Howl’s Moving Castle: Book vs. Movie

Spoiler Alert!! I will be talking some endings and other spoiler-ish elements so just beware.

It’s a rare time for me to notice that I actually enjoyed an adaption over the original novel. Considering how subpar most adaptations are. I don’t talk about this much but my favourite Studio Ghibli film and romance story in general is Howls Moving Castle by Hayao Miyazaki.

Sophie resonates with me as a character and I love the idea of the basic eldest daughter running away with a wizard who’s friends with a fire demon. So in order to prolong and thicken my excitement for this story, I decided to read the book as well.

The book was good, don’t get me wrong. It’s a beautifully written, casual fantasy that’s very similar to Miyazakis’ form of ‘soft’ worldbuilding. Or ‘frolicking fantasy’ as some reviewers put it. You don’t know everything going on in the created world but in the end, it doesn’t matter. Like how we never really know what happens in the Hufflepuff dormitories. At least not until the Rowling Unnecessary Head canon Era.

Even though I enjoyed the book, it left me feeling quite deprived compared to what I had in the movie.

Advertisement

Animations are better than Live-Action. Here’s why.

After watching all kinds of mediums for long time in my life, I’ve come to the conclusion that there is a hierarchy of which mediums are the best (or most creative) for storytelling. Live-action movies and TV shows can be beautifully artistic if the right person has the creative reins. However, there are some aspects that make them third on the list of most creative mediums of storytelling. The first on this list is (probably) to no one’s surprise, books. And the second is animations. We all know that nothing can truly beat the creative freedom we’re given in books whether it’s reading or writing them. So today we’re going to talk about animations and a few reasons why it takes second place above films or TV shows.