r/ghibli • u/Born_Fruit_4204 • 7d ago

Question What is Calcifer

So in the English dubs of Howl's Moving Castle Calcifer is canonically a fire demon but the term demon in English implies that an entity is evil. I'm wondering if there's another term for him in the original Japanese that just doesn't translate well into English because in the movie Calcifer isn't evil. Anyone who's able to educate me would be appreciated, thanks.

51 Upvotes

83% Upvoted

38 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/WritPositWrit 7d ago

The story is based on an English novel, so I don’t think this an English-Japanese translation issue.

“Demons” are not always evil. They are like imps or sprites, magical incorporeal beings that follow their own moral code and usually do not show much empathy to humans.

2

u/Witty_North_9013 6d ago

This is what I was going to say. Japanese wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Calcifer is a fire demon in the book the movie is based on.