Howl’s Moving Castle is the latest Studio Ghibli release from acclaimed Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki. Dustin and I saw the film with its original Japanese dialog and subtitles at one of the theaters here in town.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about the movie. It was as beautiful as Spirited Away and as mysterious as Princess Mononoke. Miyazaki has the incredible ability to create a modern animated film that looks like it was originally drawn decades ago during the early years of animation.. on the surface. Suddenly, though, you see the enormous amount of detail each and every scene incorporates. On animation alone I’d be tempted to say that this film surpasses Spirited Away.

It’s the story, however, that differentiates the two. While Spirited Away had a fairly straightforward plot, Howl’s Moving Castle has a plot full of twists, turns, subplots, and dead-ends. Overall it is a fairly simple story: Sofie, a young girl working in her late father’s hat shop, gets cursed by the Witch of the Waste and turns into an old woman. Sofie then sets out to find Howl to have the curse removed. I won’t give any more of the story away, as you should definitely see it yourself. I will say however, that there are plot elements that just do not seem to flow well with the rest of the movie. At some points, I was left wondering what I had missed.

This confusion led me to read the book by Diana Wynne Jones that was the basis for the movie. It is an excellent book and an easy read; I think it took me around five to six hours straight to finish it. The book differs greatly from the movie and while it does provide some useful additional information, most of the more puzzling movie scenes are not in the book at all. If you do read the book before you see the movie, don’t be surprised when the two bare little resemblance to each other.

Overall, I think I still think Spirited Away is my favorite Miyazaki film, with Howl’s Moving Castle coming in a close second. Perhaps if I see it again, or in English, I might change my mind. If you have not seen it yet, it is definitely worth the eight plus dollars of admission to see it in the theater.

The Butterfly Effect

Since Dustin and I have the Blockbuster Online service (like NetFlix), we have been watching quite a few movies, especially some we wouldn’t otherwise see. One of those movies is “The Butterfly Effect.” Let me preface the review by saying that I really like watching all types of movies: scary, dramatic, chic flicks, mindless action, I pretty much can handle it all. This movie however, is truly disturbing.

Overall, the premise of the movie sounded pretty good: relive your memories to go back into the past and change the course of the future. However, I wasn’t counting on a past quite so horrific, I guess. I watched the first ten minutes and decided I was not going to like the movie. In fact, I started surfing on my laptop soon after, but even that was not enough to block the movie out.

While I like being scared or held in suspense by a movie, this movie actually made me feel uncomfortable. It wasn’t just about being scared, it was actually the feeling that what I was watching was wrong. Even watching the guy take a drill to his head in “Pi” did not have the same effect as watching this movie. Maybe the fact that most of the horrible events were happening to children is what set this movie apart, but whatever it was, it’s not an experience I would like to repeat. So, if you haven’t seen it, my recommendation is to not waste your time or money. If you have seen it, let me know what you thought.

The Inuyasha Movie Experience

Yes, experience. Viz had free showings of the first Inuyasha movie in theaters across the country. Dallas happened to be one of the lucky places to get the movie. So, since we had been planning a trip to Dallas anyway, we went. The movie was ok, I’d seen it before and I still don’t like the English dub, but the experience is a toss up between hilarious and very, very scary.

The movie started at 10 and it said to get there early. We arrived around 8 and quite a few people were already there. Some were in cosplay, some in Inuyasha teeshirts, and some carrying around little stuffed Kirara’s. There were lots of kids (middle school, maybe), with their moms. Lot’s of girls with high pitched voices. Heck, probably lots of guys with high pitched voices, it was hard to tell.

So, after Dustin and I played our Gameboys for two hours, it began. First, loud screaming welcomed any main character onto the screen. Then, especially loud female screaming welcomed Sesshoumaru any time a glimpse of him was seen. Then, four guys decided to be narrators and would scream out the Japanese attack names over the English dubs. I thought that was pretty funny, but apparently some other people did not, judging by the number of “Shut the hell up!” yells that followed their narration. I mean, really, “Backlash wave” is a pretty lame translation of “Bakuryuuha” even though it’s probably close to literal. Just watch the movie and wait for the building music and booming attack noises while the English voice actor is screaming “BACKLASH WAVE” and you’ll see what I mean.

The obligatory booing and hissing accompanied Kikyou any time she decided to make an appearance and a round of aaahhhs was in order for Rin. Overall, the experience was ten times better than the movie would have been by itself. At least now I know that I’m not the craziest Inuyasha fan out there.

Evil Plot to Steal Your Money

No, it’s not my evil plot to steal your money, although that would be good too. It’s the plot of the movie, gaming, and anime empire to suck you dry as quickly as possible. It seems that the cosmos have aligned and everyone wants an even larger chunk of your money this month.

Gaming

If you own an Xbox and you haven’t been living in a hole for the past, oh… say… couple of years, then you have heard of Fable. In fact, it’s only slightly behind Halo2 in the “uber hyped game that isn’t coming out for two years but we want you to want to buy it RIGHT NOW” category. Luckily, Fable does have some experience to back up all the hype–after all, Lionhead Studios is involved and their previous game, Black & White, incorporated some of the basic “good and evil” elements that are such a big part of Fable. Since I’ve been avoiding the hype as much as possible, I can’t actually write a “review” of the game, so you’ll just have to check it out for yourself. Fable is available September 14 and can be pre-ordered from Amazon.com or anywhere else that sells games.

Anime

Ah yes, the anime industry. While they continuously try to suck you dry by charging $25 for 3 episodes, this month is even worse. On Tuesday, September 7th, Viz is releasing the first InuYasha movie, Affections Touching Across Time. They are also releasing the first season in a box set which includes episodes 1 – 27 on five DVDs. It’s available in a normal set or a limited edition set with an “InuYasha fang necklace,” which if I see anyone wearing outside of an anime convention, will probably kill me from laughing too hard. You have been warned.

For those of you who were fans of Chrno Crusade, the first US released DVD is coming out September 21, with the name Chrono Crusade. I’m still not sure why they needed the extra “o.” It’s available as a single DVD or with an art box to hold the rest of the series. I’m not sure how many episodes are on the DVD, but with a running time of 100 minutes, it’s either three or four, which means the series is going to be about eight DVDs long. Which, of course, brings us right back to the “wow that’s a lot of money for 24 measly episodes that I already have, and have watched, fansubbed from when it was airing in Japan.”

Movies

I’m sure that there are those of you reading this post from your campsite in front of your favorite DVD retailer, just because you are that cool. Well, that and the Star Wars trilogy is coming to DVD this month. Everyone knows that anything Star Wars induces geeks everywhere to give up showering to go camp out somewhere. Well, maybe they’re not really giving up showering–you have to have something to begin with in order to give it up… *grin*  All kidding aside (yes, I was kidding), Star Wars is finally coming out on DVD on the 21st of this month. If you don’t know what Star Wars is, then slowly back away from your computer and run screaming to your nearest geek friend to get educated. If you don’t have any geek friends… well I just feel very, very sorry for you.

That about wraps it up. I’m sure there are plenty of other things coming out that I am going to want to buy, but I decided to stop looking. I mean jeez, I have student loans to pay…

*Many of the links in this post link to Amazon. Yes, I am an Amazon affiliate. Yes, I will get a small amount of money if you click the link and then buy something. Yes, you may be able to find it cheaper elsewhere. Yes, I encourage you to shop around, in fact I recommend RightStuf.com for anime (no, I am not an affiliate there). RightStuf looks a little rough, but actually they are totally legit and have pretty good prices, especially check the weekly specials.