Hauru no Ugoku Shiro (Howl's Moving Castle)

Translator's notes in yellow.

1/20/04 (Tues.)

Today was the day for health checkups at Ghibli. As a rule, the men start in the afternoon, but they can't eat anything after seven in the morning. Drinking water and smoking are forbidden too. A number of people were showing withdrawal symptoms. I was one of them, and felt keenly the difficulty of enduring something.

Now, I'm eating at the talked-about beef bowl restaurant. The production team has always praised this treasure, saying "tasty, cheap, fast" in a three-beat rhythm . . . For the moment, everything is going well and the checkups are over, so I decided to go and eat. Furthermore, the moment my checkup was done, I dashed out, ordered the new pork rice dish, and finished it off. If there are any ill consequences, well, you reap what you sow.

1/21/04 (Weds.)

Editing starts next month and has started to weigh on our minds. In order to prepare the necessary materials, Imura, Saitoh, and Itoh from the production team are hurriedly struggling with the in-between checking machine which was installed in the production room.

As for the health checkups, Kamimura, whose has fundamental problems with his dietary habits and lifestyle, has gotten all A's for several years. Shimamiya-san from Administration got angry at this failure of the infinite reliability of Ghibli health checkups, and said "Produce some proper results this year!" But, what does "proper results" mean?

1/22/04 (Thurs.)

Because of the rush, we set up some more desks in the background artists' area, but the table they usually share with the publishing division had to be put in storage for a while. It's big enough for four people to eat at. Since it was wrapped in trash bags to guard against dust, it kept slipping while we were carrying it. (Oh, is that word "slipping" forbidden at a time like this?)

We always empty out the umbrella stand during the year-end cleaning. The administration division has been keeping it in order ever since New Year's. Since there were a good number of broken umbrellas, they gathered them all up and put them in the trash. The rest of them can be used as normal. Yet, even though it happens every year, it's still mysterious how so many ownerless umbrellas get left here each year.

1/23/04 (Fri.)

The regular rush check was held. This time, including retakes [from last week], there were more than 50 cuts. Perhaps when there are more cuts, there are more retakes . . . A few more retakes [will have to be done this week] than usual.

After the rush check, Okui-san, who works on photography, and Mochizuki-san, who has been looking after finishing and digitizing by himself, held a planning meeting regarding editing, which is to begin in two weeks.

1/26/04 (Mon.)

Perhaps because last Saturday was a day off for Ghibli, the key animators and in-between animators both completed some work today. From a production point of view, this is good news, but we immediately start thinking dark thoughts about when the reaction is going to come.

1/27/04 (Tues.)

The internal key animators are working just about on schedule. Two people finished the work they had on hand. Tomorrow, we will do the supplemental processing.

The production team are pushovers when it comes to cheap sweets. Both yesterday and today, we stopped by the convenience store to buy cheap sweets. Perhaps we should have a tasting session first thing in the morning?