Howl's Moving Castle & The Cat Returns: Political Echoes and Feline Shenanigans

We're on a roll with these double features when it comes to the Studio Ghibli movies , but this time let's talk about Howl's Moving Castle , and since this is Sebby Phantom's favorite Movie out of the Studio Ghibli movies maybe favorite movie Of all time , I don't know . You know what I'm just gonna go ahead and let her lead on this review .

So , sebby , if you don't mind , take it away .

But the main plot is that Sophie she's a hatter and the eldest of three sisters she encounters a wizard named Al on her way to visit her sister Letty . Upon returning home , she meets the witch of the ways that turns into a 90 year old woman .

To try and to break the curse , she sets off on an adventure through the countryside , meeting a living scarecrow who she calls Turnip Head , because she doesn't really like turnips , which ends up leading her to Howl's Moving Castle . She enters and , of course , she meets the amazing and powerful fire demonine Calcifer .

Sophie then announces that she's going to be hiring herself as the Cleaning lady and decides that she's going to make herself Breakfast for her and Markle . Meanwhile , sophie's nation is caught into a war with the Neighboring kingdom , which is searching for their missing prince .

The king summons Hal to fight and Hal decides to send Sophie to the king under the pretense that she's his mother , and she tells that Hal's way too much of a coward . And she meets Solomon , the king's head sorceress and also the witch of the waste also comes to visit Solomon as well .

Solomon punishes the Witch of the Waste by draining her and turning her into a very arably woman . And of course , solomon quickly finds out that this is not House Mother , but in fact Sophie .

As they continue on , she finds out that Hal has two different Aliases , which is Jenkins and Pendragon , which of course you know the door With the magic little Little door and allows you to go into Different parts of the area area kind of like a portal selection function type thing correct .

Right , there's , like I said , there's the one where pendragon's from jenkins , then there's the black void and then there's just the outside where the house castle's , just walking around . Um , sophie then finds out that the reason why Calcifer and how are so close together is because Calcifer and how made a deal and he doesn't have a heart . Calcifer has it .

Later on they found out that the town , sophie's town , is going to be bombed by enemy aircraft and Solomon's henchmen start to attack the house and Sophie's hat shop . Hal goes out to protect the group and then , once she realizes that everyone needs to get out of the house , she removes Calcifer , which collapses .

The castle , the Witch of the Waste , realizes that Calcifer has Hal's heart and decides to grab the fire demon setting , setting herself on fire . In a panic yeah , in a panic Sophie decides to pour water on the witch and , unfortunately , douses Calcifer . Sophie ends up Falling into a chasm and being separated from the group , leaving her and the dog Keen .

Following the charmed ring that how gave her during the escape from solomon . Sophie wanders into a scene from the past , finding a young hal catching a falling star which would be considered calcifer , and gives him his heart , and , of course , sophie calls for him to find a way to the future and is quickly teleported back .

Um , after she decides to get back , the witch returns hal's heart , placing it back inside hal and reviving him and freeing calcifer , even though , of course , calcifer decides to stay anyway . Um , after kissing turnip head , he turns back to his human form . Who somehow guess what ? He's the missing prince from the enemy kingdom .

And of course he reveals that only a true love kiss can break his curse . Of course he promptly heads home to cease the war and solomon watches through the crystal globe and decides to also end the war as well . And of course , at the end the castle soars away and Hal and Sophie kisses on the castle balcony .

I'm not sure my bad the movies where it seemed like they're perfectly imperfect , like you can tell that they have some flaws , but also it's like it's fair to have those flaws , like say , for instance , like with sophie .

The one thing that kind of weirded me out is how sometimes she had like she had like 88 seats where she just wanders off for no fucking reason . I'm like , okay , somebody put this lady on a leash . But uh , outside of that , bro , okay .

Also I I was kind of getting confused as hell when it seemed like she kept slipping from going from old to young and I'm like , okay , you need to pick a lane lady pick an age yeah , now that's all I got for sophie . How okay he had me in the first half , not gonna lie like I mean ultimately I still like how .

But it's more like he just seemed like such a cool guy at first , you know , when he had his blonde hair , whatnot . But as soon as Sophie rearranges uh , potions or shampoo , whatever you want to call it in his bathroom and it's like , oh no , my hair turned orange . I told me why'd you do this to me ? I'm like , oh , I thought I was helping .

I'm like , no , you ruined it . I'm not beautiful anymore , I don't deserve to live anymore . And then the castle started crumbling . I'm like , bro , you are being a real drama queen . I'm like you just shattered the illusion for me . I thought you were cool . No , no , no , he's all right . But I was like , hey , yo , and that's another thing .

Man Calisopher said that , oh well , he was like this too when a girl broke his heart . I'm like , really , really , you just going to break down that . You just going to fold that easily over little shit . Like , I'm sorry , but bro , get together .

But outside of that , I also like how he reminds me of Irregular at Magic High School , to where in that anime , essentially , kids are going to school to you know , master their magic and whatnot , but the overarching theme is that the government wants to use these children to fight their wars . To use these children to fight their wars .

And you could say that , uh , in this film , I like how , when this film was being produced , miyazaki made it very clear that he was anti-war , especially with the iraq war going on in 2003 or so . Uh , it's like anti-war propaganda here and I'm digging it .

But also there's a matter of it's exploring the theme of old age , uh , and how you can like be positive about it . You know , like it kind of grants sophie a little freedom in that aspect . Uh , it's about feminism elements . It has , um , messages about compassion .

It also challenges , uh , class and gender norms , uh , focusing on love and personal loyalty , the destructive effects of war . Honestly , I dare say that this is the most ghibli movie of all the ghibli . They just had a little bit of everything where it's like we were talking about .

My neighbor told her how it's like the most coziest or it's like the most simple , and then spirit of the way just kind of felt like , okay , it had a little bit more sauce behind , uh , that simple premise that it had , where it's like , okay , they're just visiting this temple and that's you know . Uh , chihiro got swept into all that bullshit .

But uh , I dare say that this is the most ghibli , because even though when it slows down it's like , okay , they're cooking food or how's just in this cozy ass bed or they're just chilling in one of the realms that how like the visit and whatnot , and just kind of feels like , okay , it can seem kind of cozy when it wants to be , but when it's time to

like get into the action , like how transforms to his bird and also kind of like how , how got that same thing going on with the symbiote in the marvel universe , where the more you wear the symbiote , the harder it is to take it off . So I kind of like how there's like little stakes involved where each time he transforms it's getting hard to turn back .

So you gotta be very careful about the battles you get into , which is also why he doesn't like war , because it just implies that you gotta keep using his magic and therefore he just becomes this monster , kind of like his old colleagues , where it's like man . They're not even human anymore . I don't fuck with them anymore . Oh , the witch of the waste .

Real funny how we were talking about I think it was ponyo well , it was mixed up ponyo and spirit away to where I was getting , like ursula vibes , from a little mermaid where she looked most like ursula in a sense , especially like oh , ew , like that part when they were meeting up with solomon and she was like walking up the steps and she was like sweating

real bad . I'm like , oh , just like a fountain of sweat and fat . I'm sorry , I'm sorry , I'm sorry , I'm not trying to be too mean , but it just wild .

But you know , once she became an old woman , like she kind of chilled out up until that part about uh , taking house hard because you know how , and the witch of the ways they had like a thing going on . I like how , how was like a little fuck boy at that one point to where he was like oh well , you know , I thought she was Beautiful .

But when I met her I'm like man , I got catfish , fuck all this . And then she was like uh , uh , you can't do this to me . And Essentially she wanted the heart .

And that's another funny thing , how the way she was trying to be so Obsessive over that heart in that moment Kind of give me golem vibes From Lord of the Rings , where it's like I was like Bro , you are fucking Burning alive over this heart . Let it go , please . Um , oh , the casting , bro .

Listen , I was so taken aback I did not know that Christian Bale was Hal , billy Crystal was Calcifer , we got fucking D Bradley Baker as Heen . Like really , these guys , okay , okay , and you know what . This just reminds me ? The Prince Turn up head . Let's go ahead and talk about the Cat Returns . Okay , okay , and you know what this just reminds me ?

The Prince Turnip Head . Let's go ahead and talk about the Cat Returns while we're at it , because I was also watching that too .

It's based on Whisper of the Heart , but essentially it's about how this girl , haru , has this ability to talk to cats and she saves the cat from being hit by a truck and then , by the cat saving , uh , being thankful and whatnot , uh turns out to be Luna , the prince of the cat kingdom , and , as things , uh , the cats go out to give her all these gifts

and whatnot . But it's like this implication that , oh well , we want you to marry the prince , and her mixed reply is like oh , I'll take that to yes , and I was like no , you're a cat , I'm a human . That's not going to work up until she became half cat and they still try to force her to marry the cat .

But eventually she meets Baron and that's the cat that she actually starts to like more , and also like Mutsu in this one . Oh ,

real quick .

I like how , when the king was gonna pull up on Haru and he had like those secret service cats like you know , the black cats with like the white stripes and triangles , almost like kind of look like a black suit , kind of like like a black suit , kind of like something Secret Service men would wear , and I swear to God , the funniest part about that whole

movie was when some stray cats was walking up trying to see , hey , what's going on over here ? And then the Secret Service cat took one of those stray cats and cheated him into the hotel . Hey , you know what this movie gets a four out of five stars just for that moment , because I'm like , hey , that made me bust out laughing .

I was like , hey , yo , I was not expecting that at all .

But ultimately , funny movies for the most part I kind of like the simplicity of , you know , using magic and whatnot , like secret world or whatnot that was in the cat returns , but moving back into house moving castle , where it's clear that magic and technology is both intertwined and coexisting , and whatnot .

Ultimately , house moving castle definitely is a 5 out of 5 star movie because , like I said before , it had it all .

But how , it's like God damn , like when you first meet him he seems really cool , but then it's like the more he started talking and like Doing his little meltdowns . It was almost like Just a little meltdowns and shit .

It was almost like just a little drama queen that Sophie had to take care of half the time , you know , but uh , it's only even that one part to it , even when he was fighting . It's kind of funny how , uh , sophie was like I think I like you better as a coward because you are fucking reckless . When you're locked in , I always use the .

The heart is a heavy .

And then in the beginning , when how goes , find me in the future Hal . And then in the beginning , when Hal goes up to Sophie , he goes .

names and you see him , like oh well , they're intrigued by each other at first , but then by the end of the movie they do the same shit and now it's more like , oh well , you know , their relationships now strain based on the events that happened . So I kind of get that .

Yeah , like it's more those things where you gotta watch it at least twice to fully understand what happened yep yeah , I understand , fully understand what happened . Yep , yeah , I understand . Was there anything else ?

Like at this point we're trying to practice more brevity with our reviews , to where we're not trying to bog y'all down . We know y'all got work and other responsibilities , if anything , we just appreciate y'all for stopping by .

If you're like I don't know at the gym or you're studying , or maybe you're in the middle of your commute , or maybe just like listen to podcasts , like hey , maybe those assholes that I like put out a new episode . Let me check that out real quick .

But yeah , like brevity , like sometimes some reviews like we don't need to go into it too much , like even though , yeah , like we don't need to go into it too much , like even though , yeah , like an hour sounds good , like if you're like doing something specific to where , like okay , how can I like , like I said , with the gym , like normally people work out

for like a solid hour and I'm like , hey , the whole time you just listen to our podcast you know , I'm like , hopefully we don't make you laugh too much , to a point to where you start losing your focus and I hate for you to be like you're getting your reps in um , you know , at the um , at the bench , you know your bench presses , and then you probably

get to a point to where , like um , you want to laugh but it's like , oh well , hold on , I need to put this shit down before y'all kill me . But yeah , like I guess we can just go ahead and close it out . Sebi , I do thank you for leading this time and I thank you , dear listener , for tuning in to another episode of the Zone Podcast .

Fair warning , we are going to take a little break from podcasting Well , not necessarily More . Like I might be working on some things in the background , so you can probably check out any new episodes that come up in between Thanksgiving and leading up to Christmas on Patreon .

There should be links attached to the description if you want to check out our Patreon . Most of the episodes are free to watch , so don't worry about about . Oh , you have to pay money to listen , not all of them . The only ones that I would put on a paywall is the really spicy after dark specials , to where we just go on off budget hell .

We might talk about what went down with the election , how we feeling about all that , but that'll probably be an after dark special at best . We're Not trying to be a political Podcast , it's more like a .

Well , you Know , I feel like there's just Some things that in the political Aspect we just can't let it Slide .

And also I kind of appreciate Reviewing house movement council In hindsight because the way Things are looking , I Kind of hoping that we don't have another war going on , because I don't know about , you say , but it just feels like every time a Republican's in office there's always a war or an impending war going on . You ever notice that ?

I don't know I don't know , maybe I'm bugging , yeah , so let's just go ahead and close this out . You go ahead . Have yourself a good morning , good afternoon and good evening , dear listener . Remember to stay nerdy and that great things are coming , but , most importantly , you take it easy .