Miyazaki's newest work, based on a British children's book, solidifies his status as animation's most original mind. In an intricately rendered Central European storybook land of seaside villages and windswept valleys (inspired by Alsace and the Welsh seacoast), magic lives in the skies above, and sometimes in the towns below. Our doe–eyed heroine Sophie is the village hat–maker, but an encounter with the wicked Witch of the Wastes (the voice of Akihiro Miwa, famous as the cross–dressing jewel thief in Fukasaku's Black Lizard) forces her into the clouds, and a world where fires talk, dogs spy for their wizard owners, and a ramshackle castle flies through the air. Home of the mysterious magician Howl, this moving castle soon becomes Sophie's home, as she struggles to regain her youthful identity, and help Howl end both his own curse and an all–too–real war. Brimming with Miyazaki's customary visual wit and imagination, Howl's Moving Castle was Japan's top–grossing film of 2004.