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Agreed. The movie also has some stuff about war and how it makes monsters of men regardless of which side they're fighting on or what their intentions are, which is Miyazaki's own personal touch, and a plotline that's completely absent from the novel. The novel meanwhile is much more about Sophie's internal growth and struggle to accept herself, which doesn't really come across as strongly in the movie.

I honestly feel like they're really such different stories that it doesn't even feel fair to compare them. They're both good in their own ways, it's hard to rank one as "worse" or "better." They just have different charms.