bloody awful

Rating: 1/10 (11 July 2005)

Look. I don't care how good the animation is, Howl's Moving Castle was never meant for anime. I loved that book, and it breaks my heart to see Howl and Sophie reincarnated as huge-mouthed, spiky-haired Hauru and Sofi. Howl's castle looks like an evil, potbellied stove on legs. And I'm sorry, but Calcifer is not a friendly little orange glow with big eyes. It's not just the anime, because the humor in the book is fundamentally very dry and British. It's bad enough that some of my other favorite books as a child were ravaged by their remaking (Ella Enchanted, anyone?), but ANIME! Miyazaki should stick to Totoro and Kiki and keep his paws off decent books.