This translates to characters narrating action which is a key staple of bad writing. Some of this probably has something to do with translation, and some of this has to do with Disney (in some films - Spirited Away for example) demanding more expositional dialogue. But, with the amping up of situations, comes a loss of true character in speech. This is why millions, billions even, love Anime - fantasy.
Everything is amped up, blown out of reality and into fantasy. You get amazing fight sequences, spectacular visuals, astounding worlds in anime. Character and situation are not balanced well. This is the primary reason I don't watch Anime. The other problem with the sound comes with dialogue. Even without complex sound design, music fills gaps, producing emotion where basic sound isn't forcing a reaction. This is what Howl's Moving Castle lacks, it could have been fixed with a more consistent soundtrack or score though. Make all the jokes you want about explosions and fire, but you feel the chaos of his pictures whether you like it or not. We may see a mush of CGI, but can suspend our imaginations slightly as sound makes us believe that the mush of pixels has weight. For all the stupid, over the top visuals he produces, when we see a robot smashing another in the face we are made to hear the resounding BOOOM. This is unfortunate because sound is a filmmakers the greatest tool in conjuring up verisimilitude. This is because it feels like there's huge gaps, way too much silence, visuals that aren't producing sound. The action based sequences (especially with the wars and bombing) aren't very immersive. Firstly, the sound design in this film isn't great. Despite loving this film and Miyazaki's in general, I've got to start with criticism.
As a result, I'm primarily going to be talking about the dubbed version released by Disney. I'd much prefer to watch the film in the language it was constructed for and upon, but the version's hard to find. I've seen this film many times, but only the subtitled version once. Now, I could talk about the three production companies alone for ages here (maybe we will another time), but let's jump straight into Howl's Moving Castle. It's with their deeply emotional themes of childhood, neglect, loss, maturity and sorrow that complex moral narratives are constructed. I only need to cite Grave Of The Fireflies here. As is clear to anyone who's seen a Miyazaki film, Ghibli productions are daring, unflinching and indisputably mature. They are very rarely kids films in the sense that they are just good fun.
All of their films are of equal visual and subtextual complexity. Studio Ghibli, Disney and Pixar, as I've said many times, are probably the greatest thing about modern cinema. But, at long last, I feel it's time for a Hayao Miyazaki film. I don't talk about animation much here, but only because I could talk about it endlessly and want to cover as wide a range of films as possible.