Unforgivable Things Howl’s Moving Castle did:
Got rid of Sophie’s personality to make her sad frumpy woman
Got rid of Howl’s personality to make him seem empty
Got rid of Sophie’s magic and how she saved the day not through the power of being in love, but by the power of simply being a badass and beating the antagonist to death and saving the day
There aren’t that many women in the story as is, but the movie got rid of about half of them Including her second sister who was learning to be a witch, how the two sisters charmed the other to look like the other and they switched places from the school to the bakery
The reason the witch targeted sophie was because everyone in the city was wearing her hats (imbued with strong ass magic) and the witch felt threatened.
Speaking of being targeted, the movie handled it pretty well, but Real Sophie was like “i’m just gonna be a cool ass old grandma now and i’ll just go take on the world cuz who cares?” and was grumpy and had EMOTIONS that which the entire movie is lacking of tbh.
Michael (Markl in the film) was a teenager and their personality is about the same so?? but he’s trying to date one of sophie’s sister and they actually, i think, get really serious and it’s sorta cute
Speaking of sisters: Sophie thinks that howl is courting her sister at the magicians but in reality he’s impressed they switched places and he’s hanging out with her to get the dish on sophie 👀👀👀
He dyed his hair pink on accident in the book and at first he was like “AAAA” but then he was so fucking into it. although this is p much the only scene in the entire movie that was almost synonymous with the book
The “black” setting on the door doesn’t go like back in time or anything, it goes to OUR WORLD. He has like fucking corvette and takes sophie around in it, it’s goofy and like 0/10 the movie didn’t even mention that he’s like a bored college kid who pretends to be related to fucking merlin and figured out how to travel between dimensions
Did I mention he pretends to be merlin? He’s a cosplaying son of a ho. He pretends to be like 6 different wizards not even kidding.
The queen lady wasn’t evil, she was very very nice and she helps sophie realize that she’s full of magic and helps her break the curse. Women helping women woo!!
I mean seriously, I know ghibli is really good about female characters etc…but for real…there are like a grand total of 5 in the story and the movie cut out 3 of them, made one evil and made the actual evil one good?? Get it together.
Speaking of one of the cut out women: Fanny! Like…the movie really really glosses over how the witch of the waste basically sparked sophie into running away from essentially a really really abusive and exploitative situation where she was basically doing slave labor for her stepmom.
At the same time while it’s glossing over that it totally cuts out her rage at being left behind in a dusty store room making hats and basically ONLY having these hats for company (which is how she charmed them!!). Sophie has a lot of personality and she was soooo so so sassy and charged, it sucks that the movie cut that to make her an oatmeal mush salad.
dededos
gummygunk
jacobvanloon
titsay
germansingergirl
