Castle in the Sky Review
There are a few anime that I watched years ago, before I really knew what anime was. And while Pokemon and Yu-gi-oh were always entertaining, there was one anime movie that was really close to my heart: Castle in the Sky (Tenkuu no Shiro Rapyuta). I had always planned on re-watching it, but I had been putting it off. There’s always this underlying fear I have about re-watching things that I loved when I was much younger. A fear that things that I used to love will be ruined my older self, who has vastly different tastes than my younger counterpart. But, I finally sat down and watched it again. Does Castle in the Sky hold up to my sky high childhood expectations, or does it start looking worse when I take off my nostalgia glasses?
Story
Castle in the Sky’s story starts off in the only place that would make sense, the sky. A girl named Sheeta is traveling aboard an airship that is suddenly attacked by pirates. For some reason, the pirates seem to be interested in her. In her desperate attempt to escape, she falls from the airship, and begins plummeting to the ground. But, the crystal necklace that she’s wearing starts glowing mysteriously, and her rapid decent to the ground below is slowed to a crawl. She is spotted by Pazu, a young man from the mining town that she was falling into. Shortly after she awakes from her slumber, she and Pazu discover that the pirates have followed her and are after the crystal on her necklace. Which, they believe, will lead them to the legendary floating city of Laputa, and the treasure that lies within it.
Castle in the Sky manages to accomplish something in two hours that some anime haven’t been able to do in double, triple, or exponentially more amounts of time: tell a compelling narrative with a beginning, middle, climax, and an end. The problem is that not all of the elements were executed properly. I wanted to give the movie credit for what it was able to do in such a short time frame, but, at the same time, you could definitely tell that things were a little rushed — in terms of its narrative. The movie’s world building was adequate, but you never really get a good sense of exactly how things are presently, and how things will be in the future, which I’ll get to when I talk about the movie’s ending. Castle in the Sky has to fill you in as the movie progress, which leaves you with a lot of unanswered questions while you’re watching it. Fortunately, most of those questions are answered by the end of the movie, but some of those answers feel, well, unsatisfying. Sometimes the answers to the questions you’ve had about the world only lead to more questions. Minor questions, but still. And even if the questions are answered, you may question the reasoning behind some of it. Such as: why did this person do this, why didn’t they do that, or couldn’t they have found a better use for this?
The story also has to rely on a lot of plot convenience in order to get things started. Things will just so happened to work out in just the right way, at just the right time, for our protagonists to accomplish their goal. Most likely a product of their limited time, but it can get a little annoying.
Castle in the Sky’s ending isn’t very good. Sure, it ends the adventure that Pazu and Sheeta are currently on, but what happens next? Your guess is as good as mine. The movie ends fairly abruptly, and leaves you with some pretty significant unanswered questions.
With all of that being said, I still really liked the story. The fact is that it’s incredibly straightforward. It’s not very deep, or thought provoking it, but that probably wasn’t what it was meant to be either. It’s a short, and enjoyable tale of adventure, and friendship.
Characters
The characters are probably the worst part of this movie. That’s not to say that the characters are bad, they’re just nothing special. Yeah, they’re likeable. Some of them are really likeable, but they all have little to no character development or background information. This is especially true, and disappointing, of our protagonists Pazu and Sheeta. Pazu is probably the most developed character is the entire movie, which isn’t saying a whole lot, and Sheeta is, essentially, Princess Peach for a good portion of the movie. We are given some background information about each of them, as rushed as those moments were — especially Pazu’s…
The supporting characters, on the other hand, received virtually none of the above with only a few of them receiving any sort of development, and only the main villain is given some sort of background story. And while we’re talking about main villain, I have to mention that his motivations are…less than compelling. He’s not exactly the best villain I’ve ever seen, but he serves his purpose, I guess.
Animation & Sound
I’ve always found that it’s harder for me to review the animation of older anime because it’s not really what I’m used to, and because I’m not sure if I should hold the animation to a different set of standards or adjust my expectations. But, that wasn’t really a problem with Castle in the Sky. I really liked the art style that the anime used. I think that, if it was made today, it would still be made in a similar style simply because it just really fits the general tone and feeling of the movie. The character models are all distinct and really well drawn, and the background scenery was also really well done. There are some of great looking fantasy landscape shots that you can’t help but gawk at.
The actions scenes are also really well done. They were smoothly animated and a treat to watch. I do want to give special praise to the movie’s explosions. I don’t know why they stood out to me by the end of the movie, but they looked awesome.
When I was younger, I never really gave the movie’s soundtrack any thought. It never even crossed my mind. But, this time around, it was one of the first things I noticed. The grand orchestral pieces that fit the tone and setting of every scene that they are used in. Whether it’s an intense scene with gripping action and high stakes, or a quiet night under the moonlight. The only complaint that I have about it is that there are a lot of tracks that have a similar sound. That being said, there are plenty of songs in Castle in the Sky’s OST that I can see myself returning to fairly frequently.
Enjoyment
Even without my nostalgia glasses on, I thoroughly enjoyed Castle in the Sky. It’s a flawed, but captivating tale with likeable characters, and really good animation and sound. It took me nearly a decade to re-watch this movie the last time, but I doubt it’ll take me anywhere near as long to observe Pazu and Sheeta’s exciting journey again.
