The voice acting was great all around with every character having moments. The level of animation was excellent all around, offering plenty of color and detail with its characters and environments. The moving castle itself acted as another character with the film doing a great job at depicting all of its intricacies. Perhaps not as vast as Spirited Away, this film film offers an equally imaginative film world. With a running time at exactly 2 hours, the film could have been tighter with the story both lagging in the middle and rushing a little too much by the end to try and make up for it which limited the ending’s impact. She did have some fun moments with Howl but mostly with his companions including his young apprentice Markl (RyÃ»nosuke Kamiki) and a fire demon named Calcifer (Tatsuya GashÃ»in).

Sophie was an interesting character to watch, being different a different take on the traditional female lead. She felt inadequate because of her appearance but Howl didn’t care and saw her for who she was. Over time both Sophie and Howl become closer and also fall in love. In an attempt to reverse her curse, she stumbles onto Howl’s moving castle and his companions while becoming embroiled in a magical war between countries. The story this time around is about a young woman named Sophie ( BaishÃ´) that, after meeting a handsome wizard named Howl (Kimura), is turned into an old woman by the Witch of the Waste (Akihiro Miwa). There’s just something about Japanese animation, or anime, that gives it staying power. Just like Spirited Away, it may be a 10+ year old animated film but a lot of it still holds up today. After the success of 2001’s Oscar-winning Spirited Away, Studio Ghibli followed with the Oscar-nominated Howl’s Moving Castle.

Howls moving castle movie visuals