Yes, he’s presented as fat and arrogant but that said: he still leads from the front when they’re chasing Muska. The soldiers and military police are generally clueless or being manipulated by the main villain, but even the General has some nuance. The pirates are, whilst greedy, not all that bad and well within the realm of the heroic pirates so beloved of anime. Miyazaki has visited Wales on many occasions, including in 1984 just after a major miners strike. The mining community is clearly inspired by, and shows a great deal of affection for, the coal miners of Wales. With inspirations drawn from Gulliver’s Travels and modernism as seen by Jules Verne, Laputa is an engaging adventure story with well realised characters from start to finish. He catches her, and from there the chase for both Sheeta and the mysterious floating city of Laputa is on for young and old. Sheeta’s amulet is of course the key plot device for Laputa, and the film resumes with the young lad Pazu seeing her floating down towards the mine he works at. Or does she? Cut to the credits with some fascinating imagery of a civilisation in the sky falling to earth in an unexplained disaster. Sheeta has previously been kidnapped by secret police and uses the confusion to try and escape, only to lose her grip and plummet from the sky. The film opens with air pirates attacking a luxury airship liner to steal an amulet from a girl named Sheeta. Laputa: Castle in the Sky was the first film to be produced by Studio Ghibli, and was an auspicious start for the studio.