50 Fun Facts About Howl's Moving Castle

In Howl's Moving Castle, what is the wizard Howl rumoured to do to beautiful girls?

Eat their hearts. When her sister warns her about him, Sophie shrugs it off: she doesn't think she is pretty enough for Howl to bother with.

What does a despairing Howl cover himself in after his hair turns the wrong colour?

Green slime. Wailing that he sees no point in living if he can't be beautiful, Howl calls up spirits of darkness and oozes it all over himself.

What is Sophie's trade at the start of Howl's Moving Castle?

Milliner: Sophie makes hats in her family's shop, where the Witch of the Waste sneers that the hats are tacky and Sophie the tackiest thing in the place, then curses her.

What is Sophie unable to do once the Witch transforms her?

Reveal the spell is the one thing the curse forbids, and the Witch gloats that this is the best part of it. Calcifer still spots the curse for himself as soon as Sophie meets him.

What kind of being is Calcifer?

A fire demon: Calcifer powers and moves the whole castle from its hearth, so when Sophie lifts him out of the fireplace the building falls apart.

What name does Sophie give the living scarecrow she meets?

Turnip Head has a turnip for a head, hence the name. Sophie pulls him out of a bush, he follows her and guides her to Howl's castle, and he turns out to be a missing prince under a spell.

What is the name of Howl's young apprentice in the film?

Markl is a small boy who pulls on a magic cloak to look like a bearded old man whenever customers knock. In the novel the apprentice is a 15-year-old called Michael.

What job does Sophie claim Calcifer has hired her for?

Cleaning lady: Sophie makes the job up on the spot when Howl finds her at his hearth, then scrubs so thoroughly that she muddles the potions he uses on his hair.

What deal does Calcifer offer Sophie?

Free him, he lifts her curse: that is the bargain, with a catch. Sophie has to figure out for herself what binds Calcifer to Howl before she can break it.

Under what pretense does Howl send Sophie to see the King?

As his mother: Howl is summoned to fight in the war, so he sends Sophie to tell the King that her 'son' is too much of a coward to be any use.

In the film Howl's Moving Castle, who is the King's head sorceress?

Suliman rules the palace's magic and drains the Witch of the Waste of her powers. In the novel Suliman is a man, the King's royal wizard, and has gone missing.

In Howl's Moving Castle, what is the name of the palace dog who joins Sophie's household?

Heen is the wheezing dog who jumps aboard as Sophie flees the palace. He is meant to be his mistress's spy, yet at the end he simply shows her the household's happy ending.

In Howl's Moving Castle, what are Jenkins and Pendragon?

Howl's two aliases front his magic doors in two towns, Wizard Jenkins in Porthaven and Wizard Pendragon in the capital, and the palace sends troops to both to flush him out.

What does Howl transform into to interfere with the war?

A giant bird: Howl flies out in that shape to harry both sides in the war, and every change makes it harder for him to turn back into a man.

What does Sophie see a young Howl catch and give his heart to?

A falling star: it is Calcifer, which is why the note the Witch burns into Howl's table calls him the heartless man who swallowed one.

What remains changed about Sophie after her curse is broken?

Her hair stays silver. Miyazaki told interviewers that the happy ending isn't the girl turning young again, and that he didn't want growing old to look like such a bad thing.

In Howl's Moving Castle, what breaks the scarecrow's curse?

A kiss from his true love: Sophie kisses his cheek and he is a prince again. Seeing that her heart is Howl's, he goes home to call off the war.

Which real-world conflict fueled the anti-war themes of Howl's Moving Castle?

The Iraq War began just as Miyazaki started work. He said he had 'a great deal of rage' about it and that the film was 'profoundly affected' by it.

At which festival did Howl's Moving Castle premiere in September 2004?

Venice hosted the world premiere. The film had been promised to Japanese cinemas that summer, but it ran late and did not open at home until 20 November.

Which film beat Howl's Moving Castle to the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2006?

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit won. The weekend it topped the US box office, a warehouse fire destroyed most of its studio's 30-year archive of sets and models.

Which science-fiction writing award did Howl's Moving Castle win for its script?

A Nebula, the prize science fiction and fantasy writers vote on themselves, went to Miyazaki's script ahead of Batman Begins and an episode of Doctor Who.

Which Japanese film company released Howl's Moving Castle at home, where it earned about $190 million?

Toho released it, and Japan supplied about four-fifths of the film's worldwide takings. Its first run in American cinemas brought in under $5 million.

By the end of its 2004–05 run, which was the only Japanese film to have out-earned Howl's Moving Castle in Japan?

Spirited Away. Howl's run pushed Princess Mononoke into third place, so for a time the three biggest Japanese films at home were all Miyazaki's.

Which Pixar director co-directed the English dub of Howl's Moving Castle?

Pete Docter took the job while he was developing Up, his own film with an elderly lead, and said it let him watch how Miyazaki handled similar material.

Who voices Howl in the English dub?

Christian Bale was so taken with Miyazaki's previous film that he reportedly offered to voice any part in the next one, and was handed the lead.

Who voices Calcifer in the English dub?

Billy Crystal gets the dub's sulkiest lines: when Sophie plants a frying pan on Calcifer, he snaps, 'Here's another curse for you: may all your bacon burn!'

Which Hollywood legend voices the Witch of the Waste in English?

Lauren Bacall won Miyazaki's approval: he called her 'a fabulous woman' who gave the Witch something Japan's voice actresses, 'very coquettish' in his words, could not.

Who voices the older Sophie in the English version?

Jean Simmons plays the aged Sophie and Emily Mortimer the young one. The Japanese version needed no such split: Chieko Baisho, then 63, voices her at every age.

Which future Hunger Games star voices Howl's young apprentice in the English dub?

Josh Hutcherson, then 12, recorded the whole part in about eight hours, because he was in Los Angeles for a single day.

Who composed the score of Howl's Moving Castle?

Joe Hisaishi's music arrived before the film did: an album of themes written from the storyboards came out in January 2004, ten months ahead of the Japanese opening.

What is the title of the main theme of Howl's Moving Castle?

Merry-Go-Round of Life opens the film and comes back under the end credits, right after the theme song, which Sophie's Japanese voice, Chieko Baisho, sings herself.

Which region of France did Miyazaki visit to study architecture for Howl's Moving Castle?

Alsace: Miyazaki went to the towns of Colmar and Riquewihr, and Sophie's home town on screen is modelled on Colmar.

Which director was originally chosen to helm Howl's Moving Castle before Miyazaki took over?

Mamoru Hosoda left in 2002, reportedly after failing to find a concept Ghibli would accept; other accounts say he was fired. The project sat in limbo until Miyazaki decided to direct it himself.

Which other Ghibli film was announced alongside Howl's Moving Castle in 2001?

The Cat Returns reached cinemas the very next year. Howl lost its first director along the way and did not follow until late 2004.

What does Sophie give Calcifer so that he can get a piece of the wrecked castle moving again?

Her braid. Calcifer swallows it, sets a scrap of the castle walking again and crows about what he could do with her eyes or her heart.

Howl's castle has been compared to whose hut from folklore?

Baba Yaga's hut stands on chicken legs in Slavic tales. Miyazaki weighed warrior legs and human feet for his castle before declaring, 'Let's go with chicken feet!'

Which real-world country does Howl come from in the novel?

Wales: one setting of the castle door opens on a modern Welsh suburb, where the feared wizard is plain Uncle Howell to his niece and a layabout to his sister.

What is the name of the kingdom where the novel Howl's Moving Castle is set?

Ingary runs on fairy-tale rules, which is why Sophie, the eldest of three sisters, takes it for granted that she will be the one who fails.

In the novel Howl's Moving Castle, what magical ability does Sophie unknowingly possess?

Talking life into objects: a scarecrow Sophie wishes luck on the road gets up and follows her, and a suit she mutters over while mending starts charming women.

Which sister of Sophie's does the film of Howl's Moving Castle leave out?

Martha, the youngest, uses a spell to swap places with Lettie and is courted by Howl's apprentice. The film keeps Lettie and drops Martha's whole storyline.

Howl's curse in the novel falls due on which day?

Midsummer Day, when Howl turns 10,000 days old, which makes him 27; he spends the night before getting drunk at a rugby club reunion.

In the novel Howl's Moving Castle, what would prove to Michael that Howl is truly in love?

He skips his bathroom primping: Michael says the day Howl forgets his hour in front of the mirror is the day he will believe it, and Howl turns up to rescue Sophie unshaven.

In the novel Howl's Moving Castle, who is Miss Angorian really?

The Witch's own demon wears the schoolteacher's shape to get at Howl's heart, and by the end it is the demon, not the Witch, who is in charge.

What is the title of the first sequel to the novel Howl's Moving Castle?

Castle in the Air follows a young carpet merchant through an Arabian Nights adventure. Howl's household is in it too, but in disguise: Sophie spends much of the book as a cat.

Which prize did the novel Howl's Moving Castle win twenty years after it was published?

The Phoenix Award goes to a children's book from twenty years earlier that won no major prize in its day, hence the bird reborn from its ashes. Jones's novel took it in 2006.

Who gave Diana Wynne Jones the idea for Howl's Moving Castle, by her own account?

A boy at a school visit asked her to write about a castle that moved. She wrote his name down, lost the note and could only thank him anonymously in the book.

Diana Wynne Jones attended lectures by which two famous authors at Oxford?

Lewis and Tolkien: by her account C. S. Lewis held a packed hall spellbound, while J. R. R. Tolkien mumbled into the blackboard at a handful of students.

How did Diana Wynne Jones describe her own role in the film of Howl's Moving Castle?

She had no input, she said: 'I write books, not films.' Miyazaki still travelled to England in 2004 to show her the finished film at a private screening.

Which fashion house released a Howl's Moving Castle merchandise line in 2023?

Loewe, the Spanish luxury house, had already made capsule collections for two other Miyazaki films, and its Howl line included a handbag pieced together like the castle.

Which critic called Howl's Moving Castle a 'disappointment' and gave it two and a half stars?

Roger Ebert wrote that he had settled into his seat expecting another treasure from 'the most creative animator in the history of the art form'. 'But it was not to be.'