The Truth Behind Laputa’s Muska and His “Three Minutes” — 5ch: “90 Seconds to Get Ready Would Be Cheating”

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The story

A new interpretation of the famous scene from Castle in the Sky where Colonel Muska declares “I’ll give you three minutes,” based on the film’s storyboards, was introduced on Yahoo! News and became a hot topic on 5ch’s Geinou/Sports News+ board. Since there’s a scene in the film where he reloads his gun, the theory reads those three minutes not as mercy, but simply as the time it took to reload. Alongside voices agreeing with this reading, the thread expanded into deep-dive discussion of the film’s finer details — comparisons to Ultraman’s “three minutes,” and digging for the origins of Muska’s background and costume design. Attempts to tie it to Cup Noodle’s “three minutes” cook time were met with cooler heads pointing out it’s “fake news.”

Castle in the Sky: Muska’s “I’ll give you three minutes” wasn’t mercy — the “shocking truth” revealed by the storyboards

9/20 (Sun) 18:55

Reading Colonel Muska’s mind through the “storyboards”

Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here

What people said

5AnonymousSep 22, 2026 12:56
I burst out laughing seeing that Muska's downfall was giving three minutes to a guy who could've gotten ready in 90 seconds
9AnonymousSep 22, 2026 12:59
Re: #5
At 90 seconds that's a rules violation — it wouldn't count as an official record
6AnonymousSep 22, 2026 12:57
He was just waiting out the time it takes to reload a gun. Watch closely and you can tell — there's clearly a reloading scene.
89AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:34
Re: #6
That's literally what it says.
10AnonymousSep 22, 2026 12:59
Ultraman's three minutes was just a production budget thing.
47AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:17
Re: #10
As for me, my "three minutes" is thanks to my son.
12AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:00
I wonder if Muska just didn't know the spell "Balse"? (the incantation that destroys Laputa)
87AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:32
Re: #12
Even if he did know it, he might've figured it wouldn't matter as long as Sheeta didn't know it.
88AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:33
Re: #12
Muska's family is just a branch house, after all.
91AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:35
Re: #12
If the Deputy King's line had known the destruction spell, it would've been a national crisis, so I bet it was kept from them. It's a family that practiced inbreeding to preserve "pure" bloodlines, so if an ancestor had known it, it definitely would've been passed down to Muska too.
16AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:02
Magmix, Nlab, Butamanga — garbage sites not worth reading (Japanese entertainment/curation news sites)
21AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:04
Re: #16
Basically just the writer's personal essay, right?
27AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:07
Muska's an intelligence officer who doesn't look like he's ever seen combat — how'd he make colonel at that age?
29AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:08
Re: #27
Maybe he's just rich? Kind of a bin Laden type.
49AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:17
Re: #27
Top of his class at the military academy — that's probably why he's in intelligence.
30AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:08
Since they're in the sky they should be "sky bandits," so I don't get why everyone calls them "pirates" (a sea term).
32AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:11
Re: #30
Well, Top Gun is Navy too.
84AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:32
Re: #30
Space pirates. Air pirates. Pirates. Submarine pirates. Deep-sea pirates.
31AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:11
Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water is basically a Laputa knockoff.
45AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:16
Re: #31
That's because they share the same underlying plot — really the blame's on Miyazaki, since he based Laputa on a plot he'd already sold off earlier.
33AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:12
Muska's 3-minute timer
https://imgur.com/a/KuiMygX
36AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:13
Re: #33
What is this, I want one
56AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:21
Re: #33
The situation's different though
34AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:12
In the first place, what does Muska even want with a kingdom that hollowed-out? Sounds lonely.
76AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:28
Re: #34
Just wants to enslave the people below. Plus unlimited concubines.
78AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:30
Re: #34
MAKE LAPUTA
GREAT AGAIN
37AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:14
Laputa, afterward:
Sheeta, protected by Laputa's blessing, had kids with some other handsome guy and lived a happy life.
Pazu, outside of Laputa's blessing, ended up single his whole life, working in the mines till he died.
53AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:20
Re: #37
What if Pazu time-slipped into the past, lost his memory, and ended up wandering the mines as Uncle Pom?
63AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:21
Re: #37
Tonbo came out on top.
42AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:15
Lepka, Cagliostro, Muska — villains always wear brown.
62AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:21
Re: #42
Probably meant to evoke the Nazi SA (Brownshirts).
43AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:15
I'll dance for three minutes (BGM: NIGHT OF FIRE)
50AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:17
Re: #43
I really love this
74AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:28
Re: #43
Oh, the one with that intense 3-minute dance lol, nostalgic lol
55AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:20
I think Cup Noodle actually launched this same year — it was a huge hit because you could eat ramen in just three minutes. The director probably got the idea for the "three minutes" from that.
69AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:26
Re: #55
There's an episode where footage of a police officer eating Cup Noodle during the Asama-Sanso Incident aired and became huge advertising for it, so cup ramen was already widespread by the '70s.
71AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:26
Re: #55
Cup Noodle came out way before I was even born though
79AnonymousSep 22, 2026 13:30
Re: #55
Poor guy, got fed some mystery fake news and actually believed it…

Background and Talking Points

The storyboard-based reading that “Muska’s three minutes was actually reload time” is a good example of just how much depth Ghibli films still have nearly 40 years after release, with fresh interpretations still surfacing. The Yahoo! News article that sparked this thread bases its case on the film’s depiction of Muska reloading his gun, and many in the thread agreed, saying you can tell “if you watch closely.” Meanwhile, the well-known behind-the-scenes fact that Ultraman’s three-minute activity limit was really a production budget constraint got brought up, fueling speculation that Muska’s three minutes might be an homage to that. One easy misconception is linking Muska’s three minutes to Cup Noodle’s three-minute cook time — as commenters in the thread pointed out, that’s “fake news,” and no primary source has been found tying the two together. It’s true that Cup Noodle launched in 1971 and the Asama-Sanso Incident coverage aired in 1972, both before Laputa’s 1986 release, but neither the article nor the thread offers any testimony that director Hayao Miyazaki was consciously drawing on either one.

※This article excerpts and summarizes the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Castle in the Sky] Muska’s “I’ll give you three minutes” wasn’t mercy — the “shocking truth” revealed by the storyboards.”

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