Synopsis

The responsible orphaned Sophie led a relatively normal life, safe within the walls of the hat shop in which she works; for outside, it is rumored, the evil wizard Howl roams the land in his mobile black castle. After a chance and mystical encounter, poor Sophie finds herself transformed by a spell which makes her appear to be an old woman, and thus embarks on an adventure to find Howl?s castle and put an end to her curse. A mystical world of talking flames, sentient scarecrows and magic aplenty awaits those who seek the legendary Howl.

Review

Howl's Moving Castle may deceive a lot of people at first and that's because of its relatively childish title. At first I thought, "so yeah, it's a castle that moves." But I was wrong, there's a lot more to it than I thought.

First off is the plot. It's really difficult to review the plot without giving out any spoiler so I'll just say that the plot is not really conventional but it isn't complicated either. It's relatively easy to understand. What I like most about its plot is that there is no unnecessary event; everything is connected and has its own significance. At first, though, one might think that it's a plain fantasy movie but it's not.

The sound comes in second. I would say that there's nothing grand about the audio but it's good. It's dubbed in Japanese and English and I have to say, the characters' voices are most suitable. What I like most is that the sound works very well with the scenes.

The characters are good too. Character development is especially focused on Howl and you'll see that when you watch it. What I like best about the characters is that the changes in their behavior are not drastic. It's very gradual but not in a painstakingly slow manner which, I have to say, is very logical.

Probably the best thing about Howl's moving Castle is the animation. Simply put, the animation is superb. It has very beautiful backgrounds with excellent lighting; nothing is too dark or too bright. The character animations are good as well. They're not really generic in anime so it's pretty good. There are no clash of colors within frames. Since many of the characters are sorcerers, the scenes when magic is used is just fantastic and somewhat exceeded my expectations. It's not the usual sparkling orbs or light rays I often see in anime.

Conclusion

There's a good reason Howl's Moving Castle was nominated in the Academy Awards. It's because of excellent story adaptation and animation, throw in a good audio and plot and it's one of those best anime movies. Together with Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, it's another one of Hayao Miyazaki's finest works.

-Review by ish1618 (1 Sep, 2007)

Audio:	above average
Video:	great backgrounds and complementing colors
Plot:	unique and good
Style:	distinctive overall style
Characters:	very good character development
Violence:	very minimal
Language:	no offensive language
Nudity:	none
Genre:	Fantasy
Episodes:	1
Rating:	5.0 of 5
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