#226, “Spirited Away / Howl’s Moving Castle: River Gods and Turnip Heads (feat. Monique Morgan and Nathan Burdette)”

Bathhouses, talking fires, giant babies, grotesquely overweight witches...for this leg of Miyazaki Month, Paul and AJ enter the world of the filmmaker's two most visually distinct yet perhaps least coherent films: 2001's Spirited Away and 2004's Howl's Moving Castle. Joining them on their journey is first-time guest (but longtime background entertainer) Monique Morgan of Beacon Hills: After Dark and Nathan Burdette of On the Rocks (and AJ's blood relative). The gang discusses the limitless imagination on display in these two films, the strengths and weaknesses of that lack of coherency, and what the movies have to say about Japanese culture and war.     Next: Miyazaki Month comes to a close, as Smoke Gets in Your Ears: A Mad Men Podcast co-hosts Kenn Edwards and Joseph Lewis drop by for The Wind Rises and The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness.