The legend of Hayao Miyazaki is something that nearly everyone who knows anything about the anime business is aware of. I personally am a fan of the Japanese creator and his marvelous works that have escalated his fame by earning him major accolades like the Academy Awards. And among those many marvels, the one that I love the most is Howl’s Moving Castle.
The film holds a special place in my heart because it combines the wonders of technology and the thrill of magic together to make a wonderful story that revolves around war. It is one of the greatest projects by Miyazaki, and the level of fame it has earned is reflected by the fact that other anime series have paid homage to it in their own way.
I recently witnessed this when I was enjoying a similar series that combined technology and magic: Arcane. It is a Netflix series that was adapted from the popular video game League of Legends and recently released its second season. The creators of Arcane found a creative way to honor Miyazaki’s legacy from Howl’s Moving Castle, which is an unfaithful adaptation itself.
The Howl’s Moving Castle reference in Arcane
Netflix’s Arcane and Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle are similar in more than one way. Aside from the mixture of technology and magic, both stories have a flying piece of land that is the center of the story. In Arcane’s case, it is the city of Piltover, which is visually elevated and feels like it is floating. In Howl’s Moving Castle, it is the castle where Howl lives.
Aside from this, one other similarity that I was able to observe was in episode 8 of Arcane Season 2, titled “Killing is a Cycle.” In the episode, when the people of Zaun and Piltover are preparing their defenses for the Hexgates, a scene shows a tailor shop with an old lady who looks a lot like Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle.
The shop had similar hats to Sophie’s, and the old lady looked exactly like Sophie when she was turned into an older woman by the witch’s curse. While it was a small reference, diehard Miyazaki fans like me would have caught it quite easily. I believe it was an homage paid to Miyazaki by the creators of Arcane considering the similarity between the two.
Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle is an unfaithful adaptation
Although Howl’s Moving Castle is considered to be one of Miyazaki’s greatest works, it is deemed an unfaithful adaptation. For those who don’t know, the movie is adapted from the 1986 novel Howl’s Moving Castle by British author Diana Wynne Jones. While the story is somewhat similar, I have found some inconsistencies and some major modifications that make them look different.
For example, the biggest change according to me was the way Sophie could phase through the witch’s curse and shift through her age. In the book, it was explained that Sophie was a witch herself, but she didn’t know about it and was unconsciously breaking the witch’s spell. However, in the movie, it depended on her emotions and the way she was feeling in the moment.
There were other modifications also, like the movie putting more emphasis on the political aspects of the story, like the war. But the Howl’s Moving Castle book is more focused on the personal growth and character development of characters like Sophie, etc. Thus, in many ways, Miyazaki’s own interpretation of Howl’s Moving Castle feels like an unfaithful adaptation.
Arcane and Howl’s Moving Castle are available to watch on Netflix.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
