by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

There’s not much debate to be had over the importance of Japan’s Hayao Miyazaki in the world of animated films. The phrase “greatest living master” wouldn’t be hyperbolic, not since Princess Mononoke and his last film, the Oscar-winning Spirited Away, finally established the cheerful little gnome as the preeminent animation creator. No, artist. The guy’s an auteur, with his recurring themes and obsessions, distinctive designs and rich philosophical sense.

A funny thing happened on the way to releasing his latest film, Howl’s Moving Castle. Miyazaki isn’t in the habit of directing from someone else’s story. The only other time he’s done that, since the establishment of his own Studio Ghibli in 1985, was with 1989’s Kiki’s Delivery Service, from the book by Eiko Kadono. Miyazaki wasn’t originally intended to direct Howl’s Moving Castle; Mamoru Hosoda (who made the none-too-shabby Digimon flick) was tapped for the gig. One can see how Miyazaki would be tempted to give Hosoda the boot and take the reins.

Howl’s Moving Castle is taken, somewhat loosely, from a book by Diana Wynne Jones, the British author of children’s fantasy books—a second-tier J.K. Rowling of sorts. The book’s elements and themes seem tailor-made for Miyazaki. There are the flying machines and steam contraptions, technology from a fantastic version of the industrial age. Hand in hand with that, of course, comes the empty pomp of militarism (Miyazaki’s pacifist streak contrasts starkly against the violence, sexual rage and frequent crypto-fascism present in so much anime) and a jolly, highly imprecise Europhilia. Oh, and the steady-headed teenage girl as protagonist, the casual acceptance of magic and witches, and especially the renouncing of permanent extremes of good and evil in any character.

All that said, Howl’s Moving Castle is not entirely Miyazaki’s own work, and therefore not his strongest work. He’s long been able to construct complex, highly idiosyncratic and unfamiliar worlds and mythos, and succeeds in drawing the viewer deeply into them—I hate to use the word “enchantment,” but, um… yeah. Howl’s Moving Castle, for all its astounding imagery—from the titular moving castle itself to the rainbow-toybox dazzle of the wizard Howl’s bedchamber—fails to cast that spell as effectively as usual.

Howl’s Moving Castle opens Friday, June 10

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