Howl seems to believe they’re meeting for the first time. Sophie is stunned that the notorious Wizard Howl is barely older than she is. Howl is vaguely impressed that Sophie has managed to control Calcifer. With the lushness of the animation (specifically that scrumptious-looking Ghibli food), it’s a scene that immediately defines Howl and Sophie in this new setting. The morning after Sophie stumbles upon the castle, for instance, and manages to get Calcifer to cook breakfast, is almost a line-by-line re-creation of the book moment. The movie doesn’t entirely deviate from the novel, but the scenes it chooses to exactly recreate are deliberate. Image: Studio Ghibli/GKids The movie follows the book - except when it doesn’t The Studio Ghibli version of Howl’s Moving Castle understands the strengths and weaknesses that come with an animated movie and makes changes accordingly, shifting the tone of the story, but never losing the magic. The book is droll and witty, a testament to Jones’ sharp prose the movie is gentle and graceful, a hallmark of Miyazaki’s filmmaking. The book, however, deals more with the fallout of his various love affairs, trips to our world, and cursed English homework. The Witch of the Waste is defanged as an enemy early on.

Howl turns into a monstrous bird-creature to try to stop it. But almost every detail of the Studio Ghibli movie diverges from the book. The basic storyline of Howl’s Moving Castle remains the same in both versions: mild-mannered teenager Sophie gets transformed into an old lady by the envious Witch of the Waste, and meets the flamboyant wizard Howl and his wisecracking fire demon Calcifer. While they tell the same story, more or less, they tell it in starkly different ways - but the storytelling methods preserve the brilliance of both versions. The book’s sharp, wry storytelling has little in common with the film’s sweet sincerity. The movie creates such a lush, vibrant visual story that coming across the source material, Diana Wynne Jones’ 1986 fantasy novel, might be jarring. įans of Studio Ghibli’s animated feature Howl’s Moving Castle might be surprised to learn that in the original book, the castle isn’t a walking steampunk contraption, it’s a more stereotypically windy medieval fixture that just happens to have doors leading to different cities. Read all of the stories on our Ghibli Guide page. With Studio Ghibli’s library now on digital and streaming services, we’ve surveyed the studio’s history, impact, and biggest themes.

Wizard howl howl's moving castle