Howl’s Moving Castle - Screenplay by Hayao Miyazaki

Thesis Project

Howl’s Castle Interior Panorama: Click and drag to look around:

Panorama made using Vectorworks, Blender, and Photoshop.

The Story: Beginning - Middle – End

1.  Sophie Is cursed with old age and leaves her broken home, ashamed.

2.   Sophie seeks a new home and investigates the mysterious connection between Howl and his fire demon, Calcifer.

3.   When Sophie learns that the fire demon can be freed if Howl accepts the risks and responsibilities of having a heart, her own curse is lifted; and her newfound wisdom unites a group of misfits into a new and happy family.

Story Sequence - A first pass at every scene:

Personal Response:

Howl’s Moving Castle has been one of my favorite films for a long time.  When the time came to choose a piece to design as my thesis project, I wanted to find a challenge that I would really love and that I could sink my teeth into.  I was interested in working on something that had a focus on fantasy:  I knew research would be a key component of whatever work I chose, but I wanted to have lots of room for make-believe.  When I was considering various fantasy films, I thought about Howl’s Moving Castle, and I remembered how much I had loved it when I first saw it as a child.  I have always been drawn to these kinds of “faerie tale” stories; and, in revisiting the story, I was also reminded of the German stories my mom used to read to me (before I could read them myself).  I like how “lessons” are intertwined into the plots of these stories, and how very real truths are hidden in the fantasy worlds they contain.

As a designer, I was immediately seduced by the idea of getting to create a walking castle, but this story had something even more compelling for me:  I was drawn to the coming-of-age story that plays out between Sophie and Howl.  I am touched by the loneliness that each feels at the start of the story, the aftermath of being abandoned by their families.  I am moved by the sense of “solitary otherness” in Howl that makes him hide away at the top of a tower.  Most of all, I love the heart of the story, the moments when Howl and Sophie come together and resolve to persevere because they realize they have something to fight for in each other.

Character Casting:



Brief Synopsis:

This story is about Sophie and Howl meeting, learning how to help each other, learning to trust in love and family connections, and uniting to create an adopted family from the misfits around them.

It begins with Sophie in the hat shop that her family left to her. After a first brief encounter with Howl, she is cursed by the Witch of the Waste with old age. Sophie abandons her broken home out of shame, and looks for an answer to her problems in the Waste. 

She comes across Howl’s Moving Castle as she is looking for a place to stay, and once inside, she makes a deal with the fire demon that if she can break his curse, he will undo her old age.  Over time, threats to Howl’s freedom grow, and instead of running away from them he decides to stand and fight, having found someone he was willing to fight for. Sophie and Howl work together to survive.  The break each others curses and create a family even as the castle collapses around them.

Howl’s Castle:

A bird’s nest became an important metaphor for me. Howl has gained the power of flight, and transforms into a monstrous bird when he combats the military and the other mages. I thought of how a magpie collects the pieces that make it’s home, and how that could be a useful idea to bring to the construction of his castle. In my design, Howl’s moving ‘Castle’, the home to which he returns only reluctantly, is a collection of abandoned structures pieced together by a young boy’s industrious imagination.  The castle-as-home is constantly on the move:  an adolescent’s strategy for protecting his injured heart.

How It Moves:

The Castle’s hearth, which I’ve positioned at the center of the first floor, houses Calcifer (Howl’s heart) and also serves as the primary energy source for the Castle’s propulsion.  We get the sense that Calcifer both drives the castle and holds the whole, rickety assemblage together – at least until Sophie appears and begins to work her own brand of magic.  In addition to the hearth, the Castle is also propelled and stabilized – in my design – by the wind.  In my research, I came across the fanciful and ingenious work of sculptor Theo Jansen, who creates fantastical “walking” sculptures, which he calls “Strandbeests.”  I feel that these two elemental means of propulsion – fire and wind – are expressive of the two sides of Howl’s conflicted nature:  his conflicted desires for home (fire/warmth/connection) and his desire for escape (wind/flight).

Interior Illustrations:

Click here to take a closer look at the drafting.

Sophie’s Hat Shop:

The design of the hat shop is an opportunity to convey who Sophie is at the beginning of the story.  We see her working alone in a largely empty house.  I’ve designed a space that’s cool and desaturated, a contrast to the warm hearth (on How’s castle) that she will be drawn toward.  We can see that Sofie is someone who keeps things tidy:   the tools of her craft are well arranged, and her millinery displays are neat.  Among the objects she uses in her work, we notice all sorts of feathers and flowers made of fabric.  These objects, we will learn, are symbolic of both Howl’s hidden nature (feathers/flight) and hers (flowers/beauty).  Sofie has a view of the busy streets, and images of landscapes decorating the walls:  reminders of where she’d rather be, and where her adventures will take her.

The work of Danish painter Vilhem Hammershoi were a key piece of my research for the interior of the Hat Shop.  Hammershoi often paints solitary women in chilly interiors, which tend to render his subjects as small and somehow trapped.

Suliman’s Palace Chamber:

The Palace represents everything Howl wants to avoid:  it epitomizes responsibility and bureaucracy.  In contrast to Howl’s Castle, the architecture is grandiose, immaculate, ordered.  It is a show of the force of the ruling power.  Far grander than Howl’s castle, it is – in my design – also notably less fun. 

Perhaps the most important part of the Palace is its entrance, a long and steep stairway that Sophie and The Witch of the Waste must climb before their audiences with Madame Suliman.  The climb is mythic in its arduousness, and it has opposing effects on the two women:  despite the monumental effort required, Sophie seems to grow stronger as she climbs; but the Witch becomes increasingly aged and is eventually drained of her magic.  (Howl, of course, merely flies in through an open window.)

Once Sophie steps inside, the Palace is revealed to be a maze of hallways. I picture very high arched ceilings, lit by high arched windows casting long shadows along the floors and walls of the interior.  I also imagine checkerboards of black and white marble throughout:  order run amok.

For both Howl and Sophie, I think the forbidding, chilly Palace represents an incorrect and cautionary path.  Instinctively, they both head toward family, warmth, and a home, embracing work and responsibility rather than becoming tantalized by the promise of power and prestige.