Miyazaki Marathon Day 9: Howl's Moving Castle

Name: Howl's Moving Castle
Type: Movie
Rating: Any Age
Runtime: 118 min
Directed By Miyazaki Hayao
Produced By Studio Ghibli
Year Produced: 2004

The To Aru Kagaku no Home Theater Miyazaki Marathon... and then some... continues, despite public protest!

This is a "festival" where I sit down at spend about a week and a half watching all of the Miyazaki movies that I want to.  I didn't mention this last time, but I don't have any particular interest in Ponyo.

I've already reviewed Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, and Whisper of the Heart, so if you're interested in that, then check it out... back there.

Today is the last day of this marathon (and thank God, since I was having trouble keeping up).  After this, I'm back to regular animes for about... a half a week, then I'm going to do another movie.  Not a Miyazaki, this is the last one for now, but a movie nonetheless.
Either way, I hope you enjoyed this marathon, and I hope that you'll watch all of these wonderful movies and make your own decisions about them.  Don't you get aggravated when some stranger tells you what to like?!  Why are you even reading this?!
... for the download link?  Yeah, I guess so.


Based on the book of the same name by Diana Wyne Jones, this movie is set in the fantastic world of... you know, it gets really hard to review something when they won't even tell you where it's set.  Fictional, I don't care, just fucking tell me!
This world is filled with mystery, magic, and strange, mobile castles that probably get about a foot to the gallon.

Worse than a Humvee.

The story is about Sophie, a eldest daughter to a hat maker who died a while ago.  Believing herself to be plain, Sophie has taken over general management of the hat store, leaving her younger sister to work at a apparently more glamorous life at a bakery, and her mother to roam the country, buying as much useless garbage as she can, like this.

Are those cannons on the top?

You see?  Who in their right mind would buy that kind of thing?!
Okay, the Queen of England's appeared in some whoppers, just like Prince Charles and... okay, so the entire English Royal Family... every Royal Family since the beginning of time, probably (I type as the S.A.S. busts in and drags me off to the Tower of London, and the guillotine.  Save me, my loyal fans!!  ...).

The entire town's having a royal military parade in anticipation of an expected war with some other country.

Goose Stepping.  Not a good sign.

This country appears to be in the middle of a steam revolution, but since military technology is about ten years ahead of conventional technology, they are probably in the middle of an arms revolution, resulting in both air and naval battleships galore.

I'm just this side of positive that those wing's wouldn't support that.

The rest of the girls at the hat shop decide to head out to try and pick up soldiers (I presume), and Sophie decides to stay behind... but gets bored quickly, and leaves on her own to visit her younger sister Letty.
There have been rumors of a mysterious magician named Howl circling around, rumors like this one.

On the way there, Sophie bumps into a couple of overly affectionate soldiers, and is about to be... accosted by them when a young man wearing a very pink coat over his shoulders appears.

The man flips his finger around a bit and the soldiers are carried away against their will by their own legs.  The man is obviously a magician who then offers to be Sophie's escort.

Along the way to the bakery, they are picked up and followed by a... bunch of blogs of slime in straw hats.

The young man apologizes to Sophie for having gotten her mixed up in his business (they're after him), and then takes a wrong turn.  Boxed in!  Gayahh!  Good thing he can fly.
... What?

Yes!  The dude with the effeminate pink overcoat (for lack of a better term right now) can fly!

Okay, Air Walk, not technically fly.

The man manages to escort Sophie onto the second floor of her sister's bakery without dropping her, and then leaps off the railing onto a safety net that is immediately pulled back and hidden for the wide shot (I'm onto their little tricks).

Inside, Sophie and Letty talk for a while about Sophie's experience, and then Sophie leaves when she realizes how much work Lettie has to do.
I personally don't really understand where Sophie gets the idea that she's not pretty.  I think she's cuter than Lettie... and every other female character in the movie.

Don't you think?  Well, it doesn't matter, since it's not you who's writing this.

When Sophie arrives back at the hat shop/home, the door is opened by a regular tub of lard in fur and a floppy hat (have these people had their fashion sense glands removed?).

See?  No contest.

The woman acts a total bitch to Sophie and when Sophie asks her to leave, the woman reveals herself to the the Witch of the Wastes (the Wastes is a place in this world), and then owns Sophie, since I don't know how else to explain it.

The spell which she's placed Sophie under is one that has made her suddenly... old.  Very old.

Now when I was talking about Sophie, I didn't exactly mean... this.  The young one is cute.  I don't know what best describes "Granny Sophie"... granny...

The Witch of the Wastes (henceforward referred to as WoW (no, not World of Warcraft)), departs, telling Sophie that the best part about the curse she's now under is that she can't tell anyone about it.  The WoW then sends her regards to Howl and leaves.

Sophie has a panic attack and goes to bed in hopes that the spell will break, or this will all be a bad dream.  Too bad it isn't.

The next morning, Sophie's mother bursts in (wearing the obscene hat), and when she goes to see Sophie, is surprised when she discovers that her daughter's now about six times older than she.  Not.  Sophie concocts some lie about a cold, and her mother stays out of her room.

A die-hard optimist, Sophie decides that she needs to strike out on her own to find the WoW and make her break the spell on her, and with that, Sophie sets out.

After going as far as she can to with the help of others, Sophie goes out into the mountains that presumably surround the Wastes (though the mountains could be part of/the entire Wastes right there).

During her hike, Sophie is suddenly struck by how much old age sucks.  When she spots a branch sticking out of a bush, she decides that it'd make a good cane, and so hauls it up, only to discover that...

... it's a scarecrow... that can stand on it's own... and can follow her, how creepy is that?  I'd probably burn it, wear the coat and hat and eat the turnip.  I dunno what I'd do with the pipe though.

Well some good did come of being kind and non-violent, and the scarecrow (now affectionately dubbed "Turnip Head") brings Sophie a cane... and then this.

Howl's Moving Castle... dun dun dun.  Despite the fact that it's allegedly the home of the most notorious killer in all of the world, Sophie still decides to hop on.  What's waiting for Sophie as she sets off on this new quest?


The last of the Miyazaki Hayao movies that have (to this point) attracted my interest, this movie was more than I was expecting.  Sure, it was a little melodramatic (or at least the English version was), but it was still epic, and a lot of fun.
I noticed that the vibrant colors appeared everywhere in this show.  A lot of blue and red, and not the kind that you usually see, but the vibrant shades that make up a beam of light, cool.

I liked the music to this one a lot.  No I don't know why, but I can tell you that I liked the song those star things were singing... or at least the first part.  I'm not sure what happened to it after that, but it was still fun to listen to.

I again liked the English version better, and after I got finished looking at the credits, I realized that they've had a person from the most recent Terminators in it.  Claire Danes was Katherine Brooster from Terminator 3 was San in Princess Mononoke, and Christian Bale; John Connor out of T4 was Howl in this one.  Kind of weird.  I'm not thrilled about the way he talks (no offense, but the kind of whisper thing distracts me or something), but it made sense for Howl.

I wouldn't discount the Japanese version.  I thought that they did better, but since the term "Quiet only when absolutely necessarily" pretty much describes me, I liked the more loud, cluttered English versions better.  And if you have trouble believing me (which a staggering amount of people do) you should know that I'm terrible.  Even when it is absolutely necessary, I end up drawing with my friend or recite Eddie Izzard routines in my head and start laughing.  Really pisses my more strict teachers off).

This movie backs Miyazaki's more humanitarian perspective, or maybe it's backing up Diana Wyne Jones' perspective.  Since I haven't (or probably ever will) read the book, I couldn't tell you.  If I had the... want, I could look it up on Cliff Notes or Wikipedia but... nah.

And thus, my dear reader(s), we are at the end of the Miyazaki Marathon.

Ghibli 13 Movie Collection (Dual Audio) Nihonomaru

Howl's Moving Castle Minitheatre

Coming up next!

Toradora!!

Alert!

If you don't like spoilers, or still want to watch the show now, you'd better stop reading!

Inside the castle, there is a fireplace... and inside that fireplace, there's a fire.  Boring you yet?

Well, keep reading, because that fire's not what it appears.  It's actually... one of those fake things that you use when you're too stupid to resist the urge to touch flames.

... Okay, it's a fire demon.  Calcifer to be precise.

I don't know if this name comes from here, but I have the strange sense that I've heard it elsewhere, and that's kind of weird, but not weird enough to suddenly make me care.

After a quick chat, Calcifer agrees to break the curse that Sophie's under under the condition that Sophie break the spell that Calcifer's under... the one with Howl.  So Calcifer is hereby demoted from "Scary Fire Demon", to "Fireplace Minion".

Despite his social standing, Sophie agrees with the bargain and falls asleep in a chair, which is a bad idea for anyone over the age of... just don't do it.

The next morning, Sophie wakes up to find that there's a midget with a beard walking around accepting letters from the mayor of a place called Porthaven, and the king (himself) of/from (because I don't know if this is a town or a country) Kingsbury, both requesting the master's (Jenkins in Porthaven and Pendragon in Kingsbury) aid in the war that's finally be declared.

Hot damn!  Whoever lives here must be a pretty popular guy, but wait, doesn't Howl live here?  And wasn't here out in the middle of the Wastes (or the mountains surrounding the Wastes?  And who's this freaky, cock-eye cloak with a beard?

Howl?

Well no, and you actually won't be having these problems of deduction if you actually watched the movie, because that... thing is actually Howl's apprentice Markl, who's practicing his magic so that he too can someday consume the hearts of pretty girls.

And actually, they are in the Wastes... and in Porthaven and Kingsbury.  It's all the work of this magnificent little knob/dial combo.

You turn the knob on the door handle, and it takes you to 4 exciting locations depending on which color you pick!

Green - Castle's Physical Location

Blue - Porthaven

Black - Unknown

Red - Kingsbury

Sophie plays around with this for a while until she's told off my Markl, who then decides to have breakfast.  A nutritious, wholesome breakfast of bread... and bread, even though there's bacon sitting right there... right under that pile of shit that's head-high!  Jesus, doesn't anyone clean here?!

Sophie decides to make herself useful and... have something more to eat than bread, and so she blackmails Calcifer (using their agreement of last night) into becoming a cooking fire.

To Sophie's surprise, the master of the house comes out of the Black door, looking like hell... in a pink overcoat.  Yes, it's the same dude that helped her out back at her old town before she met the WoW... and it's Howl too!  What disluck, unluck, lack of luck, cluck, cluck, buh-gock!

After inquiring who Sophie is (he doesn't recognize her because she's suddenly so old), Howl accepts her as the new cleaning lady, and then takes over cooking.

They sit down and begin to have their breakfast when Howl asks Sophie what's in her pocket.  Despite the fact that she didn't put anything in her pocket, when Sophie searches, she finds a piece of paper.

When Howl asks to see it, the paper bursts into flame when he touches it, and then burns a message into the table.

After reading the message, Howl erases the burn and then goes to take a bath after requesting that Calcifer move the castle... how many ever miles in whatever direction, it's not all that important because you (or I) don't have any frame of reference.

When Markl insinuates/downright asks Sophie if she's the WoW, Sophie has an impossible time saying anything about her curse, and eventually gives up.

And so Sophie starts to clean.  She even sweeps... the ceiling.

After cleaning everything else on the ground floor, she heads for the fireplace, telling Calcifer that she's going to scrape out all the ashes.  So she does, putting Calcifer in some kind of jar, which he eventually falls into while she's emptying the ash.

Howl returns from his bath, pulling Calcifer out and giving the audience a brief and rare view (assuming that you don't have the "Pause" function on your player) of Calcifer's real form.

Howl breathes (literally) new life into Calcifer and then places him back in the fireplace.  According to Calcifer (after all this is done), if he (he being Calcifer) dies, then so does Howl.  Howl asks Sophie not to torment Calcifer any more, then leaves (through the Black Door) for the day.  When Sophie asks what's through the Black Door, she's told that only Howl knows.

Now that Sophie's officially finished with the first floor, she heads up the stairs and finds the bathroom.

Has someone been paining in here?!

Sophie then finds out where they're going; Star Lake.  As she stands out on a platform with Markl, they notice Turnip Head jammed inside some random crevice in the castle, and they pull him out.

When they arrive at Star Lake, Sophie continues her crusade, her Markl and Turnip Head hanging out the washing and then having lunch.

Inside the world of the Black Door, Howl's... some kind of bird with a human head.  As he flies though the darkness, Howl peers down at the land below him, seeing the burning fires of villages and towns that have fallen victim to the war.

Suddenly, he spots a fleet of bombers and a fleet of fighters fighting ahead of him.

 

As he watches, creatures are deployed from the various ships.  They are magicians/magician hacks who have sold themselves to the king for the war, and have lost their humanity in the process.  Intent on getting Howl, but he slaughters them all, escaping into the clouds as the remainder try to follow.

Back in the castle, the dial switches to black and Howl comes staggering through.  Being in bird form really takes it out of him, and when he gets home, all he wants to do is put up his... talons.

This is what they really mean when they say "Crow's Feet", so start worrying.

Calcifer reminds him that if he remains in that form for longer than a day, he'll never be able to turn back into a human.  Howl manages to turn back into a human today, then gets up to take a bath.  As he passes Sophie, he looks down at her and sees the girl that he met when he was in town that day.

Apparently, she reverts back to her original form when she falls asleep, but maybe that's not the only time.

The next morning, Sophie and Markl go shopping in Porthaven, picking up some things.  As they do, a totally abused battleship comes chugging into port... haven.

During all of the confusion, Sophie realizes that the WoW's gloppy henchmen are out searching for her again, so they book it back home.

When they get inside again, there is a massive smashing sound and Howl comes barreling down the stairs, his hair a vibrant orange color.

He demands an explanation from Sophie, since she was the one who cleaned the bathroom and apparently screwed up all his potions and shit.

As he sinks into a chair, Howl looses all hope for living, saying this.

What a sad, spoiled little man he is.  Sophie agrees with me, but mainly because she says that she's never been recognized as being pretty.  She then storms out and cries in the rain for a while, but comes back inside to help Howl when she's got it out of her system.

Howl's got a bit of a problem.  He's sunk into a really deep depression, even developing a film of sadness.

Nasty.

Sophie and Markl eventually get him up the stairs and get him cleaned up.

Once he's okay enough to lay in bed without drowning in a puddle of his own... mucus (I guess), Sophie brings him some milk, though he doesn't want it.

Howl confesses that he's a coward to Sophie, a fact emphasized by the fact that he still hasn't reported for duty to the castle, a fact that he realizes he can get around by sending Sophie to play the part of his mother.  Still a coward.

And so Sophie sets off from the Kingsbury door.  Howl's promised that he'll be following her in, but doesn't tell Sophie what form he'll be using, so she'll just have to guess.

Along her trip, Sophie decides that Howl's not a pidgin or a crow, but maybe one of the flashy soldiers cruising around on one of those flapping things (won't work).

When she's within the castle grounds, she realizes that she's being followed by a... I hesitate to call it a dog because of the legs, but that's the only viable explanation.  By a dog.

Are you Howl?

Along the way, Sophie is passed by a carriage carrying the WoW, who (when inquired) replies that she cannot break the spell that she cast on Sophie.

The two reach the first step (out of a million) to the actual castle gates, and then begin the climb.  Up and up they go (only Sophie has to turn back to pick up Howl and lug his fat ass up too).  Sophie tells the WoW that she'd help, if only she were younger.

When Sophie finally reaches the top, she actually remains there, cheering the WoW on.  Wow (not WoW, maybe I should have used a different term), what a nice person.  If I were Sophie, I probably would have taken this opportunity to throw my cane at the WoW, be we've already established that I'm not.  If I was, Turnip Head be gone too.

Sophie escorts the suddenly aged WoW into the castle, and then the first chair they see, the WoW snatches it up, what a bit... augh, never mind.

Sophie is drawn away from the WoW's side by Howl, who's leading her towards a secret room, in which she meets a boy who asks her to follow him.

Back inside the sitting room, curtains are rung up all around the WoW, revealing huge light bulbs, and when someone throws the switch, something begins to happen to the WoW, something apparently painful.  That chair also suddenly looks very conspicuously placed.

What are those things?

Meanwhile, Sophie is escorted to an arboretum inside which sits Howl's old magic teacher, Madame Suliman... and that god damned dog.  It wasn't Howl apparently.

Sophie tells Suliman that Howl's too cowardly to show up himself, and Suliman thinks for a while.

Suddenly, Suliman starts down this rant path where she tells Sophie (Mrs. Pendragon in this room) that Howl had his heart stole by a demon, and that he soon after quit his apprenticeship and turned his magic to selfish purposes.  Suliman warns Sophie that if Howl's not stopped, then he will eventually turn into something like the WoW, and then she asks for the WoW to be brought in.

The WoW is wheeled in on one of those trolleys that you find at Costco or Home Depot (the ones where you can lay down on them and get wheeled around the store until your idiot friend drops a case of soda on your stomach), which I found very funny all of a sudden.

Suliman tells Sophie that they've drained the WoW of her magic and returned her to her real age (about 20 years older then Moses).  Apparently, the WoW also made a contract with a devil that had consumed her long ago, so maybe they were killing the demon in that room with the light bulbs...

Sophie makes an impassioned speech, pointing out all of Howl's good points... I didn't know he had many.  But the speech itself isn't very important, but rather what happens to Sophie as she's talking.

Interesting, yeah?

When Suliman points out the fact that Sophie's in love with Howl, she reverts back to the old lady, but I'm sure she was right.  So she turns into her young self when she's actively (what a poor word choice) in love.

At that moment, the... king arrives on one of those flying things.  He comes into the arboretum, telling Suliman that he's decided not to use wizards to fight the war.  Suliman says that this is amazingly eloquent of him, but the jig's up when the real king (a boisterous man with a brain the size of... I don't know if there's anything small enough to compare it to) shows up, spewing rubbish about how they're going to own the competition with this new battle plan.

It's Howl... the first guy at least.  When the two try and get away, Suliman casts a spell and traps them in an illusion.

All about them, stars begin flying past, and then they suddenly gather around, turning into little men and dancing.

Yeah, kind of like what happened to the WoW, but with no Edison light show.

Halfway through the spell, Howl starts to contort and turn into a avian monster like the one Calcifer's warned him about becoming.

Sophie manages to force Howl out of the trance that Suliman's put over him, and Howl manages to escape the spell before they are speared by flying Suliman staff.

Howl loads Sophie, the WoW, and Suliman's little dog too (this is kind of a parody of Wizard of Oz, but would work better if I had said it) onto the flying thing he rode in on, and then takes off.

Howl shows Sophie how to use a ring that he gave her as a tracing device for the castle, then casts a spell of invisibility over them and sends them on their way.

Sophie finally crash-lands into the castle's face, and then goes to sleep.

That night, Howl comes back.  He's crossed the line and stayed out in his bird form too long, and now is beyond help.

Howl continues into his room, walking (and dripping) past Sophie who wakes up a couple of seconds later and follows him (still young).

Howl's room has turned into a twisted tunnel, which Sophie ventures into.

At the end of the tunnel, Sophie finds Howl, or what's left of him.

She tries to get him to tell her how to help, but Howl knows that it's too late, and he flies away, leaving Sophie calling after him... that is until she wakes up.

Actually Howl's just fine, and is even excited about a sudden move that has suddenly become necessarily after the army and navy busted down the doors to both Jenkins's and Pendragon's shops.

And so Howl sets up the spell, picks up Calcifer and they go super power.

All around them the house changes.  New rooms are added and doors explode out of walls.  Beds drop from ceilings and windows appear out of nowhere.  When it's all over, they've left behind Kingsbury and Porthaven and settled in an entirely new town... well, not for Sophie.  It's her old hometown, in her old shop actually.

In addition, Howl's added another room.  The red color on the dial now leads to...

This is where Howl spent his summers as a child.  As he shows Sophie around, she suddenly becomes worried that he's just setting them up before he leaves and gets himself killed, which is what he's doing.

Suddenly, Howl and Sophie spot a battleship off in the distance, and another one flying up behind them, loaded with bombs to drop on "the enemy".  Howl (being somewhat of a peace at any cost/violent pacifist) decides to yank the plug on the battleship, crippling it, but not sinking it.

This invokes a herd of magician sell-outs who chase Howl and Sophie right to the door back into the castle.  Howl drops Sophie into the door and then leaves to draw them off.

After all of that excitement, Sophie spends a little time looking around the new house, and when she ventures outside, she sees everybody leaving the town, which is apparently now on the edge of the war zone.

It's like a scene out of Gone with the Wind.

A car drives up to the store, and out of it hops Sophie's mother, who then barges her way into the shop and finds Sophie, but doesn't seem to be perturbed by her massive shift in age.  After a couple of seconds of meaningless chitchat, Sophie's mother books out of the shop, leaving behind a little purse.

The WoW searches the purse and finds a peeping bug (the worm from Spirited Away) and feeds it to Calcifer, who doesn't think it's exactly delicious.

She also finds a cigar, which she lights and begins to smoke.

That night, Sophie tries to get Calcifer up and going, but he's not having any strength.  When Sophie asks Markl to open a window to let some of the stench from the cigar out, the WoW warns them that what with Calcifer being in that condition, Suliman will be able to find them in no time.

But that's okay, because they've got bigger problems to deal with.  They're being bombed randomly.

Just who in the holy hell would bomb such an obvious civilian area?

As the entire town is under attack, and Suliman's minions move in around the shop.  Sophie manages to lock them out for a couple of seconds, but by the time they reach the courtyard, Sophie notices a bomber overhead.

The bomb-bay doors open up and deliver a payload, one of them flying directly towards the courtyard.  Suddenly, Howl comes out of nowhere, grabbing onto the fins of the bomb and slowing it down enough (apparently) so that it doesn't explode when it hits the ground, but it still made enough of a ruckus to dent the walls with rocks.

Howl escorts Sophie back into the castle (who's been young since the bombing began), and deposits her in there, then after a short conversation with the WoW, leaving again to keep Suliman's minions busy.

After thinking for a while, Sophie decides on her own course of action.  Since Howl's fighting to protect the castle's location, their only choice is to pick up and move, so Sophie switches the dial to the Wastes, then gets everybody out of the house.

Even out in the Wastes, Sophie can see the burning town.  She notices a battleship and then sees Howl breaking through the ceiling of it, roaring and goring the monsters around him.

He's officially too far gone... but he looks cool.

She then picks up Calcifer and leaves the castle herself,t he whole thing collapsing behind them.

Sophie heads back inside and starts feeding Calcifer, telling him that they need to move again, but Calcifer says that he can't without something of hers.  He asks for her eyes, but gets her braid instead.  Even with this, Calcifer beefs up and starts to get the castle moving again.

Just not Howl's...

It's Sophie's Moving Castle.

The mini castle makes good time down the hill, and when Sophie compliments Calcifer of his performance, he replies that what he's doing right now is nothing, and that she should see what he could do if he had her eyes... or her heart!

And that's when the WoW picks up on the fact that the contract that Calcifer made with Howl required Howl to give up something like... his heart.

Yep, that's actually Howl's heart.

The WoW digs through the fireplace and pulls out the heart which causes the castle to start to collapse.  The WoW is engulfed in flames and Sophie is forced to pour water on her, dousing Calcifer too, and possibly killing Howl.

As they look at the spectacle in stunned silence, the castle fractures and a half with Sophie and the dog splits off, falling down a ravine, and the other half continuing along the ridge.

At the bottom of the ravine, Sophie's half of the castle is in complete ruins.  Sophie's remarkably unhurt, but begins to cry when the idea that she might have killed Howl and Calcifer sinks in.

As she's crying, the ring on her finger that guided her back to the castle after their daring escape from Suliman begins to glow.  The ring guides Sophie through a random door that leads to Howl's gift to Sophie.

Above her head, Sophie watch as dozens of stars shoot through the sky and strike the ground in brilliant flashes.

 

In the light of one of the strikes, Sophie can see a young Howl walking along the field.  She realizes that this must be some kind of memory or time warp or something, and Sophie dashes out to meet Howl.

Sophie doesn't arrive in time to talk to Howl.  Howl catches one of the stars and after talking to if for a while, swallows it.

Star goes in, heart comes out, and now Howl's completed the pact with Calcifer.

The ring on Sophie's finger disintegrates, and the spell is over.  The floor underneath her is sucked out, and Sophie and the dog are pulled out of this world, Sophie calling out to Howl to "find her in the future".  Kind of a corny, but there you go.

Sophie emerges from the door she entered through and the door collapses behind her.  Sophie finds Howl waiting for her, even though he's what I'd call dead (maybe just nerve dead, he can't move his face anymore, not even to return a kiss).

Sophie asks Howl to take them to Calcifer, which Howl remarkably does, despite the fact that he's missing a leg (I think.  At least that's what it looks like).  When they arrive at the other half, they find it still going.  Everybody's still alive on it too, including Calcifer.

When Sophie asks Calcifer if he'll still be alive if she gives Howl his heart back, Calcifer's unsure, but sure enough (or tired enough) to figure it's worth a try.  And so she does it.

Calcifer manages to get out in his star form and flies away.  Unfortunately, they forgot to take into account that when Calcifer's gone, so is the force behind what's left of the castle, and the whole thing spills over the cliff, then starts to slide like a cheep toboggan.

This is Turnip Head's big moment, the one that he's been waiting for!  Turnip Head valiantly rams himself into the ground ahead of the platform, digging into the ground and slowing down the fall, but every rock he hits, part of his pole snaps until he's just the top half.

Sophie gives Turnip Head a thank you kiss, and the thing hops up and turns into the prince of the "enemy" country.

Awakened by the kiss of his true love, the prince is disappointed to say the least when he finds out that Sophie and Howl are already in love.  He decides to return to his home country and put an end to the war, but vows to return to make another attempt at Sophie's heart.

And with that, the war is over.  Calcifer returns to them, and is given a new job, powering the new and improved...

Howl's Flying Castle!  I didn't know Calcifer did work for free...

The End.

There's just one thing that I suddenly think you should know.  In the English version, Turnip Head (the prince) was a lot more influential in the outbreak of the war.  When he went missing, Sophie's country was believed to had taken him, and that's when the war began.

Now everything's cleared up, right?

... No.