Howl’s Moving Castle (2004) (with Brian Attebery)

Myth, magic, and technology take to the skies in Episode 93 of the podcast, with Howl’s Moving Castle (Hayao Miyazaki, 2004) providing a welcome return to the steampunk spectacle and metamorphic marvels of Japanese anime. Joining Chris and Alex to examine Studio Ghibli’s 2004 feature film fantasy of flight is Professor Brian Attebery, writer and professor of English at Idaho State University, who took over as editor of the Journal of the Fantastic in Arts in 2006, and is also a prolific author whose seminal work encompasses all things fantasy literary, history, and storytelling. Listen as they discuss the director Hayao Miyazaki’s careful combination of provincial communities with (anti-)war themes and adolescent activity; voicework in anime and how specific casting practices feed into the film’s juvenile feminine perspectives; the exchange between gender and unruliness; the film’s play with verticality and flight, and what it means politically to look down as well as up; and the instability of Howl’s Moving Castle’s fictional world, and what this says about the challenges of trying to belong in places and spaces that continually change. **Fantasy/Animation theme tune composed by Francisca Araujo**