Howl's Moving Castle

This weekend I caught Hayao Miyazaki’s new film Howl’s Moving Castle. For those who haven’t heard about it, here is a brief description I pulled from Anime News Network:

A plain young hatter named Sophie has her life changed when an evil witch transforms her into an old woman. Unable to face her family in such a condition, Sophie runs away in search of a way to become young again. Along the way, Sophie helps a turnip headed scarecrow, who repays her by leading her to the moving castle owned by the dreaded wizard Howl. There she befriends Howl's apprentice Markl, Howl's fire demon Calcifer, and eventually, Howl himself. Sophie then becomes the castle's cleaning lady in an effort to not only find the solution to her problem but to save Howl from his own terrible secrets as well.

It has a lot of the classic Miyazaki motifs we’ve seen in his other films, yet still remains fresh, compelling and endearing. I think this is because of his amazing storytelling ability backed by a redunkulous Studio Ghibli crew. The blend of digital and traditional animation is really tastefully done as well.

Don’t take my word for it. Check out the trailer here!

After the movie, I heard a couple of disgruntled gomers complain behind me that it wasn’t Miyazaki’s “best” work for which I can only reply: It's better than......(insert any crappy American animated movie here).