Last night my friend Mikey and I went to see Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, “Howl’s Moving Castle”. It was excellent! The visuals were amazing as usual, and the music was wonderful. There were many signature Miyazaki elements, which looked like they were adapted from his other movies. For instance, in one scene Howl does a little wave with his hand as he flies off, just like Nausicaa did. The castle itself moved on legs that looked similar to No-face (Kao-nashi) in Spirited Away when he was in his monster form. And then some of the flying machines were reminiscent of the airships in Laputa. Also, when Howl and Sophie were flying in the beginning, it looked like Baron and Shizuku in Whispers of the Heart. Lots of similarities, but they didn’t detract from the movie, but rather gave it a familiar feel, at least to me.