Character · Castle in the Sky
Pazu
A boy with a trumpet, a job in a mine, and a photograph his father was never believed about.
In Otakana the clue reads: Mining-town boy who wants to find a floating island
- Type
- Character
- Series
- Castle in the Sky
- Letters
- 4 · Normal
Pazu works as an apprentice at a mine in a valley town, sleeping above the engine room and playing his trumpet on the roof at dawn. He is competent with machinery and entirely certain about one thing: his father photographed a floating island through a break in a storm, was called a liar for it, and died without proving anything to anybody.
Then a girl drifts down out of the sky and lands in his arms, glowing faintly, and the rest of the film follows from him deciding on the spot that this settles the argument. What is good about Pazu is how practical he stays. He fixes things, he carries things, he keeps working, and his heroism mostly takes the form of not letting go of somebody.
Miyazaki built the setting after a research trip to the mining valleys of Wales during the 1984 strike, and the town's stone terraces and pit machinery come straight out of it. Pazu belongs to that world rather than a fantasy one, which is why the island reads as a discovery instead of a place he was always going to reach.
Spelling PAZU
PAZU is four letters and the shortest answer in this corner of the library. The Japanese パズー ends in a long vowel, Pazuu, which English drops. The Z is the letter to trust: it is a rare tile and it locks the row the moment it turns green. No double letters and nothing silent anywhere in PAZU.