Howl's Moving Castle 2004 8.5/10 - One of the greatest cartoons/anime movies I have ever seen. Oddly missed, up until this night! :unsure: Most definitely better than Grave of the Fireflies that just makes one choke at times, better than Akira, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away or such. Not by much, but by enough distance to be said for certain.
Short story: a young girl unsatisfied with her looks has the misfortune to fall under a bad witch's heartless spell turning her into a 90 year old granny. After she quickly understands there's nothing more to lose as not only the little beauty she possessed has left her but also her health, she learns that what little self remains can make one much happier if put in the service of others rather than herself. That and a lot of magic happening alongside her troubles.
I didn't expect it to be such a good one especially since the character art seems old and cartoonish, but in the end it was a sort of anime meets Disney and it worked out great. The art was considerably worse than Frozen that everyone is hype about in this last some years, but the story makes up for it, and if you look at the big picture of it all, in the end, Frozen's got nothing on this! (Except better music and character graphic, as this one was not a musical.) If the character art would be decent, this would be a solid 9.
This cartoon/anime movie has reminded me of Ultear from Fairy Tail for obvious reasons and also of my favorite drama Little Princess Sara that makes me feel the ecstasy of pain every time I watch it, as the character graphics are similar, although 20 years apart. HA! A true gem! I needed to watch about 25 so called glorified movies lately to get to this one, and from all of those only another 2 or 3 maybe worth diagnosing, which I may do later as they wore good movies indeed.
Out of that 25, I have left the only animated one at the end as I figured it's gonna be the most boring and unsatisfying one. HA! Turns out it was the best one! Just life!