Castle in the Sky

Laputa: Castle in the Sky (Japanese: 天空の城ラピュタ, Hepburn: Tenkū no Shiro Rapyuta) is a 1986 Japanese animated adventure film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and is also the first film produced and released by Studio Ghibli. The film was distributed by Toei Kabushiki Kaisha.Laputa: Castle in the Sky won the Animage Anime Grand Prix in 1986.

Plot

In the film's backstory, human civilizations built flying cities, which were later destroyed by an unspecified catastrophe, forcing the survivors to live on the ground. The only remaining flying city, Laputa, still floats in the sky, concealed by a permanent powerful thunderstorm that surrounds it.

In the story's opening, an airship carrying Sheeta, a girl who has been abducted by Muska, a secret agent working for the government, is attacked by Captain Dola and her air pirate sons who are in search of Sheeta's crystal amulet. In the resulting struggle, Sheeta falls from the airship but her descent is slowed by the amulet which starts glowing. She safely lands in a small mining town where she is discovered by a boy named Pazu, who takes her into his home to recover. On waking, Sheeta is surprised to find that Pazu is building a small aeroplane with the intention of finding the lost city of Laputa, which his father had taken a photograph of while flying some years previously. She tells him that her family lived in a small valley to the north named Gondoa, and that she lived alone once her mother, father, and grandmother died, until Muska and his agents abducted her. Later that day they are pursued by Dola's pirates, and later by Muska's soldiers. Eventually, the two fall into an abandoned mine, where they encounter the local eccentric 'Uncle Pomme', who informs them that Sheeta's amulet is made of 'volucite' crystal ('Aetherium' in the American release) a material used to keep Laputa and the other flying cities aloft.