Howl’s Moving Castle anime review

Howl’s Moving Castle was not quite as nonsensical as Tales from Earthsea, but it was just as boring. No, even more so.

What’s so good about Howl except his good looks?

And why did the movie have to drag on so long? It just meanders aimlessly from one event to another, then the climax scene where Sophie goes back into the past comes out of nowhere, then bam, happy ending.

Long. Boring. Annoying. Massive waste of time. Full of pointless characters and events. Seems it was based on a book, so Miyazaki felt the need to force things in where they didn’t belong, e.g. Sophie’s sister Lettie, Sophie’s mom barging her way in to see them and crap like that which could have been done away with for tighter storytelling.

The moral of the story: every problem can be solved by a kiss from a cute girl. Also girls don’t want to be hatters, they want to be housewives. And old ladies are useless, which is why even when a girl is under a spell that turns her old, when it’s time to do anything worthwhile, she’ll magically transform back into a younger stronger form without any explanation.

The war parts really don’t make any sense. And seriously, how does Howl and Sophie falling in love prompt Madame Sullivan to call off the war? Why were they fighting in the first place? What’s Howl doing up there all the time anyway? It feels like Miyazaki shoe-horned some anti-war propaganda into a story that originally had nothing to do with war, but I wouldn’t know without reading the original. Anyway, love conquers all, including stuff it has nothing to do with. Medetashi medetashi.

Calcifer was cute though.

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