great, ok I admit that I bought this to see Howl's again and decide later if I wanted to spend bigger bucks for the us release, 2dvd set. I am a big H.Mayazaki fan and all my HM films are r1's but I saw this one for 4.99 (5.00shipping) on ebay and thought what the h*ll. the video is excellent. widescreen and clear as a bell, crisp...if it wasn't for the problem with the menu being only in kanji so I can't read it and have to guess what I'm clicking (though since I don't think this 1dvd set comes with extras the menu is for scene selection which you can use because it has pictures and numbers and the languages, audio, subs etc. all are kanji but you can change that on most dvd players with the remote anyway), it would be just about a purrrfect rip.

I think the audio was very good as well. I didn't really listen long in all languages, by the way this comes in french, english, japanese and chinese (I think it has two dialects but I can't be sure). as well as the subtitles are in all languages so if you know your languages you can see it in japanese audio while seeing french subtitles, lol....I only speak english though so I really wish the menu wasn't kanji!!!!

I think the audio was very good as well. I didn't really listen long in all languages, by the way this comes in french, english, japanese and chinese (I think it has two dialects but I can't be sure). as well as the subtitles are in all languages so if you know your languages you can see it in japanese audio while seeing french subtitles, lol....I only speak english though so I really wish the menu wasn't kanji!!!!

as mentioned I love HM films..so far I have princesse monononke, spirited away (a fav. of mine), kiki's delivery service, castle in the sky, my nieghbor toroto, even Lupin (the movie, title slips me at the moment)...they are all r1's and usually I'm cautious about buying films that are imports but this seemed like a good deal to get it since the r1 won't be out till march anyway......and I think this was pretty good but for the kanji menu with no english..otherwise flawless. as to the movie......I think it's one of my favorites, maybe number 4 after spirited away, princess monononke, kiki's delivery service, then howl's moving castle...though castle in the sky is good too. Christian bale did a very good V.O. as well as his co-actors.... watching it also in Japanese I think will definitly make me want to see it from start to finish in Japanese at some point even though I am not a big fan of subtitles for anime because I am usually absorbed in the story and animation that I don't like having to read the subs ..it takes away the visual for me when there is so much details to see. Still there is something wonderful to watch HM films in their original language and I love listening to Japanese even if I don't understand it without subs. I give Howl's 4 out of 5 stars. I turned a friend on to her first anime experience when we went to see it and she fell in love with the movie. here's hoping she finds out how good anime is and sees also more of his films. simply magical! oh why not 5 stars..while I loved the movie overall I felt I wanted more details in some of the information about the characters and sometimes I felt the movie moved to fast from one situation to the other without a bit of detail into what was going on..if that makes any sense. I wanted to know more about Howl for one thing... and the ending I sort of wanted to see something more like a scene after they flew away together..maybe something of what they were now doing together and where they were going to live since Howl's castle was destroyed or does he make a new one. but I know that's left to our imagination:-)