But before that, I'll have to get this out of the way. The world looks amazing and the atmosphere set is great. As far as visuals go Ghibli delivers again a set of stunning visuals in a world where magic exists, making everything look absolutely incredible. There was never a dull moment visually and it was truly a sight to behold. Paired up with good sound direction that was pretty fitting and these factor into making this at least worth watching for the visuals.
But that's all the praise it will get from me.
The story attempts to create a romance between two characters, created through a juxtaposition of a girl with really low self-confidence, cursed to look like a 90 year old and a wizard who's a racially pure proud aryan, with beautiful and long blonde hair and pure pristine blue eyes, probably because this world is an alternative world 10 generations in after World War 2 was fought and the aryans had won the war. As a result of their superior genes they have unlocked the hidden capacities of their bodies and are capable to use magic. At least, that's how I chose to look at it while eagerly awaiting the plot to catch up to me.
In all seriousness, she's represented as a typical girl with typical features and he's presented as a really handsome man. Which happens to be aryan.
Their relationship is supposed to be this relationship where the guy sees through the curse and helps her cope with her low confidence and she sees how wounded and how affected he is affected by all the fighting and how it changes him, with occasional changes in their appearance to represent that.
But quite frankly their relationship makes no sense or rather, the way it's portrayed doesn't. Sophie barely spends any time with him and mostly lives in the same place as he does, but suddenly falls in love with him because plot. As a matter of fact most of Howl's action are unknown or kept hidden to the residents of the castle. And when the time they've spent is so short, I can only look at her as shallow or having a mere crush at best. While Howl simply falls in love with her because she's there, to put it bluntly. Like, Howl has a woman in his home, better fall in love with her.
Which makes their relationship feel shallow. Yes, there is a definite moment, their introduction, you can see how the spark had happened but there's nothing fueling the flame. You have no idea why they've decided to close the gap between each other and why they mean so much to each other than he's hot, she's there, which makes the relationship feel really shallow and without meaning. It's one of those relationship where you fill in the blanks with the metaphors given by the movie and your thirst for handsome princes getting together with wee lasses.
To be quite frank, most character motivations are questionable or poorly explained, or simply going against their actions. Especially the villain's. You see the villain is this old witch who has trained Howl and is trying to get him to stop using his powers, but her actions directly influence him into having to use his powers. I can't explain why without giving some of the movie's plot but when the movie ends, there's a nod to her having more control over what happens in the movie than it was let on.
Most character lack consistency in their motivations and their actions aren't anywhere near rational. I understand that it's a romantic fantasy story but that does not excuse any of it. The world looks magical but that's about it. And I wish I could've had explained more about that without spoiling the movie but the villain directly enforces Howl to be what he is and the relationship presented is shallow and what to be expected from a fantasy romance. That's about the only things I can say coherently so if you're gonna decide to watch it without giving away any plot.
If you're gonna approach Howl's Moving Castle, you're gonna watch a romantic fantasy story about two people falling in love because they are there. Don't worry, the visuals will do a good job at creating visual metaphors which will be more than enough for you to fill in the gaps of their relationship and give the events meaning. Or will they? Because when your story banks mostly on that, let me make a fake extremist and possibly offensive impression of the story real quick based on the lack of information of the world and poorly explained motivations:
"Howl's a tragic tale of the corruption of racial purity where a girl, Sophie, finds the bunker of a proud aryan after he was gentle enough and willing to belittle himself by helping her. This proud aryan is a wizard, just like many aryans that have resulted out of a good chain of racially pure breeding. Sophie then meets this witch that decides to curse her for the sake of our pure noble protagonist, Howl, by making her old and giving her a big nose, a trait jews were known for, an ethnoreligious group that was first eradicated by the proud aryans in order to save the world. As a result of this shaming, Sophie runs away from her town and joins Howl's bunker, where he hangs out after his long struggle to stop the aryans from having a meaningless war that would only kill other aryans in his bird form, inspired by amazing manga, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure where the ultimate life form, Kars, transforms into a birdman too, representing even more racial supremacy from our protagonist."
You can craft anything you want. Maybe I was wrong, this is a masterpiece.
But seriously, just because your story has fantastic elements and visual clicks to point you into the right direction there should be at least a narrative thread that makes sense, a reason for the characters to desire each other. Quite frankly there are other characters of whose motivation you can understand but this is often stumped by the course of action the movie decides to take. And the visual clicks are not gonna be interpreted or be looked at the same way by most people and you could at least keep a basic semblance of what you're trying to convey with the story rather than hope it sticks. Make us understand the characters and the events rather than make us adapt the characters and events to our understanding.
Anyway, since romance is subjective and I can't give you as many details as I wish I could without ruining your experience, I'm afraid I can't be as helpful in this movie as I wished I would've been. I just hope that this was enough for you to decide if it's the type of romance you're looking for or if you're the kind of person who values artistic presence over the storytelling. It could work for you but then again, maybe it won't.
