"The best blaze burns the brightest in adversity."
Hello everyone!
Different, as in, I haven't watched anything animated and of the Asian variety in literal DECADES. I think the last time was during my college years, and that had been purely because my then-boyfriend and his best friend really enjoyed animes.
Recently, however, I've been into browsing Netflix a little bit more, and landed on this thing completely by accident.
See, I'd watched another Japanese animated story previously - and loved it, I'll put a review on here eventually! - so then the streamer started suggesting things to me.
One of them was tonight's choice.
I was hooked by the premise as well as the artwork, and then turns out it was Studio Ghibli that was involved in the making of it. Sign me right up!
Which means we all have to fasten our seatbelts, because we're lumbering along in Howl's Moving Castle.
Since I sadly don't think I have anything that's even remotely like this blog post, there won't be any links down below. There might be as time goes by!
Howl's Moving Castle is the story of a wizard - obviously called Howl - and a young woman named Sophie.
Sophie lives in a kingdom that's currently at war with their neighbour, and works in her late father's hat shop. She's quite shy and closed-off, and doesn't really believe herself to be anything special, whether in looks or brains. Her younger sister takes after their mother in beauty, and keeps trying to encourage and bolster Sophie, but she's having none of it.
Then one evening the Witch of the Waste pops up in her hat shop (this after Howl rescues her from some soldiers who were being annoying, and takes her to her sister) and casts a spell on Sophie that ages her into an old woman.
Unable to stay at her home, she packs up and heads into the Wastes, where she rescues a scarecrow and names it Turnip. Turnip is apparently magic in some way, because he first delivers a cane to her, then takes her to Howl's castle which has parked itself in the Wastes.
Upon entering, Sophie meets the fire demon Calcifer who says he's imprisoned by Howl and if she can break their bargain, he'll break her spell. Making a deal, she meets Markl, Howl's young apprentice in the morning, and then Howl himself when he arrives home to find a random old grandma's taken up residence with them.
Unable to speak about her curse, Sophie rage-cleans the entire castle until it shines, and in the process makes friends with Markl and Calcifer, and Turnip tags along while he can as well.
Then Howl has a tantrum because she cleaned up his bathroom and he accidentally dyes his hair pink or orange, then magically turns it to his natural black and starts melting into some sort of green goop because, apparently, life isn't worth living if you're not beautiful.
... you can probably sense that Howl's a bit of a vain monster.
Sophie breaks down, because she, in her own words, has never been beautiful, but upon Markl's pleas she goes back to help Howl, and eventually he admits to her that he's a coward who just wants to be left alone to be free. He doesn't want to serve either of the two kings who have sent for him, to help in the infernal war they're waging with their steam machines (truth be told, Howl's out on the battlefields every night fighting BOTH of them so that the country can be free).
He gets the idea to send Sophie to the king as his mother, and so Sophie goes. She picks up what she assumes is a stray dog along the way, and then learns the Witch has also been invited to the palace.
They both have to ascend some infernal stairs before getting there, though, and while Sophie manages (WITH the heavy dog in her arms), the Witch turns more and more into a sweaty blob before she gets to the top.
Once there, Sophie meets the king's witch, Sulliman, while the Witch of the Waste is stripped of her powers and reduced to a harmless old lady. Howl, too, appears, because Sophie has become his weakness, but he equally still doesn't want to fight, so they have to make a run from the castle - dog included, because apparently he's either Sulliman's spy, or he just likes Sophie a lot.
The fighting becomes fiercer and spreads into the skies above Sophie's hometown, where Howl's parked the castle at the moment, and with Calcifer incapacitated by one of Sulliman's tricks she sent in, her other agents attack the home, alongside bombs from an air raid that's currently happening.
Howl manages to deflect both, and Sophie runs into his arms despite the fact he's part-bird, part-beast at the time, because she's fallen head-over-heels in love with him. Interesting to note here is that, the more confident she is and the more she feels secure, the less she looks like a grandma and is herself for longer stretches of time (not that she realizes, too busy admiring the secret garden Howl takes her too, his old childhood haunt).
Pleading with Howl, she begs him to stay, but he tells her he's finally found someone to fight for - her - and goes back into battle. The problem here is that the longer he stays transformed into his beastly form, the harder it is for him to turn back, something Calcifer warns him about at the start of the movie.
Sophie, desperate, takes Calcifer from the fireplace, which destroys the castle, then resurrects a smaller part of it so they can get to Howl, help him, and run away together.
Unfortunately in doing so, she gives part of her braid to Calcifer, who explains that he's only powerful when working in tandem with a piece of the one he makes a deal with - this prompts the Witch to realize he has Howl's heart, and she's wanted that since FOREVER. Grabbing it, she sets herself on fire, and Sophie douses her with water.
She also douses the heart, and Calcifer, which causes the magic to collapse and her to fall into a canyon separated from the others, with the dog in tow. They enter a different dimension - and time - through the castle's old door, where she sees a child Howl make a deal with Calcifer: his heart for the demon's powers. She calls out to them both and tells them to wait for her in the future, and this is beautiful because, the very first line Howl speaks to Sophie when he initially rescues her from the soldiers is 'There you are, I've been looking for you'.
That takes on a WHOLE new meaning when you watch the rest of the movie.
Emerging into the world again, Sophie finds Howl waiting for her in his monstrous form, and fearlessly kisses him, asking him to take her to the others. Once there, he collapses, and she gets the heart from the Witch, who tells her to look after it; Calcifer assumes that, if Sophie returns the heart to Howl, both of them should be alright since they also survived the water she dumped on them, probably because they both love her.
Freeing the demon and awakening Howl, Sophie also breaks the spell on Turnip, revealing him to be the prince of the neighbouring kingdom, who was waiting on true love's kiss. His true love, however, loves another, so he goes off to stop the war, while Howl builds a flying castle this time for their growing family, powered by a returned Calcifer who comes back because he misses them all.
And in the end, as Sophie and Howl kiss on one of the balconies, it turns out Sophie really is the most powerful witch in the land: throughout the movie, the power of her love and care for others frees them from their shackles and gives them strength, and creates the little family that they all belong to.
If that isn't the most beautiful message anyone could ever have written, besides the fact that wars are literally fruitless and wreak more havoc than anything useful, then I don't know what is.
A poignant and wonderful story that hits all the right notes, Howl's Moving Castle is absolutely brilliant as well as ridiculously hilarious at times (the tantrums and Sophie's rage-cleaning being prime examples here). I absolutely love it, and now want to get my hands on the book this was adapted from, but mostly I just want to immerse myself into the world and watch it again and again.
There aren't that many stories out there nowadays who can do what this one does, especially not nowadays. So I highly, highly recommend you watch. Howl's Moving Castle WILL move you in some way, shape or form, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
xx
*images and video not mine
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