Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones and the Movie Adaption Directed by Hayao Miyazaki



Title: Howl's Moving Castle
Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Junior Fiction
Rating: 4.5



 I found the book Howl’s Moving Castle at a local used book store and had to have it.  I remembered hearing about it before and it had a cool looking cover so I was in.  It was a lovely junior fiction story I would recommend to kids who want something "fun" to read or anyone else who likes a good story. 

Review:

Howl's Moving Castle is a really fast and fun, feel-good story. It is set within a magical land full of witches, wizards, curses and enchantments, royalty, and all kinds of different creatures (including a mischievous fire demon stuck in a hearth). If you like stories packed full of adventure, humor, and magic, this book is for you!

Title: Howl's Moving Caslte
Director:  Hayao Miyazaki
Rating Based on Book: 2
Rating Independent of Book: 4



   

The Movie Counterpart:

I had never seen an anime movie before watching Howl’s Moving Castle and I'm having mixed feelings about it.  I love the book so this may have prejudiced me against the movie as the movie took a lot of liberty on the plot.  This is the type of movie adaption I’m not a fan of; taking a perfectly good storyline and changing it for no apparent reason (at least no reason I could divine). Sometimes, yes changing the plot a bit is necessary because of time constraints or the ease of portraying a certain ‘feeling’ important to the book, however, this was not the case in this movie.  

I found myself asking (out loud) “What?” and “Why?” a lot through the movie and explaining to my fiancé what should be happening according to the book. (I mean no one was afraid of the scarecrow?)   Sophie’s whole family dilemma didn’t come off accurately, the Witch of the Waste was not what I expected, and Howl’s curse?! I don’t even know what that was about.

Overall, if you’re looking for a good movie representation of a wonderful book, you’ll probably be disappointed.  However, if you want to watch an animated movie (not compared to the book), it’s actually not that bad.