[Review 2012]: I have seen the anime before and did not expect to be much surprised by the plot, but I was wrong. There are so many differences between the book and the movie that they are probably best described as variations on the same topic.

I don't know what I like most about this book. I am fond of those fantasy stories which seem to share their basic ideas rather with the the Wizard of Oz than the Lord of the Rings. Beside this the book has something truly original. I am looking forward to read the sequel.

[Review 2023]:After reading this book again more than 10 years after my first review, I would like to add a couple of observations:

I like the idea, that the moving castle's portal door leads not only to places in the books' own fictional world of Ingary, but also to modern day Wales. Of course many authors have created this type of portal fantasy before and when I first read the book I found this idea silly and uninspired. Now on a second read, I feel different about this. What sets the doors to Wales apart from other portal fantasy is, that "our world" is not elevated to any prominent position. The story is told through the eyes of Sophie who is a native of Ingary and for which Wales is not more than just the strange place, that Howl comes from. She does not even exoticise the place very much, as she is apparently willing to accept that the home of Howl just has to be strange. In fact the plot of the book could well do without including this door to Wales at all. At the same time I would not want to miss it from the book now. Even though it serves no immediate purpose within the book, it does something to the reader's perspective. It suggests that there is in principle a passageway from the world of the reader to the fantasy world of the book. And even though this suggestion is part of the book's fiction it can still work to slightly tickle the readers imagination into make-believe, that one day you might open a door that leads to a world of fantasy and magic. Jones herself mentions in an interview that her fascination with doors stems from this sort of escapist make-believe.

What was also not clear to me on my first read, is that this book can be read as a coming of age novel. Howl, Sophie and Michael are three distinct types of adolecents: Howl is an egocentric, unsettled, vain and impulsive over-achiever, who shirks any kind of responsibility. He is in short as much a wizard as he is a millenial, who tries very hard not to become an adult. When Sophie on the other hand magically aged before her time, she felt that her body now corresponded to her true self. Before her magical transformation sent her on a journey, she had already given in to her dull and boring fate of mending hats in the provincial town of Market Chipping. All youthful adventurousness and imagination about the course of her life was repressed by her believe, that as the eldest of three she was doomed to fail in finding her fortune. This means that Sophie tried so hard to be an adult, that she lost all youthfulness. Only after she is physically tranformed into an old woman, she develops a kind of devil may care attitude that allows her to embark on her adventure.

Michael as the youngest of the three finally seems to be a very balanced character in his relationship to adulthood. On the one hand, he is a dedicated student, reliable and responsible. After losing both of his parents he managed to take care of himself by pushing Howl to take him on as an apprentice. On the other hand his romantic infatuation with Martha is as intense as only teenage love can be. In fact, his character is so balanced, that it makes him the perfect sidekick for the more prominent and eccentric characters around him. Unfortunately it also makes him completely unremarkable.