Vivie Lee

Music 370W
Music and Narrative in Howls Moving Castle and other Hisaishi Film Works
Japanese animation, otherwise known as anime, has become a modern pop culture
phenomenon. Having originally arisen as a cheap and quick means of animating manga, or
Japanese cartoons,1 it has become loved by fans all over the world in spite of its specificity to
Japanese culture and society. Studio Ghibli is one of the most well known Japanese animation
studios and has enjoyed global success in almost all of its releases. Founded in 1985 by the
legendary Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, Studio Ghiblis works are both stunning in visuals
and complex in narrative. The scores of these films are just as popular and engaging as their
three-dimensional characters and magically fantastical settings. Miyazakis musical counterpart,
Joe Hisaishi, is responsible for the effectiveness of the music of the films and has redefined the
composition of animated film scores. Throughout their famously long collaboration, Hisaishi
learns to reconcile his own style, which changes the more he writes for Miyazaki, with the needs
of a film score. Initially, Hisaishi avoids the presence of repeating themes in his music, taking
care to write individualized pieces that once assembled in the film, appropriately reflect the
complexities of the characters. This holistic approach eventually gives way to a leitmotif
approach that manifests first in Howls Moving Castle. In this film, Hisaishi utilizes his leitmotifs
in an unconventional but incredibly effective manner that still succeeds in reflecting the
complexity and development of the characters and their relationships over the course of the
narrative.

1 Shinobu Price, Cartoons from Another Planet: Japanese Animation as Cross-Cultural

Communication, {Journal of American and Comparative Cultures 2001}, 154-155.

The manifestation of music for Japanese animation is a unique process. Japanese film
music is generally referred to as gekiban, or dramatic accompaniment,2 and has origins in
musical drama traditions such as noh and kabuki. Noh, derived from Shinto shrine outdoor stage
traditions, was a drama in which the performers wore masks. Directly translated, the world noh
means an accomplishment and was conceived by Kannami Kiyotaugu and Zeami Motokiyo in
medieval Japan.3 Similar to its Western operatic counterpart, the musical narrative of noh drama
is divided into dialogue and lyrical song (recitatives and arias)4. Kabuki is another type of
Japanese stage drama that originated in 16th century Japan. It includes song, acting, and dance,
and was significantly influenced by noh.5 Both noh and kabuki used instrumental ensembles
referred to as hayashi. Hayashi was used extensively in both noh and kabuki and was produced
with traditional folk instruments. The music punctuated certain changes on stage, For example,
the hayashi used as the curtain is raised sets the scene, while the nature of the main character
emerges through the entrance music, and climatic situations like rain and wind are expressed
through the sound of oh-daiko (large drums).6 Gekiban was born as a reconciliation of this
dominant form of dramatic musical accompaniment and Western classical music, which became
popular in Japan in the early twentieth century. As silent films became more popular, traditional
stage dramas became less so, and hayashi musicians, now out of a job, began to play for the very
medium that put them out of business. This allowed for the narrative purposes of hayashi to be
retained and integrated to into the silent film ensemble. Thus, gekiban was born with the unique
2Kentaro Imada, Lupin III and the Gekiban Approach: Western Styled Music in a Japanese Format,
Drawn to Sound: Animation Film Music and Sonicity {Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010}, 17 (Akimoto
2014) (Miyazaki, Howl's Moving Castle 2004) (Miyazaki 1989) (Bellano, From Albums to Images:
Studio Ghibli's Image Albums and their impact on audiovisual strategies 2012) (Bellano 2010)8-179.
3 William P. Malm, Some of Japans Musics and Musical Principles, Music of Many Cultures: An
Introduction {University California Press 1983}, 50.
4 Ibid.
5 William P. Malm, Nagauta: The Heart of Kabuki Music {Charles E. Tuttle Company 1963}, 34.
6 Imada, Lupin III and the Gekiban Approach, 179.

characteristic of serving a narrative purpose by commenting on the characters, setting, or mood

of the film. It allows the film music to retain some sense of autonomy from the film itself,
despite contributing the understanding of something in the film. This method stands in stark
contrast to traditional Hollywood film music, where the music is only significant when paired
with the visuals of the film.
Understanding gekiban is important for understanding the practice of image albums in
the Japanese animated film industry. The pronounced autonomy of film music in Japanese
animation can be attributed to this practice. The creation of an image album begins preproduction; the director meets with the composer and gives only the budding ideas of the film,
usually in the form of a storyboard and/or concept art. The composer then writes several concert
pieces using these ideas as inspiration, assembling them into the image album. Concert in this
case refers to music that is composed without any special consideration for the films sequences,
rhythms, or tempo; each piece of an image album is usually titled based on a character, situation,
or feeling.7 The independence of image album music provides two main advantages. First, it
allows the score to develop on its own as a piece of music rather than a piece of the film while
still maintaining a crucial connection with the narrative of the film. Second, it provides business
and promotional advantages. Image albums, because they are only preliminary collections of
music, are usually finished before the entire film has come into being. They are often released in
pre-production, creating hype for the films eventual reveal to the public, an image album is
devised for general release as a promotional vehicle for the film; it comprises ten to fifteen tracks
that present the musical ideas that more or less suggest the films themes and soundtrack.8 Not
7 Marco Bellano, The Parts and the Whole: Audiovisual Strategies of the Cinema of Hayao Miyazaki
and Joe Hisaishi, Animation Journal {AJ Press 2010}, 11.
8 Kyoko Koizumi, An Animated Partnership Joe Hisaishis Musical Contributions to Hayao Miyazakis
Films, Drawn to Sound {Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010}, 62.

only do they allow the target audience to obtain an general idea of the film, they also provide the
animators with a narrative skeleton which they can use as a touchstone through detailed
production work. Unique to Miyazaki, it serves as a soundtrack for production work, For
Miyazaki, working while listening to music (especially classical music) is apparently a habit, as
it appears from several documentariesDuring the production of a new animated feature, the
music from the image album is just added to the usual listening routine, whose contents could
thus still retain a role in influencing the directors inspiration.9 This habit creates a kind of
poetic continuity, in which the music of the film really becomes a part of the work, infused into
the art by the hand of the animator as they listen.
The success of the Miyazaki-Hisaishi partnership lies partly in the Hisaishis ability to
match the aesthetics of his music to those of Miyazakis film. Many of Miyazakis films contain
vaguely European influences while obtaining an inherent sense of Japaneseness due to their
medium. Hisaishi echoes this dichotomy by uniting the pentatonic scale, which has a distinctly
Eastern sound, and the Dorian mode, a European church mode, ..when I use the yona-nuki
[major] pentatonic scale, I treat it like a mode such as the English-like Dorian mode. When I
composed the music for Nausica of the Valley of the Wind, I thought it was influenced by
elements of Scottish or Irish folk musicI adopt a defensive stance to keep my music within a
frame of western-style music but also to refrain from making enka [ie. traditional Japanese
music].10 In films that are more European such as Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind and
Laputa: Castle in the Sky, the Dorian mode dominates over the pentatonic scale because the
setting emulates feudal Europe in Nausicaa and early twentieth century Europe in Laputa.
Additionally, to contribute to the exoticism of the Nausicaa brought about by giant insects and
9 Marco Bellano, From Albums to Images: Studio Ghiblis Image Albums and their impact on
audiovisual strategies, {Transcultural Music Review 2012}, 5.
10 Koizumi, An Animated Partnership, 63-64.

mutated forests, Hisaishi uses minimalistic characteristics, excerpts from the sitar, and
unconventional sounds such as rubbed glass.11 According to Bellano, this is because Hisaishi was
still in a phase in which he experimented with different stylistic composition choices in this first
collaboration, The three albums display the clash of musical styles that was typical of the early
Hisaishi: symphonic musical episodes appear near synthetic-pop compositions without any
apparent concern, while electronic sounds often prevail over the timbre of real instruments.
Hisaishi was clearly still searching for challenging music and experimenting, rather than
developing a focused compositional approach.12 At this point, Hisaishi had not yet begun
thinking critically about how the music and images relate and work together to convey film
narrative, so although Nausicaa possesses a very unique score, it does does not act on the film
visuals in the same way as his later works. Instead of having the music provide a continuous
commentary and develop alongside the narrative of the film, Hisaishi uses a technique called
punctuation, when music is created to underline events that are specific to the image...[and] is
conditioned by what happens on screen, such as the pace of the action or the composition of the
frame, and not by the pure language of music itself.13 This simpler compositional approach
gives way to a more developed, holistic style of music as Hisaishi continues his work with
Miyazaki after the resounding success of Nausicaa.
In later films, Hisaishi allows the music to comment on the main themes of the films. The music
of Princess Mononoke outwardly gravitate more towards pentatonic scale-like movement than
Dorian mode. This movement is significant when considering the plot, in which the female
protagonist, San, is caught between the foster family of wolves that raised her to fight for the
forest and the boy Ashitaka, who is human and represents the opportunity for a normal life.
11 Ibid, 64.
12 Bellano, The Parts and the Whole, 12.
13 Ibid, 12.

Additionally, it also represents the conflict between the industrializing humans and the
environment, revealing a commentary made on human expansion and the consequences that arise
from a disregard for nature.14
In Kikis Delivery Service, we finally see Hisaishis holistic approach to musical narrative
manifest itself completely. There are no leitmotifs in this film and virtually nothing repeats itself.
Every piece serves the purpose of showing the audience a different side of the main protagonist,
Kiki, and the experiences she has trying to become an independent witch in a small European
seaside city. For example, the piece that plays at Kikis arrival to her chosen city, Umi no Meiru
Machi (A Town with an Ocean View), begins with a hopeful motive played by the strings,
eventually giving way to an arrangement of wind instruments--most notably bassoons playing an
accompaniment and/or countermelody to oboes or flutesplaying a theme that projects the
tranquil nature of the small city. The winds are eventually joined by the mandolin, an unusual but
suitably European instrument. Bellano argues that in this film, Hisaishis music follows the
emotional arc of the narrative rather than the sequential or action-related development, The film
develops the story of Kikis passage from childhood to adolescence with contemplative and quiet
episodes, where the director concentrates on the expressiveness of the context and of the
characters, rather than on the rhythm of the editing or camera movements.15 According to him,
this is evidenced by the action sequence that follows the introduction of this first piece in which
Kiki accidentally causes a massive traffic incident by almost flying into a bus. Although the
music quiets during this sequence, there is no evident change in its momentum as it proceeds
mostly unaffected by the events unfolding on screen.
Bellanos argument is a strong one, but there is evidence of subtle changes in the
14 Koizumi, An Animated Partnership, 65.
15 Bellano, The Parts of a Whole, 18-19.

orchestration and instrumentation techniques in the music that are influenced by the visuals and
narrative of the film. When Kiki first spots the seaside city she is far away, having just gotten of
the train she spent the night in. The orchestration reflects this in the initial theme, which is played
with plucked strings and harp in the background and woodwinds in the foreground. The second
iteration of the theme sounds as Kiki flies towards the port of the city, and the orchestration
thickens as the oboe, more pronounced than the initial clarinet, takes over the melody. Other
instruments, including the mandolin, the glockenspiel, and the timpani enter the accompaniment.
The increased drama symbolizes Kikis aspirations and resolution to live in this city as this recap
enters right after she exclaims, This is just the kind of place Ive always imagined!16 A
secondary development theme enters as Kiki flies through the city port, and the visual pans
through the hustle and bustle of workers at the dock. The final repetition of the initial theme
enters with again, a different orchestration in which the strings and mandolin take the melody
before transitioning into a melody and countermelody played by the oboe and bassoon. This
occurs while the visuals flip through the different aspects of busy city life, from pedestrians
downtown to shoppers in the marketplace to thick traffic clogging the streets. The final recap
ends just as Kiki makes the final decision to settle in this city and gives way to a new theme that
embodies the young witchs eagerness and excitement as she flies down in closer view of the
people on the streets, who all react in shock to seeing a flying girl. Thus, although Hisaishis
music does not follow the visual sequences closely enough to be considered typical Hollywood
Mickey-mousing music, there are small alterations in how the music is presented that help the
narrative arrive at certain climaxes. Most of the music in the film is similar to this first track,
subtly following the visuals onscreen while fulfilling the main purpose of commentating on
Kikis experiences and development as a character. As Bellano points out, there are no themes in
16 Hayao Miyazaki, Kikis Delivery Service, Studio Ghibli 1989, Audiovisual file.

traditional sense; the entire film score conveys the essence of Kiki, in a sense, they are all
Kikis theme.17
Hisaishis holistic approach to the relationship between the score and the film is incredibly
effective as it means the music, free of simplistic motifs, can develop depth in the same way as
Miyazakis characters.18 This depth is often conveyed by the directors tendency to create female
protagonists who struggle to reconcile conflicting sides of herself. This description applies to
both Kiki and Sophie, the heroine of Howls Moving Castle, the first film in which Hisaishi takes
are more leitmotif-like approach in creating the film score. The circumstances that led to this
were special. Unlike other image albums that Hisaishi wrote for Miyazaki in which the directors
insistence on withholding any detailed screenplay from the composer prevented Hisaishi from
effectively producing melodies that had a leitmotivic function,19 most of the pieces Hisaishi
wrote for the Howl image album were rejected by Miyazaki. 20 Eventually Miyazaki accepted one
piece that was not part of the image albuma waltz called The Merry-go-round of Lifeand
requested that Hisaishi base the film score around that one piece. Thus, Hisaishi finally had the
opportunity to experiment with leitmotifs and how he could use them to contribute to the
developing film narrative.
In his experimentation, Hisaishi granted the main theme of the film four different roles. Firstly,
The Merry-go-round of Life is the theme of the entire film. Hisaishi has dispersed it so much
throughout that the audience comes to associate the waltz with the film itself. The piece is also
17 Bellano, The Parts of the Whole, 20.
18 Ibid.
19 Ibid.
20 It should also be noted that Hisaishi preferred to avoid using leitmotifs in Miyazakis films as he
believed they were too obvious to properly convey the characters inner complexities. Koizumi, An
Animated Partnership, 66.

Sophies theme, or Sophies motive. Its orchestration changes throughout the film based on
Sophies mood, feelings, and character development. The themes debuts in the form of a piano
solo and introduces Sophie as a reserved, lonely character. It plays in the background as she
refuses a well-intended invitation to go out after work. The second time the theme sounds in
direct relation to Sophie is after she gets cursed by the Witch of the Waste. Here the melody
plays in the bassoons, reflecting Sophies ninety-year-old state. Later, the melody is heard again
in its full state (played first in the clarinets, then the strings) at a languid tempo when Sophie is
having tea by the lake, surrounded by beautiful scenery. This orchestration reflects Sophies
peacefulness, as well her ability to make peace with her current cursed. Some time later, the
theme is heard as a lonely piano solo again when Sophie cries to herself after being hurt by
Howls insensitive remarks about beauty. The return to the theme on piano coupled with the
visual of Sophie becoming slightly younger shows how she is insecure about her appearance as
both her younger and older self. The piano eventually becomes accompaniment in the
background as the orchestration thickens and different instruments take the melody. This return
to orchestral instrumentation shows Sophies forgiveness of Howls dramatic reaction, marking a
new stage in their relationship, bringing us to the third role the theme takes in the film: a
representation of the love between the two protagonists. Between the presentation of the theme
as lonely Sophie and old Sophie, it also returns at Sophies first encounter with Howl. It is
initially played pizzicato in the strings, symbolizing Sophies timidity and Howls playfulness.
Eventually, it breaks out fully in the strings, hinting at what their relationship could be and will
be later in the film. Another mark of their growing love occurs when Sophie stands up to the
powerful wizard Solomon and the main theme breaks out in the horns and brass. This is an act
that young Sophie would not have dared to commit, showing how she has grown and matured

through her love for Howl. As she expounds upon her faith in him and his ability to fight off his
inner demons,21 the theme winds down into the strings, similar to the orchestration used as
Howl and Sophie were dancing through the sky in the beginning of the film.
The final role of the main theme is a nod to Hisaishis previous holistic approach to film music.
As Bellano argues, the occurrences of The Merry-go-round of Life theme can be collectively
viewed as a theme and variations structure, The composers decision to base Howls Moving
Castles music on this form is confirmed by the fact that, about a year after the completion of the
film, he released an orchestral piece called Merry-go-round Symphonic Variations.22 Bellano
points out that this structure is perfect for reflecting the idea of metamorphosis that Miyazaki
wanted to convey in this film. The music contributes to this overarching theme by associating a
changing theme with Sophie, whose age changes based on her emotions.
Another motif in the film contributes to Miyazakis antiwar commentary through a distinct lack
of variation. The war theme is first heard at the very beginning of the movie, indicating its key
role in the development of both the narrative and the relationship between Howl and Sophie. It
sounds as a heroic fanfare played primarily by trumpets and low brass and repeats throughout the
film, namely when politics suddenly enter the context. Unlike the The Merry-go-round of Life
each time the war theme repeats it sounds exactly the same. This reflects the reasoning behind
Miyazakis antiwar stance: war never changes because there is always killing, violence, and
tragedy no matter what you are fighting for. Howl was in production during the start of the Iraq
war and the War on Terror, both of which the director disapproved of, Notably, Miyazaki
remarked that he was angered by listening to the speech by US President George W. Bush who
asked the world: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists (White House 2001)
21 Hayao Miyazaki, Howls Moving Castle, 2004, Audiovisual file.
22 Bellano, The Parts of the Whole, 24.

In response, Miyazaki expressed his stance as being on neither side! Likewise, Miyazaki did
not attend the Ceremony of the Academy Award after the United States started the military attack
on Iraq, presumably because he intended to keep a distance from the White House in order to
show his anti-war stance.23 The contrast of the war themes lack of variation contributes to not
just the overarching narrative of the film, but a larger social commentary as well.
Hisaishis leitmotif is not as straightforward as the traditional Wagnerian leitmotif. Wagnerian
leitmotifs are easily identifiable and relatively short, necessary characteristics when the narrative
is a complicated as it is in a Wagner opera. Hisaishis leitmotif writing is subtler as a result of the
composers previously preferred holistic approach to film music in which he wrote long, unique
pieces to mirror the depth of Miyazakis narrative. He grants his long motifs several roles as
shown in Howls Moving Castle, and integrates many elements his holistic approach in order to
broaden the musical commentary, bringing attention to both the characters and narrative as well
as the films messages. Hisaishis music is part of the reason why audiences all over the world
are so affected by Miyazakis films.

23 Daisuki Akimoto, Howls Moving Castle in the War on Terror: A Transformative Analysis of the Iraq
War and Japans Response, {Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies 2014}
http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/ejcjs/vol14/iss2/akimoto.html.

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