Howl's Moving Castle - Limited Edition Steelbook [Blu-ray + DVD]

Bought as a gift for my autistic son . He was very pleased with it . Says it works great and was well made. Happy son , happy life.

Fantastic detailed animation. English dubbing is top notch. Steelbook looks nice, and as is the case for all the movies in this series: "limited" to one billion copies!

If you are a fan of Studio Ghibli don't sleep on this purchase. Great price for a classic. Plenty of extras and it looks amazing as expected.

Like a vivid dream, Miyazaki's film presents an alternate world for children of all ages. For more mature viewers, however, his works represent the complex realities we face here and now in this cruel, yet beautiful world. Howl's Moving Castle will take us on a journey of moral quest to confront unnecessary and destructive wars that make us victims of, and collaborators with, terror at one and the same time. If our children can handle such serious subjects as war, justice and humanity, so must we.Miyazaki tells us that we are not what we seem to be. Howl is a handsome young man who looks like a dashing rock star and behaves like a flamboyant prince. Nevertheless, he is a wizard. Yet, unlike other wizards, he no longer works for the Palace, and when night falls, he turns into a black monster bird, flying across the sky to intercept a massive bomber formation over defenseless cities burning in flames. Howl spreads his wings and tries to catch bombs in the air, but all he can do is to neutralize a few bombs out of thousands. Thus, he goes to war each day, knowing in advance that he will fail. Which one of his multiple characters is truer than the other ones? Is any one aspect of his as true as any other?Sophie, a 19-year-old girl, is turned into a 90-year-old woman by the Witch of the Waste Land because she attracts the attention of Howl whom the Witch desires for herself, secretly envious of his youth and beauty. Is this a curse by a jealous witch, or does it merely mirror the lost heart of Sophie who does not know what she is to become, having resigned herself to a drab life in her family's hat shop? If the latter is the case, what can she do to break the spell? So, she sets off on an adventure to discover herself.Not even the Witch, an elaborately dressed dowager, is immune to power. When she is called to the Palace, she kowtows to authority and transforms herself into a helpless old woman, going up a flight of steep stairs that lead to a majestic chamber. It has been a long time since the ancient oral traditions she represents were annihilated and subjugated by nation-states in the age of modernization.Calcifer, a cantankerous fire demon, is supposed to be a free being in the universe, but he is under a contract to Howl, so he is kept in a small fireplace to generate energy for the moving castle. When more energy is needed for the castle in crisis, Sophie offers a lock of her hair to Calcifer who then says, "If you give me your soul, I will be able to produce unimaginable amounts of energy." Perhaps, the wizards at the Palace who are in charge of inventing all the machines, warplanes, tanks, bombs, and missiles, have given up their souls to Calcifer to develop nuclear weapons.As citizens of nations with industrial democracies which uphold a single economic model, namely extreme capitalism unleashed by neo-liberal shock treatments in the era of corporate globalization, we have no faces, no voices, and no names. Here we have Miyazaki's invitation to take off on a magical journey, together with Sophie and Howl, to search for the infinite possibilities that dwell in each one of us. It will be as hard an adventure as anyone can undertake in the mysterious frontier of the human mind, as valuable an experience as dreams that would not cease to inspire us, and as easy a task as remembering once again our own names.Peace,Kazuki Anno, Translators United for Peace

Among Hayao Miyazaki's filmed works, Howl's Moving Castle is one of the least easy stories to grasp, or to understand its final goal...even if we get there despite everything.This film was a huge success in Japan, while in America it was a polite recognition from the public and critics. We can compare this strange plot to that (Oscar-winning) of The Boy and the Heron. Or even, in certain aspects, to the misadventures of a young girl in Spirited Away, another Oscar-winning strange world.So why didn't this Howl's Moving Castle have the same success among Westerners?Maybe we don't like seeing young people aging so quickly. Who knows? Not easy to answer. So maybe we should give it a second chance thanks to blu-ray?

If you thought the art design was beautiful in Spirited Away (and it is, of course), then you must see Howl's Moving Castle. The art design in this film is singular and absolutely breathtaking. It looks not just realistic, but almost three-dimensional, and actually glows with a romantic depth I've not seen in any other film, either live-action or animated. This film simply looks gorgeous.When it comes to the films of Miyazaki, I never watch the English dubbed versions. I've seen several of them and they are all pathetic garbage. The English-speaking actors always get it wrong -- always. Therefore, I always go to the original, Japanese version and just turn on the subtitles. Now, a word about the subtitles in these Prime versions of Miyazaki's films on Amazon. The pull-down menu for the sound doesn't actually say "subtitles"; it says, rather, "English CC", which is supposed to mean closed captioned. However, it is not. It is supposed to say "subtitled" because this is what it is. I'm not complaining. Subtitles are always preferable to closed captioning, with all those annoying stage directions and such. The problem is with Amazon, who, rather than stating that they are "subtitles", insists upon stating that they are English CC (closed captioned). Of course, this makes no sense, but what can we expect from Amazon. I'm just thankful they are actually subtitles. What's more, they appear to be the original translation from the DVD I remember from several years ago.The film itself is an astonishing work of animation. Everything just seems perfect, beautiful, with nothing out of place. And the weird twist of what happens to the lead character is at once funny and horrifying. The characters, even the non-human ones, are all fleshed out perfectly. You genuinely care about them all, even "Calcifer", the little snot.It should be noted that the original story was not Miyazaki's. Usually, he writes his own original stories. This time, he did not. But the source material is absolutely charming and Miyazaki works with it in his typically masterful way, bringing everything to vivid life. The original novel was written by the British novelist, Diana Wynne Jones, who has served as the inspiration for many of the most famous of the contemporary novelist of the day. She won more than a dozen influential literary awards, all well-deserved.For all these reasons, I have again broken my own rule and gave this film 5 stars. If you have not seen it, you are missing a stunning film, one that will delight the eye and tug (gently but firmly) on your heart. It is one of those films that I classify more as an experience, one that stays with you long after you've watched it, probably even continuing to pull at your heart for a very long time to come.