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The story
At the end of Castle in the Sky, the Robot Soldier and various plants and animals are left behind in the sky after Laputa collapses — a scene that, thanks to a Yahoo! News article, sparked a thread on 5ch’s Geisoku Sokuho+ board. The thread pitted hard-nosed objections (“the stratosphere’s temperature and air pressure can’t support life”) against pushback of “don’t overthink a cartoon.” Things escalated further with notes that the film’s box office was actually underwhelming on release and only became legendary later thanks to the “Balse” meme craze, plus a bit of trivia that the final scene is an homage to the live-action film Silent Running — all of which turned into a broader reconsideration of how the movie is remembered.
“So that’s what it meant…” — the “almost too profound” meaning behind what was left after Castle in the Sky’s collapse
10/3 (Sat) 18:55
Animals and robots going about their business as if nothing happened
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
Even when it first came out, the box office barely did anything.
It didn't resonate back then either.
It'll come back to life, again and again.
Then in the internet era, people pushed the "Balse" thing so hard they basically fabricated the story that it was a huge hit.
Re: #13
For a first feature, the entertainment value is the best there is.
Say what you want, it's a movie that sticks with you.
Adol and the others walked out on foot.
Even in the middle of the storm, things stayed calm inside Laputa.
Yeah, there's no dance number either.
It's way above the clouds, so there's no rain and no water vapor, and at that altitude the temperature's below freezing.
Does the flying stone grant immortality and freedom from needing food or something?
It's fine because it's high up in the sky of the Ghibli world.
Isn't that more interesting anyway?
Director: Then just go watch Laputa again.
> weird that Laputa is floating in the sky?"
People who think like this should probably just avoid fantasy stories altogether.
That doesn't even make sense to begin with.
They're all dead in outer space by the ending lol
( ´◔‿◔`)
That was the jingle for a soda called Laputa, wasn't it.
It's giving off a faint glow, so something must be protecting it.
The upper atmosphere itself isn't hot.
Spacecraft heat up on reentry because the air around them gets compressed at tremendous speed, not because the atmosphere itself is hot.
Looks like an altitude where there's just barely still air
This is exactly the kind of thing you should just let slide with "don't sweat the small stuff" lol
People rack their brains over nitpicky logic for a cartoon, but then say "don't sweat the small stuff" about real life.
Isn't that backwards lol
Flip it around though — a cartoon has no "correct answer," so you can slap together as much irresponsible pseudo-logic as you want.
In reality there are hard facts, so that's where it gets inconvenient lol
Guess only tardigrades would make it.
Background and key points of this discussion
Castle in the Sky came out in 1986, but at the time its distribution revenue wasn’t especially high among Ghibli’s flagship films — it only gained its legendary popularity later through TV reruns and the internet culture of mass “Balse” callouts. The thread comments claiming “it didn’t resonate even back then” and “the smash-hit status was fabricated through the Balse craze” reflect this history and aren’t necessarily wrong. Meanwhile, the main thrust of the debate is whether it makes scientific sense for only the robots, plants, and animals to be left behind in the stratosphere after the ending — with a sympathetic reading (“they’re fine thanks to some immortality-granting power”) sitting alongside a resigned “just let the small stuff go” attitude, and neither is meant as a knock against the film, which is easy to misread. There’s also the point, raised only once in the thread but worth noting, that the ending shot draws its composition from the live-action sci-fi film Silent Running.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Geisoku Sokuho+) thread “[Movie] “So that’s what it meant…” — the “almost too profound” meaning behind what was left after Castle in the Sky’s collapse.”
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