History Anime / HowlsMovingCastle

* {{Bishonen}}: Howl [[spoiler:and Turnip Head when he turns back into a human.]]

* StepfordSmiler: Howl. He keeps the charming smile on his face even during some ''very'' inappropriate moments, like when burning the Witch's note, or remarking to Sophie "You nearly killed my friend."
* TheStoic: The Witch of the Waste is totally unmoved by the bomb attack and keeps puffing on her cigar. This could be attributed to [[spoiler: her on-and-off senility, due to her true age.]]

* StepfordSmiler: Howl. He keeps the charming smile on his face even during some ''very'' inappropriate moments, like when burning the Witch's note, or telling Sophie "You nearly killed my friend."
* TheStoic: The Witch of the Waste is totally unmoved by the bomb attack and keeps puffing on her cigar.

* BerserkButton:
** Don't ask Grandma Sophie if she's working for the Witch of the Waste, Markl.
** When Howl's hair is accidentally coloured [[RedHeadedStepchild orange]]... he has a literal meltdown.

* BalefulPolymorph: [[spoiler:Prince Justin, being cursed into the shape of a scarecrow.]]

* NiceHat:
** Sophie's mother's hat had ''little cannons'' on it!
** Averted with Sophie's hat, despite her attachment to it.
-->'''Howl:''' You're going to wear that hat? After I used all of that magic to make your dress look pretty?

%% Image restored per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1457797597011153900
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

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* BigFancyCastle: The eponymous castle is home to a wizard and there's plenty of magic inside it and making it move. In a subversion of the trope, the outside is humongous but the inside is only as big as a two-bedroom house. Or at least, the characters spend most of their time on the ground floor. They have to ascend several flights of stairs to even get to the bedrooms. Much of the castle appears to be unused.

* AdaptationalNiceGuy: Some of Howl's more prevalent flaws in the books such as his womanizing behavior and chronic irresponsibility are omitted or downplayed. His anti-war attitude is original to the movie, as ''Book Howl'' had no problem supplying the King of Ingary with magical devices for his troops, although no war actually occurs in the book.

** TheScarecrow in the book is a rather intimidating figure, even actively terrifying at times. In the film, it is rather jolly and never more than just a bother.

** Ms. Angorian and Mrs. Fairfax are totally left out, and Martha is [[CompositeCharacter combined]] collapsed into Lettie, by leaving out their deception. Ben Sullivan and Mrs. Pentstemmon are also totally left out, though aspects of both of them went into Madame Suleiman.

** Ms. Angorian, Fanny Hatter, and Mrs. Fairfax are totally left out, and Martha is [[CompositeCharacter combined]] collapsed into Lettie, by leaving out their deception. Ben Sullivan and Mrs. Pentstemmon are also totally left out, though aspects of both of them went into Madame Suleiman.

** Ms. Angorian, Martha Hatter, and Mrs. Pentstemmon, although some aspects of the latter are [[CompositeCharacter combined into Madame Suliman]] instead.

* ConfrontingYourImposter: Howl comes to Madame Suliman's castle impersonating His Majesty. The charade breaks down when the real Majesty enters the room... and doesn't realize what's going on and [[ComicallyMissingThePoint congratulates Madame Suliman for her excellent work on his double]]. Though even before that, it's implied that Suliman already figured it out, as she was getting rather snarky at His Majesty's [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness out-of-character behavior]] as TheGoodKing, knowing the real Majesty to be a pompous fool.

The story starts roughly the same way as the book – During a fantasy equivalent version of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, a young woman by the name of Sophie (Chieko Baisho) works as a hatter and deals with massive insecurity problems. After an encounter with the wizard Howl (Takuya Kimura), she attracts the attention of the petty Witch of the Waste (Akihiro Miwa), who lays a curse on Sophie, [[OvernightAgeUp abruptly making her physically 90 years old]]. Though rather accepting of her new age, which Sophie finds to fit her personality better, she still sets out to find Howl and break the spell. An [[AnimateInanimateObject animate scarecrow]] she calls "Turnip Head" leads her to Howl's eponymous castle, where she makes a deal with fire demon/Ifrit Calcifer to break each other's curses under the guise of becoming Howl's cleaning lady. She also meets Howl's apprentice, a young boy named Markl (Ryunosuke Kamiki). Meanwhile, Howl is playing the role of a rogue wizard, doing his best to try and halt both sides of the raging war in the background, but the spells he's using in order to fight are bringing him closer and closer to losing his humanity.

The story starts roughly the same way as the book – During a fantasy equivalent version of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, a young woman by the name of Sophie works as a hatter and deals with massive insecurity problems. After an encounter with the wizard Howl, she attracts the attention of the petty Witch of the Waste, who lays a curse on Sophie, [[OvernightAgeUp abruptly making her physically 90 years old]]. Though rather accepting of her new age, which Sophie finds to fit her personality better, she still sets out to find Howl and break the spell. An [[AnimateInanimateObject animate scarecrow]] she calls "Turnip Head" leads her to Howl's eponymous castle, where she makes a deal with fire demon/Ifrit Calcifer to break each other's curses under the guise of becoming Howl's cleaning lady. She also meets Howl's apprentice, a young boy named Markl. Meanwhile, Howl is playing the role of a rogue wizard, doing his best to try and halt both sides of the raging war in the background, but the spells he's using in order to fight are bringing him closer and closer to losing his humanity.

The story starts roughly the same way as the book – During a fantasy equivalent version of UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, a young girl by the name of Sophie works as a hatter and deals with massive insecurity problems. After an encounter with the wizard Howl, she attracts the attention of the petty Witch of the Waste, who lays a curse on Sophie, [[OvernightAgeUp abruptly making her physically 90 years old]]. Though rather accepting of her new age, which Sophie finds to fit her personality better, she still sets out to find Howl and break the spell. An [[AnimateInanimateObject animate scarecrow]] she calls "Turnip Head" leads her to Howl's eponymous castle, where she makes a deal with fire demon/Ifrit Calcifer to break each other's curses under the guise of becoming Howl's cleaning lady. She also meets Howl's apprentice, a young boy named Markl. Meanwhile, Howl is playing the role of a rogue wizard, doing his best to try and halt both sides of the raging war in the background, but the spells he's using in order to fight are bringing him closer and closer to losing his humanity.

* BigFancyCastle: The eponymous castle is home to a wizard and there's plenty of magic inside it and making it move. In a subversion of the trope, the outside is humongous but the inside is only as big as a two-bedroom house.

* ConfrontingYourImposter: Howl comes to Madame Suliman's castle impersonating His Majesty. The charade breaks down when the real Majesty enters the room... and doesn't realize what's going on and [[ComicallyMissingThePoint congratulates Madame Suliman for her excellent work on his double]]. Though even before that, it's implied that Suliman already figured it out, as she was getting rather snarky at His Majesty's out-of-character behavior as TheGoodKing, knowing the real Majesty to be a pompous fool.

* ConfrontingYourImposter: Howl comes to Madame Suliman's castle impersonating His Majesty. The charade breaks down when the real Majesty enters the room... and doesn't realize what's going on and [[ComicallyMissingThePoint congratulates Madame Suliman for her excellent work on his double]].

* MenCannotKeepHouse: The inside of the castle is an absolute mess when Sophie turns up. The bathroom is even worse.

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