Castle in the Sky--Humans can not live without land after all

     Before starting, you can click the following link to enjoy the song(君をのせて=Carrying You) from Castle in the Sky with this post.

Original version with vocal (on Dailymotion)

Piano version without vocal (on Youtube)

     I chose Castle in the Sky to be the first Ghibli movie to review because it was the first movie I watched from Ghibli Studio. The movie was released in 1986, which meant it was 11 years older than me. I watched this movie when I was just an elementary student and couldn’t understand the plot fully. I could only know who were “good” and who were “bad” according to their actions but couldn’t know the reason why they did the actions. A few days ago I watched this movie again and had a totally different experience. Watching movies from Ghibli Studio at different age will definitely bring you different feelings everytime.

Movie Information

Castle in the Sky (天空の城ラピュタ)

Production company: Studio Ghibli

Directed by: Miyazaki Hayao (宮崎駿)

Written by: Miyazaki Hayao (宮崎駿)

Music by: Hisaishi Joe (久石讓)

Release dates: 1986/08/02

Running time: 126 minutes

Country: Japan

Language: Japanese

(Information from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castle_in_the_Sky)

Plot

     The story started from the encounter of the two main characters, Sheeta and Pazu. While Sheeta fell from the airship because of the pursuit by military and air pirates, her crystal amulet, which made her the target of the two groups, protected her and Pazu, an intern worker in mine, saved her and brought her home to recover. 

     The next morning, Sheeta saw a picture on the wall. It was a picture taken by Pazu’s father, who once accidentally discovered Laputa, the legendary country floating in the sky. But after he came back and told others about Laputa, nobody trusted him and he was considered as a liar for the rest of his life. Therefore, Pazu had a dream to find and see Laputa in person so that he could prove that his father wasn’t a liar.

(“I will find it(Laputa) for sure.”—Pazu.)

     Later they found that the military and the air pirates had followed them to the small village Pazu lived in. They started to run away from the pursuit of the two groups again. And the conflicts among three sides, Sheeta with Pazu, air pirates, and military caused by the mysterious amulet, which seems to have something to do with Laputa,  began.

Review(Warning: The following part contains serious spoiler)

     The plot of Castle in the Sky was very typical but exciting. A bunch of good guys and a bunch of bad guys fought for something with strong power which might be able to control the world and the good side eventually won. Even though it didn’t contain serious moral lessons like Aesop’s Fables, the audience could still have fun and enjoy the movie with the smooth arrangement of the plot and the smiles on Sheeta and Pazu’s faces.

(Didn’t you also smile while seeing both of them being so happy finding the beautiful and mysterious country floating in the sky?)

     Miyazaki Hayao must have put a great effort in on the setting of the characters since the personalities of every of them were very clear and distinct. Especially in this movie, many of the characters had the personality that broke the stereotypes we have toward their identities.

     The military from the government should be just, selfless, and faithful. But in this movie, Miyazaki Hayao made them greedy and selfish. Ostensibly, they claimed that the government had ordered them to find Laputa because Laputa contained the strong power which could control the earth and there would never be peace as long as it existed. Actually, all of them wanted to find Laputa because of the treasure in the country. They all went crazy after seeing tons of treasure on the floating island and didn’t want to report the discovery of Laputa to the government.

     The pirates should be people who only saw money. Indeed the air pirates in the movie also viewed money as the most important thing. All the purpose of their actions are money.(Chasing after Sheeta at the beginning, rescuing Sheeta with Pazu, and heading Laputa) This kind of characters should have been hated but Miyazaki Hayao made them adorable by describing different aspects of them. Even though they were pirates who robbed others to get what they want, they still had positive characteristics like considerate and cooperative. There were also many scenes that made them look cute despite the fact that they were pirates.

     Speaking of the group of air pirates, we have to talk about Dola, the captain of the pirates. I personally like this character very much.

She had the domineering character as a pirate and kind, considerate character as a women and a mother. She was the one who made Pazu mentally grew up in one night. Because of Dola’s word, Pazu decided to rescue Sheeta and get the amulet back. We could also see how much she cared about Sheeta and Pazu though she seldom expressed the affection out. With Dola, who was just like Sheeta and Pazu’s mother, we audience could easily feel the happiness while seeing them growing up and being more mature.

(“He(Pazu) suddenly grew up.”—Dola.)

(“Thank god, you two are still alive!”—Dola.)

(“Losing your(Sheeta’s) two braids is much more pitiful than losing an air ship.”—Dola.)

     The Laputan robots were also characters with contrast between outside and inside. They were built with high technology and had the strong power to destroy everything. But actually they were faithful and sincere to their master, Sheeta. They used their ability to kill and destroy just because the simple reason: protect Sheeta and protect Laputa.

At first Sheeta was also afraid of the robot.

After Sheeta realized the robot was trying to protect her instead of hurting her, the robot was destroyed by the military right away. This robot only came out for about ten minute but the gentle and sincere actions it did to Sheeta made audience grow sympathy for its death.(I was yelling ”NOOOOOO! THE ROBOT!!!” when it was killed.)

(The robot on the island was also very friendly.)

     Finally, let’s talk about Sheeta, the heroine of this movie. Sheeta was the royalty of Laputa, but she was not delicate and weak like other kinds of princess. She was brave and unwavering instead.

 She once said that she was afraid and didn’t want to go to Laputa at all, but when she saw the cruel and aggressive things Muska did in order to be the king of Laputa and control the world. She decided to stop him and protect Laputa.

(Muska is clearly a typical villain so I am not going to talk about him additionally.)

While Sheeta was confronting Muska along in the abandoned throne room of Laputa, we can see her growth. She used to be the one who kept fleeing at the beginning of the movie.

(“Sheeta!”—Pazu.)

But at the end of the movie, she dared to face and fight Muska by herself in order to stop his evil plan.

(“This place is the grave, where you and I will be buried.”—Sheeta.

The eyes of Sheeta in this scene were so different compared to her eyes before. They used to be filled with fear and worry but in this picture they were filled with determination.)

Moreover, to prevent Muska from getting the massive power and using it inappropriately, Sheeta called Pazu to throw her crystal amulet into the sea, which meant she decided to abandon her important family heirloom, with which she could be the master of Laputa, as well as Laputa, where was filled with treasure, technology, beautiful scenery, and power.

It must be a difficult decision for normal people (like me). But Sheeta firmly decided that she would not take anything from Laputa and that she would go back to the land to live like her ancestors who moved from Laputa to the land because she realized that human beings should live on the ground, not floating in the sky, like the lines in the old song from her hometown,” The roots have to be planted in soil, living with winds, getting through the winters with seeds, and singing the praises of spring with birds,” which meant human couldn’t live without land. Therefore, she eventually used the spell of destruction with Pazu to destroy Laputa and escaped from it with him.

At the end of the movie, Laputa flied higher and higher until it disappeared. But only the under part of it was destroyed, and the beautiful garden where Sheeta and Pazu had explored would be preserved in peace forever.

Trivia of the movie

     I believe that every audience was very excited while this scene in Castle in the Sky.

(“BARUSU!”)

That’s right! The spell of destruction! This can be said as the most famous scene in Castle in the Sky. The first trivia is about this spell and where the movie comes from, Japan. As you may know, many Japanese use Twitter frequently. Two engineers working in Twitter’s parent company in the U.S once said that Japan was the country that loved to use Twitter the most all over the world. It should be a good news for Twitter, but Japanese’s craziness on Twitter also caused worry and troubles for Twitter company.

In 2011, Castle in the Sky was rebroadcasted on TV. Just at the moment that Sheeta and Pazu said the spell “Barusu,” there were more than twenty thousand tweets from Japanese saying “Barusu!” in only a second, which made the system of Twitter crashed. After that, Twitter rebuilt their system and made it stronger.

(Source: https://news.gamme.com.tw/816627)

In 2013, Castle in the Sky was rebroadcasted on TV again. This time, before the movie was rebroadcasted, Twitter posted an official announcement that they were ready for the “challenge” from Japanese Twitter users. The announcement provoked Japanese Twitter users’ will and they all typed “Barusu!” on their Twitter to prepare for the moment to post it out. And the result was……

In the second, there were 143,199 tweets posted, which was the world’s highest record! And this time the system of Twitter was strong enough to get through this.

(source:https://news.gamme.com.tw/816627)

In 2016, Castle in the sky was rebroadcasted on TV AGAIN. This time, before the movie was rebroadcasted, Twitter posted an official announcement again, but it said that they were confident of their system and actively invited Japanese Twitter users to tweet “Barusu!” out together. Did it become a kind of festival in Japan lol? And the TV station even prepared this:

(source: http://news.gamme.com.tw/1375468)

A countdown timer for “Barusu”! They made it so that the Twitter users could tweet in the same second.

(source: http://news.gamme.com.tw/1375468)

(And the countdown timer also got destroyed because of the spell of destruction.)

The result this time was also tons of tweets like an eruption of a volcano, but somehow it didn’t break the record in 2013. Every time when Castle in the Sky was rebroadcasted, there were new tricks from Twitter and TV stations. That makes me look forward to the next rebroadcast of Castle in the Sky. Maybe next time you and I can also be one of the “BARUSU!”s on the Internet!

     The second trivia is about the creatures playing on the shoulder of the gardener Laputan robot.

Does they look familiar to you?

They are the same creature appeared in another Ghibli movie: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind(風の谷のナウシカ)!

     The last trivia is about Muska, another posterity of the royalty of Laputa. The movie didn’t clearly tell us if Muska died eventually or floated far away with Laputa. It was just like a mystery in our mind. But a Japanese said that he saw Muska falling into the sea after the spell of destruction. Therefore, I watched the scene again and tried to find Muska. And……

(Muska! There you are!)

There was a man with the same clothes as Muska’s and the same hair color as Muska’s. Was he really Muska? Or was he just a person who looked the same as Muska? It depends on what kind of ending you want to give Muska!

See ya!