Tokyo Blog

WARNING: Spoilers ahead.

Last night I finally got around to watching perhaps the only film by Hayao Miyazaki I haven’t seen: Lupin III, Castle of Cagliostro. Whilst I was watching it I found lots of similarities to the amazing PSX game by IGA and his team at KCET, ‘Castlevania: The Symphony of the Night’.

Both my heroes in their own right, Miyazaki and IGA seem to have cross-pollenated. Seeing as the anime film was made in 1979 and the castlevania game in 1997, it’s obvious who borrowed from who.

The first of the similarities I noticed was the Castle of Cagliostro itself. It looks almost identical to the castle in the opening sequence of the Castlevania game, especially the tall tower with the connecting bridge and the four turrets on it’s corners. I thought this was likely to be a coincidence, but then later the film culminated in a scene where a gold and silver ring had to be taken to a clock tower in order for a secret passageway to a hidden treasure to be revealed.

This exact scenario takes place in the Castlevania game also! Both clocks also feature a goat’s head and strike 13 when the rings are used to activate the mechanism. In both the film and the game the hands of the clock come into alignment when the rings are used (in the film the Count of Cagliostro is crushed between the hour and the minute hands).

Just an interesting little known fact, I thought. I Googled it, but couldn’t find any articles about it on the web. If anyone else knows of any other similarities, please put them in the thread.