Hayo Miazaki is a legend in the animation community. Pixar's John Lasseter called him "the greatest animation director living today." His hand drawn feature animations transcend traditional and simplistic good and evil struggles featured in most movies. Instead they feature wildly creative visions of internal and spiritual adventures.
Miazaki's film Howl's Moving Castle premiered in 2004 at the Venice film festival. It went on to gross over $230,000.00, making it one of the most financially successful Japanese films in history. Miyazaki's films are known for their incredible art direction and vastly imaginative depictions of alternate worlds. In my opinion the star attraction of Howl's Moving Castle is the castle itself. The castle looks like a monstrous assemblage of medieval structures held together by riveted iron plates. It is powered by a steam belching, semi-magical, internal power plant and it wanders around the countryside using four stubby legs that look like gigantic mechanized feet from a claw-foot bathtub.
In 2007 I visited Miyazaki's museum in Japan. Named after his animation studio, the Studio Gibli Museum is expertly art directed itself, and looks as though it was plucked from one of Miyazaki's movies. Japanese are huge consumers-- I have never seen a more tchotchke driven society as modern Japan. When my wife and I stepped into the Gibli Museum gift shop we decided to do as the locals do and bring home a few items that are more difficult to find outside of Japan.
Today I bring you this tiny but gorgeous metal model of Howl's Moving Castle. Every detail of the castle is rendered on this pewter finished masterpiece, but there are some secret moving parts and surprise details on this little sculpture so I strongly suggest a trip into the Artifacts gallery of the Cabinet of Curious Frivolities to tour your way through the Howls Moving Castle Metal Sculpture.
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