Variety interviewed animator Akihiko Yamashita for the 20th anniversary of Howl’s Moving Castle, and what it was like working for Hayao Miyazaki, whose Studio Ghibli was recently sold off to a TV corporation:
Yamashita first worked with animation maestro Hayao Miyazaki as a key animator on 2001’s “Spirited Away.” Over the past 20-plus years, he has served various roles on Studio Ghibli films, including as an assistant supervising animator on “Ponyo” (2008) and a key animator on “The Wind Rises” (2013) and “The Boy and the Heron” (2023).
Yamashita recalls working 14 hours a day on “Howl’s Moving Castle” during the last six months of production, noting that there were “no Sundays” nor “time off during the week.” However, after Miyazaki’s film was complete, the supervising animator received three months of paid leave.
“I realized that I could only do this because I was in my 30s in those days,” Yamashita says. “I wouldn’t be able to do that now at all.”
Based on Dianna Wynne Jones’ 1986 fantasy novel of the same name, “Howl’s Moving Castle” follows a young milliner named Sophie, who is magically transformed into a 90-year-old woman by the Witch of the Waste. On a quest to break the curse, the elderly Sophie takes refuge in a moving castle owned by a charismatic wizard named Howl.
From this, it sounds like the staff were made to work too hard, and considering what Miyazaki’s like in his ideological perspective, that can be a bad thing, even if he later paid the guy extra. And as for Howl’s Moving Castle, I didn’t find it particularly impressive, apart from maybe the animation visuals for the castle itself, which were pretty good for their time. But the story didn’t amount to much at all, and I couldn’t get into it.
How does the animation process for a Hayao Miyazaki film differ from other animated projects you’ve worked on?
First of all, he is somebody who actually draws himself. From the layout to the storyboards — everything — he draws it himself. And let’s say a key animator has drawn some animation. If he doesn’t like it, then he will change it and draw a rough drawing. Then, the key animators and other animators have to bring that to the final stage.
Another is the way he thinks about animation. Other animation directors use animation to tell a story, but he tells the story through the animation. It’s all built into his storytelling.
Predictably, they won’t get into the political and ideological drive of leftism that fuels Miyazaki’s visions, and was certainly bad news in The Wind Rises. What’s the point of these discussions if they don’t have the courage to acknowledge Miyazaki’s politics? As for Yamashita, here’s something eyebrow raising:
What was your favorite scene to animate? And was there was a particular scene that was difficult to work on?
Of course, the whole thing was rather difficult. It took a lot of work, but it was also very interesting and fun. The one scene that I feel really worked well was one that showed how Howl was kind of a sexy character. And it’s the scene where, after Sophie enters the castle, and the next morning, Howl returns and comes right up to Sophie — very close to her — and says, “Who are you?” At that point, I had drawn a rough sketch with the movement, and I showed it to Mr. Miyazaki. There should have been more development and growth to that scene, but he said, “No, this is fine. This is good,” and, “We can move on to the next scene.” So that’s a scene where Howl is in profile, and I thought that worked really well, and I was very glad that it worked out well. It showed a different aspect of Howl — that he was a very attractive, sexy person.
What about your favorite character to animate?
Probably Howl because he is a handsome man and very attractive, but in terms of his inner self, he’s not that attractive. There are many people who are really good at their work and at their job, and they outwardly present a really fantastic image. But when they get home, they’re just slobs and sloppy, and they’re not really somebody you would look up to. So, that kind of duality interests me. The Witch of the Waste is also like that — she has this two-sidedness that also attracts me.
I wonder if he and they would use that kind of description for a woman, or one who’s on the good side? As I recall, of course, it takes a while until Sophie can get some of her youth back, since IIRC, that seemed to be the case by the end of the film, though her hair still looked white. But if you don’t see many examples today of younger women being described as “sexy”, and “attractive”, that’s the sad effect of wokeness in motion nowadays, and Yamashita decidedly isn’t helping if he adheres to PC as well.
There also appears to be more dialogue with Yamashita at Polygon:
“Of course characters change, their costumes change, their hairstyle changes. But in the case of Sophie, her age changes depending on her feelings,” Yamashita tells Polygon.
The problem was ultimately solved with a Miyazaki brainblast: “He says, I found the formula method for why Sophie changes,” Yamashita remembers. “She [Sophie] strengthened that curse in the film.
“And because of that, the way she reacted to other people, the way she had relationships, that was different as well. So when I realized that, then I realized I could draw Sophie in the way she was from this change, even within a scene.”
Gee, if she strengthened the curse, isn’t that bad? Worse is any left-wing anti-war metaphors occurring in the film. Naturally, neither Yamashita nor Polygon will actually discuss any of that.
“I saw it last year when it was broadcast on television, and I happened to catch it partway through. And then it was so interesting that I watched until the end,” Yamashita laughs. “In a strange way, Howl’s Moving Castle is a difficult film to understand, so it’s hard to understand it if you just see it once. […] Even I, in seeing it again, have new discoveries about the film.”
Oh, that’s very funny. When I saw it in past years, I didn’t get much of any understanding out of it, except for any left-wing metaphors, and that has to be one of the biggest problems with the movie – that’s probably all it was written up for. And why these leftist news sites keep lionizing Miyazaki, and now Yamashita as well. As I once said, there are some films by Miyazaki that’re more palatable, but Howl’s Moving Castle was not one of them. It’s really just a weak example of a film overtaken by needless and absurd anti-war metaphors.
Originally published here.
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