Howl's Moving Castle Trivia
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50 free Howl's Moving Castle trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Howl's Moving Castle began when a schoolboy asked Diana Wynne Jones to write a book called The Moving Castle, and it became Hayao Miyazaki's answer to the Iraq War — a film he expected America to dislike, which instead earned an Oscar nomination and $236 million worldwide. Along the way it gave us a fire demon voiced by Billy Crystal, a castle on chicken legs and a heroine who finds freedom in old age. These 50 questions cover the film's plot and production — Sophie's curse, Calcifer's bargain, Turnip Head, Madame Suliman, Howl's aliases, the Venice premiere, Joe Hisaishi's score, the Alsace research trip and the director who quit before Miyazaki took over — plus the English voice cast and the novel it loosely follows, with its Welsh wizard, the kingdom of Ingary and a very different Miss Angorian. Easy questions stick to the characters everyone remembers; the hard tier asks about storyboard counts, awards and the book's sequels. Every answer is cited to a page we checked, with a short explanation that adds one more detail.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In Howl's Moving Castle, what is the wizard Howl rumoured to do to beautiful girls?
Eat their hearts
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.
Q 02What does a despairing Howl cover himself in after his hair turns the wrong colour?
Green slime
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.
Q 03What is Sophie's trade at the start of Howl's Moving Castle?
Milliner
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.
Q 04What is Sophie unable to do once the Witch transforms her?
Reveal the spell
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.
Q 05What kind of being is Calcifer?
A fire demon
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.
Q 06What name does Sophie give the living scarecrow she meets?
Turnip Head
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.
Q 07What is the name of Howl's young apprentice in the film?
Markl
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.
Q 08What job does Sophie claim Calcifer has hired her for?
Cleaning lady
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.
Q 09What deal does Calcifer offer Sophie?
Free him, he lifts her curse
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.
Q 10Under what pretense does Howl send Sophie to see the King?
As his mother
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.
Q 11In the film Howl's Moving Castle, who is the King's head sorceress?
Suliman
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.
Q 12In Howl's Moving Castle, what is the name of the palace dog who joins Sophie's household?
Heen
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.
Q 13In Howl's Moving Castle, what are Jenkins and Pendragon?
Howl's two aliases
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.
Q 21Which science-fiction writing award did Howl's Moving Castle win for its script?
A Nebula
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.
Q 22Which Japanese film company released Howl's Moving Castle at home, where it earned about $190 million?
Toho
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.
Q 23By 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
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.
Q 14What does Howl transform into to interfere with the war?
A giant bird
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.
Q 15What does Sophie see a young Howl catch and give his heart to?
A falling star
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.
Q 16What remains changed about Sophie after her curse is broken?
Her hair stays silver
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.
Q 17In Howl's Moving Castle, what breaks the scarecrow's curse?
A kiss from his true love
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.
Q 18Which real-world conflict fueled the anti-war themes of Howl's Moving Castle?
The Iraq War
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.
Q 19At which festival did Howl's Moving Castle premiere in September 2004?
Venice
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.
Q 20Which film beat Howl's Moving Castle to the Best Animated Feature Oscar in 2006?
Wallace & Gromit
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.
Q 24Which Pixar director co-directed the English dub of Howl's Moving Castle?
Pete Docter
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.
Q 25Who voices Howl in the English dub?
Christian Bale
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.
Q 26Who voices Calcifer in the English dub?
Billy Crystal
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!'
Q 27Which Hollywood legend voices the Witch of the Waste in English?
Lauren Bacall
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.
Q 28Who voices the older Sophie in the English version?
Jean Simmons
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.
Q 29Which future Hunger Games star voices Howl's young apprentice in the English dub?
Josh Hutcherson
Josh Hutcherson, then 12, recorded the whole part in about eight hours, because he was in Los Angeles for a single day.
Q 30Who composed the score of Howl's Moving Castle?
Joe Hisaishi
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.