that leans more in the realm of vibes than something that is thought provoking for me (key word: for me. Everyone interprets things differently).

I say this because Howl’s Moving Castle has a lot of Miyazaki’s classic thoughts on war and how it’s bad, which makes this a compelling movie when critically thinking about how it reflects the world we live in. Howl himself is a fascinating character who would rather play both sides, and has been sucked into the conflict.

While the romance element is a bit off for me, and not entirely necessary, it works for this story. He’s found happiness in Sophie, even though she has been appearing in front of him as an old woman this entire time.

All of this is to say that I enjoyed the film, even though it does has some flaws here and there and can be a bit too ambitious in its scope at times. It’s one of the best Miyazaki films, and we may not get another movie like this from him again.

Go watch it if you haven’t already, and don’t just read about it! Movies are meant to be seen, not read about.

Follow me below on Instagram and Goodreads for more.