I saw this in February, but wound up going on a date to see this one at the Metreon, this time dubbed in English. Dubbing or not, this is not a great story, and I give it 2/4 stars.
Still, the animation is wonderful, with some really joyous bits of flowers and blades of grass and such attention to detail. Watching it a second time makes me realize that there is always something interesting going on visually, and how great the matte paintings in the backgrounds are.
I was pleased that I didn’t miss much in my Japanese-only screening. I think the only part I really didn’t understand was Howl’s tantrum where he turns into Gel and slugs off. And because of the translation being so… weird, I’m not sure if I missed anything at all.
Yay me.