- Okay so as a trend I decided to finally watch another Ghibli movie that I haven’t seen yet, this time being Howl’s Moving Castle and WOW, guys, I might be in the minority but this movie was, in my opinion, so far the best Ghibli film I have ever seen which is maybe not saying a lot because including this film I have only seen 5, but I did like this movie more then Spirited Away, which is insane because I have only since this movie once so far, and before this I really liked Spirited Away, but anyways.

There was so much I liked about this movie and it really helped after Princess Mononoke kinda put a bad taste in my mouth after all the cliches. But moving on to what I liked about this film other than the obvious Ghibli stapes at this point like, fluent animation, great soundtrack, and an interesting color palette, the top two things that really stood out to me that made me love this film are:

1.) The Setting: like I personally love this whole like Victorian-era architecture/ mixed with these fantasy elements/ that are also mixed together with some steampunk-ist designs for the vehicles, with them all come together to give this rich unique vibe throughout the entire world that I personally really like. And the second thing that I really liked would be

- 2.) The Subversion of Expectations: ok like I already stated in my post about Princess Mononoke, one of my biggest pet peeves during a show/movie is how predictable the plot is, which was one of the main reasons why I did not love Princess Mononoke since I felt I could see every decision coming around every corner from a mile away. But here the story was different because it continuously subverted my expectations and surprised me with what was coming next. Like for example, at the very beginning when Sophie first wakes up and realizes she is an old lady you expect her to go and try to find a wizard to reverse the cure, like every other movie, but that never happens, instead she just accepts her situation and just tries to move on to live her new life. Or when the Witch of the Waste is first introduced you expect her to be the big bad of the movie like in every other movie, but then halfway into the movie they show you that she isn’t the big bad but instead just a sad old lady who is just lonely. Story decisions like this are what really make a story stand out to me, and what makes this a classic in my book. - Conclusion: Because of this, I feel like rating this film a 95/100 with the possibility of me raising it higher after a second viewing to see if the minor concerns I had with the film are resolved after a second viewing. But TL;DR yes really liked this movie, and who knows maybe I’ll watch another Ghibli film later on and talk about it too😊