Laputa - The Castle in the Sky

Characters

• Shita--a little girl, the heroine of this story, and possessor of a mysterious flying stone.
• Pazu--young boy, friend of Shita who serves as an apprentice to a boiler machanic and helps Shita throughout the story.

Plot

There is a legend that somewhere high up in the sky, a flying castle called Laputa is still wandering about in the air. The people who lived on Laputa had a highly advanced technology to maintain Laputa in the air and they had ruled the people on the earth with the threat of their technology some 700 years ago.

Shita's family heirloom, a stone that prevents one from falling to one's death has some connection to the flying city. She is pursued by pirates who wish to steal it, and by the military for unknown reasons.

Other Information

The flying island/city Laputa is based on Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, though the two stories are not related in any other way. The name of the movie was changed in the USA to Castle in the Sky because "la puta" means "whore" in Spanish. Swift undoubtedly knew this, but Miyazaki probably did not.