The Art of Howl's Moving Castle [Hardcover]

Hayao Miyazaki (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Art of Howl's Moving Castle

A hardback, prestige format book with a generous collection of concept sketches, fully rendered character and background drawings, paintings and cell images. Along with the stunning visuals, the book also presents interviews and comments with the production staff, including key points from the director.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Hayao Miyazaki is the prominent director of many popular animated feature films. He is also the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, the award-winning Japanese animation studio and production company behind worldwide hits such as PRINCESS MONONOKE, HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE and SPIRITED AWAY.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: VIZ Media LLC; 1 edition (July 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1421500493
• ISBN-13: 978-1421500492
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 8.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #24,134 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #71 in Books > Comics & Graphic Novels > Manga

More About the Author

Hayao Miyazaki is the prominent director of many popular animated feature films. He is also the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, the award-winning Japanese animation studio and production company behind worldwide hits such as PRINCESS MONONOKE, HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE and SPIRITED AWAY.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

78 of 78 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Beautiful Book for a Beautiful Movie - Great insights straight from the animators., August 6, 2005

By 

Sonomi (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of Howl's Moving Castle (Hardcover)

The Art of Howl's Moving Castle is a perfect compendium of almost everything having to do with the movie and artwork. The only thing lacking is of course, is the gorgeous soundtrack from the movie. (For that I recommend purchasing the Ost [IMPORT] Howl's Moving Castle Audio CD and listening to it while you peruse this beautiful book.)

Anyone who is a fan of the movie, Miyazaki, Studio Ghibli, the artwork, and the screenplay will LOVE this book.

Here is why this book is really worth every penny:

CONTENTS:

Intro
- Production Synopsis

Part 1
- Contains Miyazaki's storyboards. His original concept sketches of the characters, backgrounds, and settings. You get to see the original artwork from the creator's mind. A chance to marvel at Miyazaki's inventiveness, and appreciate the Studio Ghibli animators' talents in bringing it to life on screen.


Part 2
- Neary 200 pages of beautifully printed scenes from the movie (all in color of course, glossy, crisp), following the entire storyline from start to finish, in a very clean layout. Each scene from the movie has concept art, sketches, and final prints. Nice printing, the rich colors and gorgeous artwork of the movie are beautifully intact. Large images, including a few two-page spreads (one of Howl in resting in bed after his "traumatic" hair experience.) *If you are keen to revisit the scenes from the movie, you will definetely not find this book to be lacking, it is chock full of images.

- All scenes have text captions and many include insights from the Studio Ghibli's artists and animators on how they worked to achieve Miyazaki's desired artistic effect. Also a very interesting section of the studio's use of CGI (using CG "(not to create reality but to) ...add realism to the animiation")

- Also full page prints of Japanese promotional posters at the end.


Part 3
- Contains the entire english screenplay of the movie (in case you wanted to see whether you missed anything). Again, nice layout.


(There IS in fact both a hardcover and softcover version of this book, however the softcover I have only seen in the all-Japanese version so far, maybe the english version will be published in softcover in the *future.
- *This tidbit written in Aug. 2005)

27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not essential, but still a good book., March 13, 2006

By 

Oxa O D. - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of Howl's Moving Castle (Hardcover)

As a huge fan of the film Howl's Moving Castle, I was delighted to see this book being sold so cheap here on Amazon. The book is hardback, and overall, well presented.

My only complaint with the book is that the majority of it only contains stills from the film. They look great, of course, but I was hoping there would be more concept work, as well as pages dedicated to just backgrounds, as they were some of the most beautiful ones I had ever seen in an animated film.

In a nutshell: A good book with some beautiful art, which is cheap, though it contains mainly stills from the film, not a lot of concept work.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another great art of book, June 30, 2005

By 

D. Hu (Florida, US) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Art of Howl's Moving Castle (Hardcover)

Following in the tradition of The Art of Spirited Away, this book captures some of the best work in progress art for the film. The paper is glossy, the size is perfect for a coffee table book, and the colors span a wide, wide range, though perhaps not as much as those in Spirited Away.

If you like The Art of Spirited Away, get this. There is something odd about it though. It's listed as being in paperback. The version I picked up at Barnes and Noble was most certainly not a paperback, and was in the exact same covering as The Art of Spirited Away, which is listed as a hardcover. Why is this?