Laputa: The Castle in the Sky (天空の城ラピュタ Tenkū no Shiro Rapyuta) (re-titled Castle in the Sky for release in the United States and aired on ITV in the UK as Laputa the Flying Island) is a 1986 Japanese animated adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki that marked the cinematic feature debut of Studio Ghibli. It follows the adventures of a young boy and girl attempting to keep a magic crystal from a group of military agents, while searching for a legendary floating castle.
The film was distributed by Toei Company, Ltd. Laputa: Castle in the Sky won the Animage Anime Grand Prix in 1986.
Dubbing History[]
UK ITV Laputa the Flying Island title card
An English-dubbed version, produced by an unknown party[1] for international Japan Airlines flights at the request of Tokuma Shoten, was released theatrically in Hong Kong on June 26, 1987. On November 13, 1988, it was shown as part of the selection at the 11th Annual Asian-American Film Festival in Houston, Texas.[2] It was also briefly screened in the greater United States by Streamline Pictures in 1989 and 1990, as well as being aired on in the UK by ITV on New Years Eve in 1988 and on one more following occasion on January 3, 1993. Carl Macek, the head of Streamline, was disappointed with this dub, deeming it "adequate, but clumsy". Following this, Tokuma allowed Streamline to dub their future acquisitions My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service.[3] The original dub of Castle in the Sky was released only on the Japanese Studio Ghibli Laserdisc Collection in 1996 and on the first Region 2 DVD release in 2002, both of which are now out of print.
The Disney-produced English dub was recorded in 1998 and planned for release on video in 1999, but the release was canceled after Princess Mononoke did not fare as well in the US as Japan, and so Laputa's release date was pushed back yet again; on occasion, the completed dub was screened at select children's festivals. The film was finally released on DVD and video in the US on August 16, 2003 alongside a re-release of Kiki's Delivery Service and Spirited Away.
Although the plot and much of the script was left intact, Disney's English dub of Castle in the Sky contains some changes, including added background chatter and one-liners where dialogue was not originally present, and most notably an extended and partly re-orchestrated score by original composer Joe Hisaishi to fill in moments of silence. According to Steve Alpert's memoir Sharing a House with the Never-Ending Man: 15 Years at Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki himself gave the go ahead for and approved of Hisaishi's reworking,[4] although these changes were questioned by critics and fans. Post-2010 releases of the film undo a large amount of these changes, including the music score and added dialogue. Recently, however, the film has been re-released by GKIDS with two different mixes of the Disney dub: one with the original score, and one with the revised score.
Cast[]
| Image | Character | Seiyū 
|
Dub Actor 
| |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 Dub | Buena Vista Dub | |||
|
Pazu | Mayumi Tanaka | Barbara Goodson | James Van Der Beek |
|
Sheeta | Keiko Yokozawa | Lara Cody | Anna Paquin |
|
Muska | Minori Terada | Jeff Winkless | Mark Hamill |
|
Dola | Kotoe Hatsui | Rachel Vanowen | Cloris Leachman |
|
General Shogun Muoro | Ichirō Nagai | Mike Reynolds | Jim Cummings |
|
Uncle Pom | Fuji Tokita | Edward Mannix | Richard Dysart |
|
Charles (Shalulu) |
Takuzō Kamiyama | Barry Stigler | Michael McShane |
|
Louis (Lui) |
Yoshito Yasuhara | Dave Mallow | Mandy Patinkin |
|
Henri (Anli) |
Sukekiyo Kameyama | Eddie Frierson | Andy Dick |
|
Mr. Duffi (Boss) |
Hiroshi Itō | Clifton Wells | John Hostetter |
|
Okami Duffi | Machiko Washio | Lara Cody | Tress MacNeille |
|
Train Operator | Tomomichi Nishimura | Eddie Frierson | Matthew Kermit Miller |
|
Pa Dola (Motro) |
Ryūji Saikachi | Clifton Wells | Eddie Frierson |
|
Madge | Tarako Isono | Barbara Goodson | Debi Derryberry |
Additional Voices[]
Original Dub
|
Buena Vista Dub |
Notes[]
- Most releases in America drop "Laputa" from the title. Although meaningless in Japanese, the name "Laputa" comes from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. English language dubs of Laputa have been released under three different titles by three separate distributors, which is largely because it is identical to the Spanish rude term "la puta" (lit. "the whore").
- Some of the other changes in Disney's dub:
- Pazu and Sheeta are made to sound several years older, placing them in their mid-teens rather than their pre-teens.
- Several modifications were made to the Dola gang's dialogue regarding Sheeta, including a declaration of love by one of the pirates. In the original Japanese version, the dialogue presented Sheeta as a potential mother figure to the pirates, rather than a potential romantic interest.
- References to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels were removed, the latter of which had also been removed from the original dub.
- Both dubs feature identical dialogue in certain scenes, most notably The General's congratulatory remarks towards Muska in the finale and Charles' line "All good pirates listen to their mom!", possibly due to Disney using the original dub's script as a basis for their dub script, as a similar situation occurred with Kiki's Delivery Service, though this has never been confirmed.
- Eddie Frierson is the only voice actor to be in both dubs.
Video Releases[]
| Distributor | Year | Format | Dub | Region | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tokuma Shoten | 1996 | 
|
Original | NTSC | Japan |
|
| 2002 | 
|
2 NTSC | ||||
| Buena Vista Home Entertainment |
2003 | 
|
Disney | NTSC | United States |
|
|
|
1 NTSC | |||||
| 2010 | ||||||
| Madman Entertainment | 2011 | 
|
B DVB-T |
Australia | 
| |
| Buena Vista Home Entertainment |
2012 | A DVB-T |
United States |
| ||
| Optimum Releasing | 2017 | B DVB-T |
United Kingdom | 
| ||
| GKIDS | A DVB-T |
United States |
| |||
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The company responsible for producing the 1988 dub of Castle in the Sky is as yet undetermined. This dub is sometimes referred to as the "Streamline dub", which led to a misconception that it was produced by Streamline Pictures themselves. (Clements & McCarthy 2015, p. 121; Patten 2015.) Others attribute the dub to a company called "Magnum". (Wyse 2020). However, the dub was commissioned by Tokuma Shoten and licensed to Streamline for distribution in North America, (Clements & McCarthy 2015, p. 121) and Streamline representative Fred Patten reports that it was originally produced for Japan Airlines as on-board entertainment on international flights. (Toyama) According to Streamline co-founder Carl Macek, Tokuma Shoten had outsourced its production to an unnamed company in Hollywood. (Macek 2014, 48:49–49:17.)
- ↑ Frank, Jorge, Panime's Image No. 21 (December 1988), pg. 8
- ↑ Macek, Carl, ANNCast Classic: Macek Training by Zac Bertschy & Justin Sevakis, Jan 9th 2014, 48:49.
- ↑ Alpert, Steve, Sharing a House with The Never Ending Man, Stone Bridge Press, 2020, p. 120
See Also[]
- Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water (an anime that was based on a similar idea by Hayao Miyazaki)
External Links[]
- Castle in the Sky (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
- Castle in the Sky at the Internet Movie Database
