Watching Howl's Moving Castle as an Adult

Last week I watched Howl's Moving Castle for the first time in my life. As it is an anime, people might think that the target audience is children or young adults. However, as a 22-year-old university student, I enjoyed it a lot. In fact, it was one of the movies I enjoyed the most this year.

Personally, I like fantasy films the most, but I believe that I only like fantasy when it is mixed with romance and action. In this article, I won't be talking about the film's plot and give details about the characters, but I would like to focus on the impact it had on me.

First of all, the movie talks about someone that is appreciated by everyone in a town, even though he lives afar and fights the problems that might occur in the town. Although the town knows about Howl being a shape-shifter and a wizard they still respect him.

Howl meets Sophie, and at that point, we see that the love between them is what kept me intrigued by the plot. Not only romantic love, but the relationship they have is one of a kind and the story takes such different and drastic turns. There are lots of ups and downs in the movie and this rollercoaster of emotions is what I liked the most about the movie.

While each one of my friends watched this anime when they were little, I didn't even know this movie existed. I only got acquainted with Hayao Miyazaki because I watched a documentary about him and only pieces of his works, but I knew how impactful his art was and I was aware of his talent in painting and art in general, but I did not watch most of his works. And I'm happy to finally watch Howl's, Moving Castle.

This movie was a relaxing escape from real life while it's about magic, friendships, and adventure. Even though the movie shows lots of scars on the main character throughout the movie, and it involves lots of aspects of real life; I felt like the main focus in the movie was the emotions portrayed by the characters, and how our emotions could affect our decisions. The movie isn't about visuals or incredibly, highly creative environments, but what people should get from it is the emotional environment that we experience throughout the whole movie.

I believe that when you rewatch movies from your childhood, sometimes the impact is changed, therefore I cannot say that you will definitely enjoy it the same way as your childhood experience. However, I believe that watching this movie will make you realize and think about the things you've never thought of about the movie. If you have never watched it in your childhood, I highly recommend you to check it out. This anime has become one of my favorites. It was simple, not a really complex and mind-blowing plot - which is a good thing in my opinion- and the characters are mostly sympathetic and you can empathize with them easily.