A magical anime home on the roam

Japan’s master of animation Hayao Miyazaki, whose “Spirited Away” won the Oscar for best animated feature of 2003, visits yet another magical realm with his latest film. This fantastic contraption is the home of the mysterious Howl (voiced by Christian Bale), who inadvertently draws Sophie (Emily Mortimer) into his troubled existence as he is pursued by the Witch of the Waste (Lauren Bacall). In addition to picking itself up and taking a hike whenever the mood strikes the wizard of the manor, this abode also exists simultaneously in multiple places, most of them European in appearance along with the characters. On one end the castle looks vaguely nautical, at the other is a door that brings to mind “The Old Woman and the Shoe” through which Sophie, transformed by the witch into an old woman (Jean Simmons), enters this universe. The charming film, based on the novel by Diana Wynne Jones, has mesmerized Japanese audiences to the tune of more than $220 million. Pete Docter, who was a director on “Monsters, Inc.,” oversaw the translation, and this might be a case in which the English-language version works as well on a dramatic level as the original.

-- R. Kinsey Lowe