Released in 2004 and loosely based on the 1986 eponymous novel published by English author Diana Wynne Jones (1934-2011), Howl’s Moving Castle 『ハウルの動く城』 is a Japanese animated fantasy movie directed by Miyazaki Hayao, produced by Suzuki Toshio, released by Studio Ghibli and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd. Initially, Hosoda Mamoru 細田守 (born 1967) was invited to direct the project of Howl’s Moving Castle, but eventually his directorial visions clashed against Studio Ghibli’s expectations, so Miyazaki had to come back from his repeatedly announced retirement and to take the reins. Miyazaki’s adaptation of the screenplay turned obviously more in tune with Wynne Jones’ initial vision and message: on the one hand, the castle itself is openly a designer’s dream; on the other hand, there are common themes such as identity and humanity circulating throughout the narrative conglomerate; more importantly, though, as with Laputa: Castle in the Sky, Miyazaki’s own reaction to real-world events shaped the story and pushed it in a different direction from the source novel. Thus, the final version of Howl’s Moving Castle as an animation movie was strongly influenced by Miyazaki’s fierce opposition to the United States’ invasion of Iraq in 2003, with explicit anti-war motives reflecting Miyazaki’s publicly displayed “great deal of rage” about the Iraq war, which eventually led him to make an animation work which he felt would be poorly received in the United States. Simultaneously, Howl’s Moving Castle explores sensitive themes such as old age depicted in a positive light as something which grants individuals freedom while incorporating feminist elements and providing messages about the value and purpose of compassion as a combination of empathy and integrity.
Historical Contextualization
Situated between The Return of the Cat 『猫の恩返し』, directed by Morita Hiroyuki 森田宏幸 (born 1964) and released in 2002, and Tales from the Earthsea 『ゲド戦記』 (literally “Gedo’s War Chronicles”), directed by Miyazaki Gorô 宮崎五郎 (born 1967) and released in 2006, Howl’s Moving Castle appears as part of an experimental period of time in which various topics and drawing styles were employed in animation works released by Studio Ghibli. Later on, in 2013, Miyazaki would state that Howl’s Moving Castle was his favorite creation, explaining his intention to convey the message of life being worth living – something which permeated Studio Ghibli’s featured releases since Takahata Isao’s monumental Ponpoko: The Heisei Tanuki War from 1994 and would attain climactic dimensions in The Wind Rises and The Tale of Princess Kaguya from that very year, 2013. To that outcome, the animated version of Howl’s Moving Castle significantly alters predominant themes in the original novel, which focused on challenging class and gender norms, and instead centers around love, personal loyalty and the destructive effects of war. Despite bleak forecasts, Howl’s Moving Castle went on to gross over $200 million in Japan and over $250 million worldwide, making it one of the most commercially successful Japanese movies – animated or not – in history, while receiving critical acclaim, with particular praise towards its visuals and Miyazaki’s presentation of the themes, and being nominated for various awards, including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 78th Academy Awards where it lost to Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (directed by Nick Park and Steve Box and produced/released by Aardman Animations and DreamWorks Animation in 2005) in 2006, while winning several other awards, both domestically and internationally.
Plot Overview
The animation movie is set in a fictional kingdom in which both magic and early twentieth-century technology are prevalent, against the backdrop of a war with another kingdom. It tells the story of Sophie, a young milliner who is turned into an elderly woman by the malevolent Witch of the Waste. At the beginning of the story, Sophie, the eldest of three sisters, encounters a wizard named Howl on her way to visit her sister Lettie; upon returning home, the Witch of the Waste enters her shop and curses her, transforming her into a 90-year-old woman. Not knowing what to do with her new appearance, Sophie leaves home and sets off towards the mountains. Underway, she meets a magic scarecrow, whom she calls Turnip Head or Kabu in Japanese, who leads her to Howl’s moving “castle”, a wild combination of all sorts of elements, where she enters without invitation. Subsequently, in the “castle”, Sophie meets Howl’s young apprentice Markl and a fire demon named Calcifer, the source of the castle’s magic and continuous movement. Calcifer makes a deal with Sophie, agreeing to break her curse if she breaks his link with Howl. When Howl appears, Sophie announces that she has hired herself as a cleaning lady.
Meanwhile, Sophie’s nation is caught up in an ugly war with a neighboring kingdom, which is searching for its missing prince. The king summons Howl to fight in the war, but Howl decides to send Sophie to the king, under the pretense of being his mother, to tell him that Howl is too much of a coward to fight. Before leaving, he gives Sophie a charmed ring that is supposed to lead her back to Calcifer and therefore to guarantee her safety. Obeying Howl’s request, Sophie goes and meets Suliman, the king’s head sorceress, and the Witch of the Waste, whom Suliman punishes by draining all of her power and reverting her to her true age, that of a harmless but spiteful old woman. In doing so, Suliman warns Sophie that Howl will meet the same fate if he does not fight for the king, with Howl suddenly arriving to rescue Sophie which provokes Suliman to try and trap him by turning him into a monster, but again, Sophie’s intervention helps him remember who he truly is so that he manages to closely avoid death. The duo then escapes along with the former Witch of the Waste and Suliman’s dog Heen who turns out to be a spy in disguise. At the same time, soldiers from each of the two kingdoms break into the homes of both Jenkins and Pendragon (Howl’s aliases in those kingdoms), but they only find an empty courtyard and the attached warehouse, as the castle’s magic nature allows travel between four separate residences or spatial-temporal dimensions.
Later on, Sophie learns that Howl’s life is bound to Calcifer’s existence in some magical way and that Howl has been transforming himself into a bird-like creature to interfere with both sides in the war, but each transformation makes it more difficult for him to return to his human form. Howl magically parks the castle on the outskirts of Sophie’s town and a few days afterwards, when the town is bombed by enemy aircraft and Suliman’s henchmen attack the family house and Sophie’s hat shop, he heads out to protect them. Sophie then moves everyone out of the house and removes Calcifer from the fireplace, which collapses the castle. The Witch of the Waste realizes that Calcifer has Howl’s heart and grabs the fire demon, setting herself on fire, but Sophie panics and pours water onto the Witch, which douses Calcifer. The remainder of the castle then splits in two with Sophie falling down a chasm and being separated from the others.
Following the charmed ring, Sophie wanders into a scene from the past, where she sees a young Howl catch a falling star – Calcifer – to whom he gives his heart. Sophie calls for them to find her in the future as she is teleported away. Then she returns to the present, finds Howl, and they reunite with the others: subsequently, the Witch of the Waste returns Howl’s heart, and Sophie places it back inside Howl, reviving him and freeing Calcifer, who decides to continue staying with them voluntarily. Sophie’s curse is broken as well, although her hair remains white. After she kisses Turnip Head on the cheek, he returns to human form revealing himself to be Justin, the missing prince from the enemy kingdom: he reveals that only his true love’s kiss can break his curse. After seeing Sophie’s affection lies with Howl, he promptly heads for home to cease the war, but promises he will come and see them again. Suliman, watching through a crystal globe, decides to end this war. Sometime later, bombers fly under dark skies over a recovered green countryside while heading towards another war; Sophie, Howl and their friends travel in the opposite direction in a new flying “castle”.
Major Differences between the Novel and the Animation Movie
Although in both cases – the source novel and the animated movie – the plot-line begins with Sophie being a prisoner of her circumstances and of social norms, the challenges she faces are slightly different in the two versions: Wynne Jones employs Sophie, Howl, and Calcifer in a fairy-tale format to tell a story about challenging class and gender expectations, Miyazaki uses the same characters to convey a message of personal loyalty, love, and war. Therefore, the roles of several characters differ between novel and movie due to this plot change. The Witch of the Waste is the chief antagonist of the book, whereas in the animation movie, she is reduced by Madame Suliman’s magic to an ultimately harmless old woman who evokes sympathy in audiences and in Sophie. By contrast, the animated movie conflates the novel’s two characters of Mrs. Penstemmon and the wizard Suliman into Madame Suliman: although Suliman comes closest to being a traditional villain in the animated version, she is shown as having ambiguous motivations, leading viewers and commentators alike to state that the real villain is war itself. Furthermore, Howl loses the womanizing aspect which was a significant part of his character in the novel and Sophie turns into a more conventional figure in the movie: she is less grumpy and less outspoken, and demonstrates her love for Howl earlier and more explicitly, with her initial feature of being a powerful sorceress in her own right muted in Miyazaki’s rendition, although she is still shown to have control over her curse.
Character Analysis
As with Chihiro in Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle’s main female character Sophie faces an identity crisis; nevertheless, what separates the two characters is that in Howl’s Moving Castle, this crisis is a physical rather than a spiritual one. Sophie is a reverse shôjo: she has been transformed into an old woman by the Witch of the Waste and takes on her role with stoic reluctance, which impacts on her physical appearance but basically reflects what Sophie feels about herself – castigating her own looks. She has to learn about her own self and her own position in the world backwards, by experiencing first the losses which come with an old age and then gradually returning to her young – authentic, vulnerable, powerful – self. Then again, it is not through hard-work, persistence and commitment that she regains her youthful appearance back – fundamental axiological motives in Spirited Away – but through a newly found sense of acceptance and integrity, of oneself and of others, which then is enhanced through empathic leaning-in and conducive, eventually, to self-compassion. Paradoxically, when there is no chance of her looking good due to her ancient appearance, she becomes more free and truly confident in herself, able to tackle tasks with aplomb because she has nothing to lose. Sophie’s freedom from being self-conscious about her image – “You are still healthy and those clothes finally suit you”, as she says to her reflection in the mirror after figuring out that she had been turned into an old woman – and her removal from her restrictive home life have given her a huge sense of compassion: when the Witch of the Waste is stripped off of her powers and reduced to a dotty selfish old woman, it is Sophie still under her course who takes pity and looks after her. Similarly, although she views him with some suspicion, Sophie allows Suliman’s dog and spy to accompany them. Through these acts of kindness, Sophie shows that benevolence can change people more than war and subjugation; it just takes (more) time.
One might argue, on the other hand, that Howl’s character reflects the syndrome of confused masculinity in late modernity while simultaneously pointing out the limits of masculinity. Like Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke, Howl is compelled to discover his own sense of masculinity by means of engaging – physically, emotionally, mentally – with war and with his participation in it. Miyazaki’s biggest addition to the plot of the book was the employment of war as a large part of the narrative, as in the book, war was only tangentially referred to, with the king ordering Howl to find the king’s missing brother Justin because Justin’s military skills are needed for a forthcoming war; Howl’s frequent disappearances are caused by his womanizing habits, which in turn leads to Sophie seeing him as a superficial and cowardly person. In the animated version, though, Howl disappears regularly and often because he turns into a giant bird which disrupts the battle plans of both armies. Moreover, there is a stark contrast between Sophie’s meek demeanor of an old lady and Howl’s obviously narcissistic traits: he is so beholden to his own image that the thought of losing his absurdly handsome androgynous looks is enough to send him into a life threatening spiral of depressive thoughts and gestures: “What is the point of living if you cannot be beautiful?”, he utters in sheer despair. Particularly this sulky episode is compounded by Howl’s gradual loss of his humanity which is the final result of a pact which has rendered him at once powerful and vulnerable, hiding behind disguises in an attempt to shirk responsibility and/or avoid confronting the Witch of the Waste. When he does his best to do good and contribute positively by facing the enemy in the terrible war, the cost to his humanity is greater still for, after transforming into the giant black bird, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to revert back to human form. What grasps he still has on his soul is slipping away, gradually. Finally, the depiction of the war in Howl’s Moving Castle is politically motivated and has parallels with the US-led invasion of Iraq at the time: the deeds of powerful men have ramifications for everyone and no one is free from the burden of choice in adversity.
The secondary characters in Howl’s Moving Castle serve to outline the development of the two main characters on the backdrop of war: the Witch of the Waste is a malformed old woman with too much makeup who sweats spite from her rancid pores; in blatant contrast to her malice stands Turnip Head or Kabu, the mute bouncing scarecrow who helps out around (but not in) the castle by hanging out the washing. Holding the castle together is chirpy fire-demon Calcifer, bound to Howl by a powerful magical force so that their fates, and that of the castle, are irrevocably intertwined. Completing the misfit family – for Howl’s Moving Castle is a movie which advocates finding your own family rather than relying on the one you were born into – is Markl, a wizard in training and Howl’s apprentice. Again, in comparison to the source novel, these and further secondary characters lack individuality and progression throughout the plot-line and are set as static elements to highlight the gravity of the war and the difficulty of the choices the protagonists are supposed to make in times of turmoil and uncertainty. They paint, perhaps inadvertently, the social landscape of a world in which average lives slip into the underground of history in the name of powerful, dominant human symbols.
Major Themes
There are four major themes circumscribing Howl’s Moving Castle: the first one is pacifism. Howl’s Moving Castle contains strong anti-war motives, brought forth by Miyazaki’s extremely vocal, publicly expressed distaste for the 2003 Iraq war, which he voiced even when he received the Oscar for Spirited Away, being quoted with having “had a great deal of rage about [the war]”, which led to some hesitation about the award. Identifying himself as a radical pacifist, Miyazaki created Madame Suliman as a character with exclusively sadistic motivations for creating conflict, and despite being omniscient, is unable to recognize the idiocy of the war until the very end of the story. This reflects back on Miyazaki’s own desire of revealing real-world conflicts as being somewhat arbitrary and fueled by the desires of capricious people. In Howl’s Moving Castle, the depiction of war and warfare carries an unmistakably bitter taste, being emphasized intentionally throughout the animation movie, for instance when the bustling commercial district is shown in which the soldiers in uniforms stand out obtrusively. Howl’s Moving Castle’s simplistic message that “war is bad” is transcended by the construction of its fantastic universe as not having clear-cut villains and heroes; instead, the characters are complex, and even those who are initially portrayed in a negative light, such as Howl, are shown as capable of change. Moreover, while in Howl’s Moving Castle, war is criticized purely as “a finger accusing empire as the destroyer of peace”, e.g., in the scene in which Sophie is standing in a beautiful field of flowers and is interrupted by a war machine, such a portrayal stands in strong contrast to other Miyazaki-directed animation movies such as Princess Mononoke, which displays military conflict in a more nuanced manner. One could go as far as arguing that Howl’s Moving Castle’s pure-hearted anti-war stance is presented as nihilism with no alternative as he fights forces from each side and becomes the worst terror of all in the form of the monstrous bird. By transforming into the bird, Howl risks losing his own humanity; Calcifer comments at one point that he will soon not be able to return to human form. In opposition, such heroes as Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke fight the demonic sickness with which he is afflicted, and tries to negotiate a peace between the warring sides.
The second theme is Miyazaki’s obsession with flying and the – implicit or explicit – critique of modernity: like several other Miyazaki animation movies, Howl’s Moving Castle reflects the director’s love of flying as an existential metaphor for freedom and empowerment. Aircrafts of inventive design appear throughout the animated feature and Howl frequently metamorphoses into a bird, reflecting the director’s attraction to military aircrafts since his childhood, which he then grew to abhor as he became increasingly aware of their destructive purposes. Howl’s Moving Castle contains images both of aircraft shown as harmless and beautiful, and of large military craft depicted as ugly and deadly, leading to the visual orchestration of flying as a gesture of admiration and awe without being blindsided to its abuse by unscrupulous strategists and rulers. This nuanced view of flight is part of Miyazaki’s broader critique of modern society and technology. For once, Miyazaki seems to exhibit a profound dissatisfaction with contemporary life, particularly with the effects of technology and the disconnection from nature. Many of his animation movies depict technological hubris as the root of all evil, with the battleships seen moving over the landscapes being depicted as gleaming with modernity and parading righteousness, only to be immediately shown to be fully lethal destructive. In contrast, the semi-organic “castle” demonstrates Miyazaki’s Taoist presentation of industrialism needing to be aligned with nature, while beautiful scenes often appear in brutal opposition to those containing symbols of modernity, such as the scene in which Sophie’s dream-like state is interrupted by a war machine. This ontological vision stems from a deeply ecologically driven criticism of modernity: Miyazaki strives to offer valid alternatives in the visions of beautiful natural sceneries inspired by highly idealized landscapes extracted from what might be interpreted as the typical Japanese eco-environment.
The third theme relates to old age and compassion, with the source novel shedding a relatively positive light on growing old. When Sophie is transformed into an old woman as the result of the Witch of the Waste’s spell, she suddenly feels more able and more free to speak out her mind. In a mass-media dominated world like Japan – much more so than in the Western world –, in which old(er) women are seldom allowed to appear in the spotlight and even less to dominate the narrative discourse as this happens in Howl’s Moving Castle, it seemed that the concept of the old Sophie as the main character would be a risky directorial strategy. Howl’s Moving Castle brutally disrupts the stereotype of aged unattractiveness and its related notion of ageism, when the artificially aged Sophie manages to rescue two attractive men (who come to love her) and to unintentionally end the war in her country. For once, Sophie’s actions are those usually associated with grandmothers – such as unconditional kindness, enduring gentleness, and the nurturing warmth towards others as well as engaging in housework voluntarily; in Howl’s Moving Castle, though, these actions are depicted as powerful and heroic, impactful and life-saving to those around her. One of several strong female protagonists in Miyazaki’s movies, the feminist dimension embodied by Sophie both strengthens her sense of belonging as self-affirming occupation, as when Sophie manages to make her presence in the castle legitimate by claiming to be a cleaning lady, and showcases housework as equitably distributed. Sophie is shown to overcome extreme challenges by learning to put the well-being of those she cares about above her own self-interest, which can be labelled as devotion or more generally as compassion. This preoccupation of authentically putting the needs of others ahead of one’s own without building up resentment and without losing oneself stretches beneath Howl’s Moving Castle, with several of the protagonists in Miyazaki’s animation movies throughout the decades, such as Sheeta and Pazu in Laputa: Castle in the Sky and Ashitaka and San in Princess Mononoke learning to survive by internalizing the same lesson. In Howl’s Moving Castle, this ontological attitude of compassion is displayed through the entire movie as a means to convey human beings’ ability to be compassionate, such as when the scarecrow holds an umbrella over Sophie’s during the rain and with Howl’s gradual acquiring of this ability – as Howl is indeed one of the most vain and selfish characters in Studio Ghibli’s animation production. Further examples refer to Sophie taking the Witch of the Waste in and caring for her after Madame Suliman had returned her to her true form as a decrepit old woman, despite the witch being responsible for Sophie’s curse, and the witch then nearly destroying Howl through her selfish behavior, but eventually helping save the castle at the end. Thus, in Miyazaki’s artistic balancing acts, old women can be both powerful and weak, positive and negative, nurturing and selfish, maligned and loved; in short, they cannot be simply categorized or stereotyped, and they can not be dismissed as fantasy malefactors embodied by evil witches. Old women are given a lot of space in Howl’s Moving Castle as active characters, something not commonly found in mainstream media products, in Japan and elsewhere.
Finally, change as metamorphosis is the forth major thematic structure in Howl’s Moving Castle, accomplished either through magic or through the intervention of nature: change as the only constant in the universe is a regular feature in Miyazaki’s animation movies, from the subtle oncoming of puberty in Kiki’s Delivery Service through Marco’s transformation in Porco Rosso to the multiple metamorphoses in Spirited Away. Change marks the passage of time, the pollution of the spirit and an alteration of the balance between humanity and the void. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Howl’s Moving Castle, in which Sophie is turned into an old woman magically, but it is implied that spiritually, her low self-esteem is just as much to blame for her condition. Sparkles of her youth return when asleep, when she displays confidence or when Howl takes her to his secret garden. The Witch of the Waste similarly changes: when drained of her powers, her whole physical appearance alters. Markl, Howl’s apprentice, casually dons a beard to look older while Howl himself is locked in a struggle for his soul, made manifest in the increasing difficulty he finds changing back from the monstruous bird to human and man. Howl’s world is one in which people, as a result of traps and/or curses, are turned into something they are not, often for political purposes. Even someone as powerful as Howl finds it difficult to stand up to the establishment in his struggle to aid people subjugated by the propaganda of terror. Eventually, completely returning to being simply a human being implies radical acceptance of one’s weaknesses and individual liabilities as well as the internalization of the necessity of authenticity and vulnerability in living a life of purpose and commitment.
Technical Details and the Quest for Moderate Progress
Howl’s Moving Castle is filled with images that are at the same time delightful and frightening: the Victorian-style, steam-driven cities, with their trains and mechanical cars, are supplemented by astounding flying vehicles – belching screeching animals of death. Huge battleships limp into port following defeat at sea and the skies are buzzing with their drones of war. Prowling the streets in the build-up to war are lecherous soldiers and blob men, sinister, dark shapes oozing from the walls and fulfilling the nefarious bidding of their mistress, the Witch of the Waste. Once again, there is the employment of computer-generated images amidst the predominantly cell animation. The most extensive use of computer-generated images appears with the castle itself, but the effect is subtle: it looks more like an intricate animation architecture than a computer generated picture. While Howl’s Moving Castle was produced digitally, the original backgrounds and the characters were drawn by hand and painted prior to being digitized through the scanning process. There were approximately 1.400 story-board cuts for the animation movie: Studio Ghibli employed digital technology to run many copies of the still portions of a scene, a protocol which avoids inconsistencies between various still frames, but can nonetheless convey an impression of artificiality. Therefore, the studio chose to manually retouch the digitally altered images, recreating the atmosphere of hand-drawn images.
On a different note, it might appear as if Miyazaki’s imagery was influenced by his fondness for the so-called illusion art of the 19th century Europe: Suzuki Toshio, the producer, explained that, unlike many Western media productions, in which the imagery usually goes from the general to the specific, Miyazaki employs an apparently uniquely Japanese approach, frequently beginning with a very specific image and moving outwards from there, namely, he moves from the specific towards the general. Apart from the orientalistically flavored dimension of this statement, in Howl’s Moving Castle and in other animated movies directed by Miyazaki, the focus lies on realistic imagery of fantastic artefacts, resulting in a eerily familiar yet intriguing impression.
Conclusion: Compellingly Beautiful and Ideologically Overwhelming
Howl’s Moving Castle is (probably) the most aesthetically enticing animation movie produced and released by Studio Studio, competing only with the latest animation movies directed by Shinkai Makoto 新海誠 (real name Niitsu Makoto 新津誠, born 1973) in recent years. This is obvious in the beautiful character design, the fluidity of the landscapes, the infinite care for interior architectures and their tiny details. Nevertheless, the superficiality of the plot and of the characters’ development is striking in its lack of depth and of credibility when confronted with the quotidian realities of the not-so-animated world. Displaying what might be labeled flashy popularity, Howl’s Moving Castle subtly addresses the crisis of identity in late modernity, with the preoccupation for radical pacifism leading to bitterness rather than practical solutions. This goes back, on the one hand, to the fact that Howl’s Moving Castle displays several differences from the novel, and on the other hand, to the different requirements of the two media. Diana Wynne Jones’ novel employed a very large cast of characters spanning several plot-threads which were far too complex to be transferred into an animated movie. Consequently, characters such as Sophie’s second sister Martha are left out, as is the plot-thread involving Markl (who is called Michael in the novel, and depicted as an adolescent, rather than as a young boy) courting her. The novel depicts Howl’s castle as a tall, dark and sinister wizard’s tower, very different from the eclectic, vaguely organic image in Miyazaki’s interpretation – a rotund collage of chimneys, roofs, steam pipes, and other odd appendages, borne along on mechanized bird legs and similar to Baba Yaga’s hut in the popular fairy tale –, which might be perceived as a parody of the machines portrayed in the same movie, driven both by steam-engines and by magic. Similarly, Calcifer is a demonic figure in the book, in opposition to the endearing persona and image that he presents in the animation movie. Both novel and animated feature try to render fantastic elements as mundane and ordinary things: although they are set in a fantasy universe, the characters are often shown performing routine tasks, like cooking breakfast or washing up, in contrast to the heroic actions typical of a such a setting.
As an animation movie, Howl’s Moving Castle is as eclectic and stylistically cacophonic as its trademark vaguely organic main feature, the castle itself. Sophie’ reverse shôjo features and Howl’s confused masculinity are projected on the backdrop of an extremely critical stance against war – both as a historically concrete appearance and as an abstract notion – and modulated in accordance with Miyazaki’s favorite approach to flying as a metaphor for freedom and empowerment. Compassion as a self-aware ontological attitude adds to his complex orchestration of growing old and of old age itself, more generally: a time during which wisdom replaces strength and warmth wraps up oneself and those around us with kindness rather than competitiveness. Moreover, the phenomenon of change as the only constant in the broader scheme of things is rendered visually powerful, with the director – presumably – pleading for more openness to change as well as the challenges brought forth by it instead of resisting it and therefore avoiding freshness and new beginnings in the attempt to minimize and even eliminate risks. This huge conglomerate encapsulated in one single animation work has led to critical acclaim towards Howl’s Moving Castle while simultaneously leaving audiences puzzled by the complexity of a media-production meant to entertain, after all. Miyazaki explored new directions while decisively moving back to more traditional forms of animation with the short movies for the Studio Ghibli museum, which are usually visual-auditive experiments lasting between 10 and 20 minute each, and in his next animation project Ponyo on the Cliff, a movie drawn entirely by hand.
