On the way to their new home, 10-year-old Chihiro Ogino's family stumbles upon a deserted theme park. Intrigued, the family investigates the park, though unbeknownst to them, it is secretly inhabited by spirits who sleep by day and appear at night. When Chihiro's mother and father eat food from a restaurant in the street, angry spirits turn them into pigs. Furthermore, a wide sea has appeared between the spirit world and the human one, trapping Chihiro, the sole human, in a land of spirits. Luckily for her though, a mysterious boy named Haku appears, claiming to know her from the past. Under his instructions, Chihiro secures a job in the bathhouse where Haku works. With only her courage and some new found friends to aid her, Chihiro embarks on a journey to turn her parents back to their original forms and return home.
Moving away can be a tough situation, especially when you’re still a child. Your parents probably have a good reason to relocate… Changes in the economy, lucrative opportunities at work, declining property values and rising crime rates… But how is that supposed to matter to you when you’re being uprooted from your routine, removed from the home you’ve grown attached to, and being forced to say goodbye to your friends? Anybody in that situation would be bummed out, and Chihiro is no exception, sulking in the back of her family car, hugging the one reminder she has of the life she’s leaving behind, a bouquet of flowers. There’s nothing she can do but pout as her family gets closer and closer to their new home, but when her well-meaning father takes a shortcut and winds up getting them lost, that sense of worry and disappointment gives way to something far more ominous. At the end of a lonely, suspiciously unpaved path, past a wasteland of ancient shrines, Chihiro and her family are stopped in their tracks by an old statue outside of the mouth of a tunnel. Guided through said tunnel by sheer curiosity, Chihiro’s parents wander through it, with their reluctant daughter in tow, and what they find on the other end was more than they could have possibly imagined. Thinking the structures at the other end to be an abandoned theme park, her parents find a booth of fresh food, which they almost immediately begin to chow down on, even as the whole world seems to go to hell around them. As the park’s true inhabitants begin to make their ghostly selves known, Chihiro’s parents are turned into pigs, and the terrified girl suddenly finds herself stranded alone at a bathhouse for wayward spirits, and if this unwitting stowaway wants to have any chance of rescuing her folks and escaping this supernatural spa of spooks and spirits, she’ll have to leave her spoiled, selfish upbringing behind and grow up fast under unforgiving circumstances. This is only the second Studio Ghibli title that I’ve reviewed(Yes, this is the first one I’m posting… remember, I do things weirdly), and it couldn’t be more different from the first one. To start, this film was actually directed by Hayao Miyazaki himself, and not by the recently departed Isao Takahata, and you can tell the difference from the visuals. It’s worth mentioning that in some of Ghibli’s films, the animation budget is, perhaps, much higher than it needs to be, as there isn’t always much going on in terms of action, and aside from the obligatory flying scenes, some of their work can skew heavily towards realism. In Spirited Away, however, the animation is just as fluid and lavish, but it’s being used for so much more. Studio Ghibli doesn’t really have any bad looking films, with even it’s lesser titles at least being nice to look at, but even among a filmography that’s full of beautiful artwork and vivid animation, Spirited Away still manages to be right up near the top as one of their best looking, if not THE best looking, titles ever released by the prolific studio. In any Ghibli title, you’re going to be able to expect a very high visual standard, consisting of… At the very least… Fluid animation, graceful character movements, expressive faces, and highly detailed, immersive environments. Spirited Away has all of these, but it also adds so much more that helps it to stand out among it’s peers. The bathhouse, as well as the spirit town surrounding it, is a huge setting with no shortage of different locations to explore, and every single inch of it that we’re allowed to see is rich with detail and personality. The cast of characters, from the main ones all the way down to the hundreds of spirits inhabiting the area, are incredibly diverse, offering enough unique designs to fill out an entire here’s Waldo book, and while a ton of them were obviously pulled from Japanese mythology, they’re still drawn in such a way that the youngest of viewers probably won’t be afraid of them. They also all have their own individual mannerisms and styles of movement that must have taken an unbelievable amount of effort to nail down. Purely in terms of aesthetic and style, Spirited Away is probably the most visually identifiable title of the Ghibli canon, which is probably why it’s lived on to become the Studio’s flagship title. It’s hard to say what it is, exactly, but once you get past the instantly recognizable creature designs of Haku, Yubaba and the Noface, Chihiro and her parents just have a certain quality that none of Miyazaki’s other human characters have. It’s like a slightly realistic look, not so much as to make them look realistic themselves, but just enough to distinguish them from more traditional-looking anime characters. Look at any other of Hayao Miyazaki’s human characters, and they most likely have the big eyes and simplistic facial structure that Chihiro and her parents were somehow able to avoid. If this was intentional, then it was an especially brilliant move, as it adds another layer of separation between Chihiro and the denizen of Yubaba’s business. I’ve seen this kind of design choice in Takahata’s work, but I can’t think of any other Miyazaki project like it. Being that this is a Studio Ghibli production, the animation isn’t the only thing you can expect to be top notch. The music, composed by longtime Hayao Miyazaki collaborator Joe Hisaishi, is amazing, the kind of whimsical full-orchestra score that you’d expect to see in a Disney or Don Bluth production. If you think I’m pulling that comparison out of my ass, then please, listen to Reprise and try to get through it without thinking of An American Tail, or any heartfelt movie moment when characters are tearfully reunited. Of course, that’s also kind of my only real problem with this soundtrack… As tearfully wonderful as it can be, it also feels a bit generic, like a lot of it’s tracks just sound like they’d be from some other movie. Don’t get me wrong, they’re great, and they do their job with the story, it’s just that when all’s said and done, it’s just a little forgettable. Even the ending credits song, Always With Me, which is a charming song with a folksy indies feel to it, was just recycled from a scrapped movie that it was originally written for. As for the English dub, well, my thoughts there are a bit more complicated, and that’s mostly due to the fact that the sub and dub for this film are radically different creatures. It’s a very Disney-sounding dub, especially when compared to the Disney output of the early 2000’s. The adaptive trade-off can be broadly boiled down to ‘personality vs. subtlety,’ as the new version adds a bit more life to the cast, but also skews the dialogue to be a lot more accessible to the average English speaking child. For most of the cast, the acting in the dub is really good, with a couple of obvious stand-outs being Jason Marsden in the role of Haku, which he knocks out of the park despite sounding nothing like the original(and noticeably female) Japanese seiyuu, and the legendary Suzanne Pleshette playing the dual roles of Zeniba and Yubaba in a performance that’s far superior to the original. Fun fact, this isn’t actually the late Pleshette’s only anime role… She also had a small role in Trigun, believe it or not! Of course, there are other surprisingly big names in the cast… Michael Chilis and Lauren Holly play Chihiro’s parents(I don’t think their last name is mentioned in the movie, but I’ve found them credited as The Oginos), and I’m guessing they were instructed by the director to make them sound like ignorant yuppies, because that’s kind of how they come across, with a few minor dialogue changes and their over-all delivery. One particularly weird choice was Susan Egan as the character Lin, who sounds uncannily similar to Meg from Hercules… Which makes sense, because she also played that character. I don’t know if that’s just how she naturally talks or what, but it’s still such a strange connection. You look at Lin, you don’t think “Hey, she probably sounds like Megara!” And yet, you’ve got the same voice actress, doing the exact same performance. David Ogden Stiers, a certified Frasier and Disney legend who passed away this year, played the role of multi-armed boiler man Kamaji, and he did a much better job creating a new performance. And that leaves us with Daveigh Chase, a somewhat forgotten child actor who had this as one of her three defining roles when she was still a child… Chihiro is one of her signature characters, along with Lilo from Lilo and Stitch and the little girl from The Ring, and I’m sad to say, any brilliance she might have shown in those other two roles is lost here. Well, okay, maybe that’s not entirely fair. She doesn’t do a terrible job, and I’m willing to give her the benefit on the doubt and chalk her performance up to bad direction, but DAMN is she hard to listen to at times. The original performance by Rumi Hiiragi, who was only slightly older than Daveigh at the time, sounds a bit too old for her role, bringing a deeper register to the character, but she also did a stellar acting job, with emotion and voice control beyond her years. Daveigh’s performance, on the other hand, is mostly full of screaming and lines that sound like they just used the first take each time, but she does sound more believably childlike, but for my money, I’ll take good acting over authenticity any day. If you’ve only ever owned the original Disney DVD, then you won’t know anything about the adaptive script, which, ho boy, they made a ton of changes when they dubbed this title. I’ll be fair, none of the changes were so bad they had to be removed in later releases, like that disastrous mistake they made at the end of Kiki’s Delivery Service, but it still comes off a little condescending at times. It’s well intentioned enough, but it goes too far at several points. There were a lot of dialogue changes to put events in a more clear context and add more foreshadowing to the story, but adding pig noises to the scene where the Oginos have just started eating the spirit’s food was a bit ridiculous. There’s more explanation given to certain Japanese ideas, with the ‘break the seal’ bad luck curse scene being a smart and necessary example, but I don’t think kids need to be immediately told that Haku’s a dragon just because we don’t see him transforming before flying off, and the last words added to the ending come bafflingly out of nowhere. Also, it puts a lot more emphasis on a romance between Haku and Chihiro, which kind of misses the point of their relationship. It’s a fine dub, but I prefer the original Japanese. A few years ago, I was reviewing a series called Petite Princess Yucie, where I pondered the merit of reviewing children’s media. On the one hand, yeah, kids will watch anything, but as adults, is it our job to judge the quality of the media we show them? I had a tentative answer for this question, but I’ve changed my tune a bit recently. As long as it’s subjectively safe, and doesn’t contain any harmful lessons, yeah, kids should be able to watch anything. The Magic Voyage is a piece of shit, but I still liked watching it as a kid, and I’d have bitten you if you tried to stop me. I hate Nightmare Before Christmas, but I’d still rather let a kid watch that then Coco, which advocates how noble a choice it is to give up on your hopes, dreams and personal fulfillment just because your toxic, unsupportive family arbitrarily says so. Yeah, I really hated Coco. But from that perspective, Spirited Away is a fantastic movie to show to children, as it’s full of imaginative visuals, bright colors, and it teaches a lot of important lessons, which I’ll get back to in a minute. Having said that, even if children’s media is safe for it’s target audience, that doesn’t exempt it from criticism, as adult like to watch that kind of thing too, and I’m guessing there aren’t a lot of kids out there reading reviews. You read reviews to see that reviewer’s opinion, and in my opinion, Spirited Away is not one of Studio Ghibli’s best titles. That’s not to say it’s bad by any means, but in terms of writing, it comes up short in a lot of areas. To start, Spirited Away is severely lacking in characterizations. One of the reasons that I feel the actors for Haku, Zeniba and Yubaba did the best job is because they had the most to work with… Particularly with the old mutant biddies, both of whom sport deliciously fleshed out identities, personalities and an interesting dynamic between each other. The character of No-Face feels confusingly pointless and could have been written out with nothing really being lost(Insert Sin Cara joke here), and while Lin has a more important role in the story, I can’t say I know anything about her by the end. The same could be said for Chihiro. She does manage to grow and develop through the story, but the change is vague, as she’s basically just tougher and slightly more wise by the ending. Aside from refusing to eat with her parents, it takes her all the way until the third act to start showing agency and making decisions, and none of those decisions are ever more complex than ‘do the right thing.’ She’s a likeable character and you do feel for her, you do want her to strive, survive and succeed, but out of all the things in this movie that might stick with you after seeing it, she’s just not one of them. Some of the dangers she gets into don’t even wind up coming back… She starts to fade away, which gets dealt with and resolved by Haku and never comes up again. She signs away her name, which she remembers again when Haku reminds her, but between those two points, I couldn’t recall her forgetting her name ever being a thing in the story. Like, okay, I guess that’s important, but where was it stated that she forgot her name at all? Part of this weakness is probably due to Miyazaki’s writing style. I’ve heard several rumors about the conception of this story, like that it was written as a present for Miyazaki’s niece, or that Chihiro was based on someone’s daughter, and while I can’t find source information to prove these rumors, they do explain a lot, like how the story seems to be woven together from a bunch of mismatched morals and fables, and how it teaches a lot of small lessons to the viewer, and why Chihiro is such a lego brick. It feels like a story that somebody wrote so they could hide a bunch of these lessons underneath the story so a young viewer might subliminally pick up on them. As I said before, most of these lessons are good ones, and there’s really nothing wrong with teaching them, but there really doesn’t seem to be any sort of unifying theme between them, making the story feel like more of an anthology held together with a tenuous thread of a story than any sort of grand fable. Of course, there’s one more problem with that approach, and it’s a much worse one. Out of the lessons that this film tries to teach, you’ve got all of these important gems like ‘don’t be greedy,’ ‘be respectful,’ ‘finish what you start,’ ‘be grateful to those who help you,’ ‘good deeds will come back to you,’ and ‘if you help one person, everyone else will expect it and take advantage of you…’ Okay, I said they were mostly good, give me a break. Anyway, the problem with these lessons is that you never actually get to see anyone learn them. I’m serious. These lessons are taught directly to us, and not to any of the characters. The only lesson Chihiro actually learns is that the working world is hard, but was that ever important? I know the pig scene comes to mind, but Chihiro already knew not to steal food, and her parents had their memories of the event wiped. Most of the lessons are things a character already knows, or something completely inconsequential that only the observer will pick up on, like the lesson revolving around Yubaba and her sheltered baby. All of this feels indicative of one other major rumor I’ve heard about the film, although this one has a bit more backing… Miyazaki is the kind of story-teller who doesn’t like to put story first. From what I’ve heard, he was still writing this movie while it was being animated and story-boarded, which is a distinct departure from the norm, but I believe it. Out of every movie of his that I’ve seen, the only one I refuse to believe was written this way was Princess Mononoke, which had a superb story. But Spirited Away feels way too underwritten in contrast, and it shows in some very weird ways. I wouldn’t go as far as calling Chihiro a Mary-Sue, but her flaws are way too simple, she never has to struggle in making her decisions, and it feels like she was just created to be a role model. There’s also a ton of small contrivances I can’t get over, like the Boiler man having an extra train ticket, or the river spirit just happening to give her an object that would wind up helping her twice, or Yubaba just happening to have taken an oath to give a job to anyone who asks. I feel like the best way to illustrate why this story doesn't quite come together as written is to shine a very specific light on Chihiro's final challenge in the film, so be warned, the rest of this paragraph is spoiler territory. At the end of the movie, Yubaba presents Chihiro with one final challenge; Her parents, now in the form of mindless pigs, are mixed in with other pigs, and she has to pick them out. Almost immediately, she realizes the truth, that her parents aren't among them. Now, how does she figure this out, exactly? Yes, I know she was told to remember what her pig parents looked like earlier in the film, but I don't think that's enough. What about these pigs gives away the fact that her parents aren't among them? What was she looking for? It's never explained to us, and I can't pick a solid answer by analyzing the scene. Out of every challenge she overcame throughout the movie, none of them would logically have given her the knowledge or experience to answer this riddle. It's a random event with no connection to the overall story beyond the most starchly literal, just like the river spirit, just like No-Face, just like Yubaba having a twin... The only glue that holds all these story beats together is Chihiro's involvement in them. At times, this story feels distressingly like the earliest ever versions of The Hobbit, when it was just a collection of barely related fables featuring Bilbo as their one reccurring character. I don’t even feel like Haku’s relation to Chihiro, which I won’t spoil as it’s supposed to be this huge revelation, really mattered in the end. It’s foreshadowed in some strangely disconnected ways, with a brief line from Haku early on being the only really connection it gets to the story, and it just kind of winds up feeling random. But hey, if you look at it as a story of a girl trying to survive in a perilous situation where both her and her parents’ lives are on the line, it’s still a fine movie. The pacing is great, the story never drags or gets boring, and the larger writing issues can be ignored by anyone who just wants to sit back, enjoy the visuals, and root for Chihiro as she struggles against all odds to save the day and get back to normal society. Also, I like how there’s no clear villain, and there’s actual nuance to the conflict. As I said before, it’s not a bad movie, in fact it’s more than competent enough to be worth your time, but I don’t think it deserves to be held up among the greats… Not among the anime film medium at large, or even among it’s Studio Ghibli peers. Could be worse, though… It could be Earthsea. Spirited Away is available from Gkids, on both DVD and bluray formats. The original Disney DVDs are out of print, but it’s still fairly easy to find. A manga adaptation that’s mostly just a compilation of still from the movie is available from Viz Media. If I’m being brutally honest, I’m not the biggest fan of Studio Ghibli. It’s not that I hate them or anything, and it’s not like I have any specific issue with them, it’s just that it really doesn’t appeal to me personally. I’m not really into Miyazaki’s approach to story-telling, and while I strongly prefer Takahata’s approach, it also doesn’t always work. There are only about three or four titles of theirs that I’ve come to love, two of which I’ll be reviewing this month, but as for the rest, I’m just ambivalent to them. Unfortunately, Spirited Away falls into the latter category. I respect it as a children’s movie, but I don’t really understand what people get out of it when watching it as adults. Sure, there are movies in the Ghibli canon that have a lot less plot than this one, are plotless, but they use this shortcoming to their advantage, whereas Spirited Away is all plot with little sense of character or cohesion, and that’s worse in a lot of ways. I don’t regret seeing it, I’d be happy to watch it again, but I still expected more from it. I give Spirited Away a 7/10.
It almost feels unnecessary for me to review this movie. Everybody knows about it. Everybody (who knows what they’re talking about) knows it’s a masterpiece. Is there really anything else I can add to the discussion surrounding this movie? No, but I still wanna talk about it anyway because I love this movie & actually have yet to review a Studio Ghibli movie. But first a little history. I originally watched Spirited Away for the first time back in 2018 a few months after I had just gotten into anime proper & knew who Hayao Miyazaki was. More importantly though, I knew the reputation this movie had going into. I watched it….. & I liked it. I’ll be honest I wasn’t overly impressed with it or saw why it garnered its reputation, but I enjoyed the film overall. Though I did watch it the same day I watched Akira for the first time, which at the time, I thought was a completely incomprehensible piece of shit. That stance has changed since then but the point is, I would’ve thought anything was good coming off Akira the exact same day I watched it. Going forward in life I just kinda moved on & didn’t think about Spirted Away too much. But in 2019 as I realized I was running out of Studio Ghibli movies to watch (as in I was close to seeing all of them). I went on a sort of Ghibli binge & started to not only watch the ones I missed, but even rewatched some of my favorites/ones I wanted to get a new opinion on, & thus brings us back to Spirted Away. I rewatched it….. & I fucking loved it. Whatever prevented me from really seeing Spirited Away as a masterpiece back then no longer applied, I was enthralled with movie & for a week I couldn’t take my mind off of it. I know this introduction was rather lengthy but I honestly felt this was necessary because I wanted to apply some groundwork as to why this is now my second favorite, & at times my favorite Miyazaki movie of all time. Spoilers inbound btw I think what I love most about Spirited Away is the narrative, but more so the narrative structure. I love coming of age stories & Spirited Away is one of the best in my honest opinion. Chihiro does start out as an unlikable brat, but what do you expect? She’s only 10, has to move away to a different town from all her friends, & then gets thrusted into this fantasy world that she knows nothing about, & on top on top of that, is filled with all these weird fantasy creatures that nobody knows about. But throughout the movie we get to see Chihiro adapt to this environment. We see her overcome these impossible odds. We get to see her grow up. It’s simplicity executed to perfection & what makes this story even better is the storyboarding. If there’s one thing Hayao Miyazaki is a master at it’s crafting/mapping settings. I won’t bore you with excessive details like how Chihrio exactly got from outside the bath house to Yubaba’s room. But I feel like if Yubaba’s bath house was a real place that I could visit I would know the layout exactly & wouldn’t have to consult anybody thanks to Miyazaki’s storyboarding. The world just builds together & flows so fluently that I was never lost, I knew exactly where I was at all times. But even better is the pacing. This movie is just right, it knows exactly how long it needs to stay somewhere, it knows exactly when to transition into the next scene, & it knows how to keep me engaged & never question how much longer I have left in the movie. This movie is 2 hours long but I was never bored because of how excently paced the movie was. What else needs to be addressed is the world building. I more or less alluded to it when talking about the storyboarding but can we take a moment to appreciate how meticulously crafted this world is? From the pig farms, the market where Chihiro’s parents turn into pigs, the aforementioned bathhouse, Yubaba’s office & her baby’s room. The train station that takes Chirio & No Face to Zeniba’s hut in the swamp. I remember everything about this world precisely because of the excellent worldbuilding. Miyazaki knows just how long he needs to keep us in these environments as to make them memorable. Hell, even the small town that Chirhio’s family is moving to at the beginning of the movie I can tell you about how the family even ends up in the Spirit world in the first place. I won’t pad with the details of course (this review is already pretty lengthy as it is, I’m 2 pages in & I’m still talking about the story/world for fucks sake). I don’t know if I’ve said peace with this segment yet or not but Spirited Away is a very dense, layered world with a lot of meat to chew on & for that I think it’s super commendable & deserves respect. Phew, now that I’m done with that mouthful, I guess I should talk about the characters, which are also excellent. Honestly, none of them outside of Chihiro & Haku really get development. But they don’t need to, as most of them serve a purpose in helping Chirhio find her way in this world & keep her identity as so she doesn’t get trapped & can’t go back to her world. All of them are not only characterized extremely well, but they’re also memorable and have easily identifiable character traits. Out of all the characters in this movie, my two favorites are Rin & Zeniba. I like them the most because they’re guiding figures for Chihrio in this strange world. Rin is the tough love but caring type & is like a sister figure for Chihiro. It kinda saddens me how Rin has long since lost her identity & is destined to forever stay in the spirit world working for Yubaba, but I also like to think of that as Rin’s motivation for even helping Chihiro in the first place, she knows Chihiro really doesn’t belong in the spirit world & wants to do whatever she can to help her keep afloat in this strange world & make it back to her world safely. Zenida is Yubaba’s nicer sister that ends up helping Chihiro by revealing one of Yubaba’s secrets that will help Chihiro get back to her world. She’s a sweet & loving granny figure even preferring that Chihiro call her such. She’s honestly such a sweet old woman, I almost think it would be worth going through what Chihiro went though in this movie just so I could go to her swamp & have a conversation with her. But I can’t forget Haku, the guy who even helps Chihiro realize what kind of situation she’s in to begin with. He’s heroic, loyal to his friends, & caring, but he’s also not afraid to stand up to authority going against Yubaba directly at several points in the movie. It’s actually revealed near the end of the movie that Haku is the spirit of the Kohaku river, a river that Chirio almost drowned in as a child. It’s hinted throughout the movie that Chihiro & Haku have a stronger connection than it originally seems & when this is revealed, it hits hard. Even the minor characters in this movie such as Kamajii, the human spider who’s the heart of the bathhouse as he operates the mechanisms this bathhouse needs to even run in the first place. The three heads of Yubaba who have a really funny scene in the movie where their disguise getting revealed by Yubaba results in them hopping out the room making “hup hup hup” sounds. The way this scene is directed & the way they exit the room inparticular with the same expression they had on their faces earlier just makes me laugh everytime I think about it. I’d of course be remiss if I didn’t talk about Yubaba. Yubaba, isn’t exactly my favorite Ghibli villain, I don’t think she’s as layered as Kushana from the Nausicaa movie. Or in a somewhat unique position for an antagonist like Fujimoto from Ponyo (as in he’s not really a bad guy more so an overprotective father who tries his best). But I do think she is written well & isn’t just a blank face evil villain. She’s not a nice person but I at least understand her motivations & where she’s coming from. The reason she has to operate her bathhouse on such a constant schedule is because spirts often come to be cleansed of their wrongdoings or what have-you so that they can then pass on & leave the spirt world in peace. Her bathhouse prevents Chaos from spreading & destroying the world essentially. She’s also a mother who tries her best to provide for her son too. She’s not exactly the most morally correct person but she’s not supposed to be. She’s supposed to be Chihiro’s greatest obstacle on he journey of both self discovery (at 10) and finding her way back home. I think I’ve covered about as much as I can with this segment. The characters in Spirited Away are excellent. Easily my favorite cast out of any Studio Ghibli just because of how memorable all of them are. I honestly really don’t know how I’m gonna talk about the art & animation because I mean what is there to really say? It’s Studio Ghibli. We all know their animation is the best in the business, we all know the background art is extremely detailed, we all know the character designs have that charm with them, we all know about this stuff. I don’t think you really need me to repeat what others have said (as if I haven’t been doing that throughout this review). But alright, if you want me to explain why Spirited Away’s art and animation is phenomenal, just watch either one clip of the movie, or look at an image on google. Those two things will say more about this aspect than I ever could. I will however talk about the voice acting, which is excellent. Chihiro despite being a brat at the beginning of a movie has a somewhat soft-spoken demeanor to start off & I really like that. The rest of the cast all bring their A game & there isn’t one dull performance to be found throughout this movie. Even no faces moans just leave off this feeling that I can’t really describe but it’s there god-damnit. The music is of-course, spectacular. Shocker I know, but it’s so good. Joe Hisaishi doesn’t miss with his orchestration, his pianos, anything really. This man is so damn good at what he does & the music matches the atmosphere of this music so perfectly I couldn’t imagine anybody else doing it. To end it off. Spirited Away I think I can safely call my favorite Miyazaki/Ghibli movie. I just get so much out of it. I haven’t watched it since 2019 but as you can tell from this review, I still think about it so much. It’s a movie about self discovery, about life, about growing up. To quote Miyazaki “I would like to make a film to tell children its good to be alive.” Spirited Away is a movie that means a lot to me & should not be dismissed. It needs to be watched by everyone. This isn’t just a good kids movie, it’s a good fucking movie no matter who you are & it does in fact hold up. I don’t know how I’m supposed to end this exactly. But Miyazaki is a mastermind, this movie is a masterpiece. Uh yeah, I’m leaving lol.
I'll never forget October 28, 2018, for two reasons. The first is that it was my 20th birthday. The second is that it's the day I went to see a movie. It was a movie I already owned on Blu-ray and had seen several times, but that couldn't dull my enthusiasm. The movie in question was, of course, Hayao Miyazaki's _Spirited Away_, a film notable for being not only the only piece of Japanese animation but also the only hand-drawn animated film to win an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. More than that, _Spirited Away_ is that rare Oscar winner that actually lives up to its hype. Miyazaki has crafted an ode to the best parts of the human condition that masterfully explores fear and how to overcome it, the follies of greed and gluttony, the importance of compassion and selflessness, the importance of friendship, the true definition of bravery, and the triumph of the human spirit, all through the eyes of a child. The result is one of Miyazaki's most intensely satisfying films, one that many consider his finest hour even some 20 years after its arrival in Japan, and one that this Miyazaki fan certainly counts among his favorites. img800(https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/570006.jpg) 10-year-old Chihiro Ogino (Daveigh Chase in the 2002 Disney dub, Rumi Hiiragi in Japanese) is not at all pleased with the fact that her parents Akio (Michael Chiklis, Takashi Naito) and Yuko (Lauren Holly, Yasuko Sawaguchi) have decided to move to the middle of nowhere, not wanting to leave her friends behind or to have to deal with a new school that's "gonna stink." As if that wasn't enough, however, Akio takes a wrong turn and the family ends up in front of a creepy tunnel rather than at the door to their new home. Moreover, Akio decides he wants to see what's on the other side. When Akio and Yuko stuff themselves on some unknown food at an oddly empty restaurant and mutate into pigs, it seems like Chihiro's situation can't get any worse. However, a boy named Haku (Jason Marsden, Miyu Irino) gives her carefully laid-out instructions on how to survive in this ghostly world. First, she must ask Kamaji (David Ogden Stiers, Bunta Sugawara), the six-armed man who operates the boiler, for work. Since Kamaji already has all the help he needs, he has Lin (Susan Egan, Yoomi Tamai) take Chihiro to see Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette in her final film, Mari Natsuki), the witch who rules the bathhouse. The sorceress first tells Chihiro to leave, playing up her scare tactics but Chihiro, not one to hang her parents out to dry, persists, informing Yubaba right up front that she won't leave without a job. Yubaba concedes, but not without taking Chihiro's name, giving her the name Sen, and beginning to drain her memories, a process Haku soundly annuls the next morning by returning Chihiro's name. He also warns her that she won't be able to go home if she completely forgets her name, recalling that he can't remember his own name. This doesn't spell a sudden end to Chihiro's troubles in the spirit world, however. Aside from Lin, the other workers in the bathhouse look down on Chihiro with what can safely be called genuine disdain. Not only that, but Chihiro will also soon have to deal with a polluted spirit, a gluttonous No-Face, and even Yubaba's identical twin sister Zeniba (Pleshette, Natsuki) on her way to rescue her parents. img800(https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/572568.jpg) Goodness. Two decades later, and we're __still__ talking about _Spirited Away_. One of the foremost reasons is its storytelling, Miyazaki stuffing the film, all 124 minutes of it, with enough heart, depth, and meaning, and, yes, enough thrills and light scares, that it's nigh-impossible not to get swept along in the depths of Chihiro’s ghostly adventure. Each character has either a story or a purpose, often both, and none come off as superfluous to the film, including a money-grubbing frog. It's perfectly understandable why Chihiro isn't happy with the move. She has friends in her old home, friends she doesn't want to leave behind, and it's not like she's grousing for nothing. When I was 10, I know I wouldn't be very happy if my parents suddenly decided to leave my hometown where all my friends lived. Haku has a well-developed backstory that Miyazaki reveals in manageable increments throughout the film, the bond that eventually forms between himself and Chihiro arguably forming the film's emotional backbone just as much as Chihiro's lost parents. While Chihiro's parents make a foolish decision, Miyazaki doesn't portray them as the worst parents of all time. While Lin initially teases Chihiro, it's clearly devoid of genuine animosity. While not a likable character or a good person by any means, even Yubaba is entertaining. For as scary as he can sometimes be, No-Face is not the evil monster some might expect him to be. Through it all, we see Chihiro find the bravery she never knew she had during her venture to rescue her parents and the resulting character transformation and trampling of fear is something truly special to behold. Moreover, little bits of the story reveal themselves with repeated viewings, and it all serves to make _Spirited Away_ a film that's equal parts exciting and emotionally satisfying. img800(https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/572170.jpg) Equally important—_Spirited Away_ __is__ an anime, after all—the animation is absolutely stunning; when has Miyazaki ever delivered anything less? Every color is nothing short of striking. Each character is fully detailed and Masashi Ando’s character designs are well-suited to the film while clothing is full of natural textures. Each location, from the town we see in the film's opening to the bathhouse where the bulk of the film takes place, is mesmerizing. Every object is well-detailed—is that a box of Kit Kat bars in the car at the film's opening? Every creature is well-drawn and believable within the world the film creates, while the CGI such as that used during the train sequence enhances rather than denigrates the film. All things considered, the team at Studio Ghibli did a real job animating _Spirited Away_. img800(https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/572418.jpg) Another key to the film's rampant success is its voice acting—in both English and Japanese. Chase and Hiiragi are excellent as the film's young protagonist, Chihiro Ogino. While each has received more than her fair share of criticism from a handful of fans who prefer one audio track or another, each effortlessly brings Chihiro to life and makes her likable, sympathetic, and easy to root for. Marsden and Irino are equally impressive as Haku, a mysterious boy who claims to have known Chihiro ever since she was very small. Egan and Tamai are also excellent as Lin, the bathhouse worker who takes Chihiro under her wing and takes on a sisterly role as the film progresses. Pleshette and Natsuki are also rock-solid in their dual role as Yubaba, the wicked witch who rules the bathhouse and Zeniba, her twin sister who ends up taking on a very different role from the one many viewers might expect from judging solely by her first appearance. Stiers and Sugawara effectively make Kamaji, the six-armed operator of the boiler room, gruff but likable. Chiklis and Holly, and Naito and Sawaguchi are also solid in their brief time as Chihiro's parents. Overall, _Spirited Away_ couldn't have better voice acting—it's full of life, character depth and purpose dubbed _and_ subbed. Watch both and enjoy both; I guarantee you won't regret it. img800(https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/569509.jpg) Miyazaki's longtime collaborator Joe Hisaishi lends _Spirited Away_ one of his very best musical scores. From the moment _One Summer's Day_, a somewhat melancholic piece of which several variations play at key moments throughout the film, plays over the film's opening scene, we know Hisaishi's about to deliver something special. _Dragon Boy_ is genuinely thrilling. _Sen's Courage_ is very effective in both scenes in which it plays, evoking a sense of dread in one scene and a sense of catharsis in the other. _No-Face_ also effectively conveys a sense of dread, the unknown, and otherness with its drumbeats and metallic tones. _Reprise_ is an extremely satisfying piece that features in one of the film's most intensely satisfying and memorable scenes. To top it all off, the film closes with Yumi Kimura's _Always With Me_ (_Itsumo Nando Demo_), a bittersweet piece accentuated by Kimura's voice and the harp she plucks expertly throughout, Wakako Kaku's lyrics reflecting perfectly on the two hours that preceded it despite the song not being created specifically for the film. The incredible sound design also helps pull it all together, with each sound effect fully realized to make the film just that much more involving. img800(https://cdni.fancaps.net/file/fancaps-movieimages/570821.jpg) My affection for Hayao Miyazaki's _Spirited Away_ knows no bounds. It is my second favorite film produced under the Studio Ghibli banner, just behind _Castle in the Sky_, as well as one I consider an all-time favorite, anime or otherwise. Its story is one of the filmmaker's very best, its principal characters rank as some of his most likable, its animation ranks with the best of them, and Joe Hisaishi's incredible musical score is also one of his very best. The resulting film is every bit as relevant and engrossing in 2021 as it was in 2001 (if not more so), as touching as it is beautiful, as haunting as it is poignant, and as captivating as it is unforgettable. I've kept coming back to it since the first time I saw it at age 19 and it never ceases to amaze me. Its core story of overcoming one's fears continues to satisfy time and again with repeated viewings, its characters are all too easy to get invested in all over again, its animation continues to amaze with each new watch, the voice acting is faultless in both English and Japanese, and Joe Hisaishi's musical score continues to send a chill down the spine. The film is uplifting, poignant, exciting, emotionally satisfying, and consistently rewarding with repeated viewings. The fact that even those who don't consider themselves fans of anime often count _Spirited Away_ among their favorite films speaks volumes to its beauty and power. It deserves its reputation and every award it won, including but not limited to, the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and the Japan Academy Prize for Picture of the Year. If you haven't, see it ASAP. Trust me, it's worth it. All in all, _Spirited Away_ is above reproach as a film, and I'm awarding it __my highest recommendation.__
Spirited Away is a movie by Hayao Miyazaki, and one of the first anime I approached with Fullmetal Alchemist. Spirited Away stroke me immediately by the vastness, and capability of the author in building a world that widened my imagination. It is beautiful how the Shintoist religion aspect of the Japanese culture come to touch themes that are related to other faces of the Japanese heritage such as the hard work, and the joy for living or ikigai. Everything in this anime movie is co-ordinated so that the main character could develop, and have a sustainable growth for the limited time given being a movie. The way fantasy themes such as the quest for knowledge, and the coming of age come into teaching valuable lessons to the younger viewers, and at the same time giving space to reflect to the young adults too. It is difficult to find older generations that come to love this genre but if there is one particular style of animation that strikes the imagination of the young, and old generations is Hayao Miyazaki. I love how he puts together themes like change, such as the moving on another town, and leaving friends behind, and themes like getting stuck in another more spiritual world together. It may be the perfect combination as we all tend when we move on to another town to immerse ourselves in our own spiritual worlds to find and look for the happiness we have lost. It is incredible also the quality of the graphics, superior to all the others, here I think that an animator like Hayao shows is true quality, by creating something new, and having great ideas before anyone else. The poetic outlines, and the dreamlike scenery is what makes this, and a lot of his other works function well for a public now too used to excellent graphics but poor themes development. Though I think that anime needs this richness in thematics, and to open the mind of its viewers to be successful, and this is exactly what he did in Spirited away. The soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi was good, and I loved the quality of the different genres that mixed together. They could work perfectly well even without the movie, and the images and would delve the exact same meaning. Therefore the soundtrack adds quality to the movie as a whole. The effort on the characters development was what could not have been done better for a movie, even though I would have loved to see more story centred not only on Chihiro but also on Haku, and more depth added also to the characters. Though for time limit reasons I suppose and plot effectiveness it could not have been done better, because it would have been a completely different genre of movie. The evil witch is a character I admire as I also despise being one of the most powerful sorcerers, and being the cause of Chihiro's loss of her parents. She does not resemble a lot to a great evil character though the main theme which is Chihiro, and Haku's freedom is threatened by her. In the end the story has a good conclusion, and has one of the best endings showing the completion of the plot circle, and the ending product of her adventure. The ending product being her development, in being more self confident, and calm as she has found her place, and being able to see her parents, and go back to her life with a new point of view on moving away.
The very facet of childhood can be boiled down to the very definition of mysterious wonder and awe-inspiring imagination. We’ve all had those moments where we would go off into our little world of childlike imagination and try to experience an entirely new reality different from our own. Films have attempted to recapture the atmosphere that resembles this nostalgic feeling of going through the childhood journey that either succeeded or failed. It just takes a man like Miyazaki to do just that flawlessly. Miyazaki isn’t a stranger to making movies about childhood and things similar to its nature; Totoro would be an obvious example of this fact. He certainly has an eye for making these kinds of stories that his movies could reflect everyday childhood experiences that we have since grown out of and are now living in a fantastical world. The fantasy elements that are a constant staple of the Miyazaki lore have made most of his movies unique to many people, including myself, because of their originality and inventive folklore. Now, that isn’t to say that I’m the biggest Miyazaki fan as much as the next person. However, if there is one film that could never lose its imaginative and beautiful vision in his filmography with each passing viewing, Spirited Away would win at no contest. ~~~img500(https://gonzonyan.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/haku.jpg)~~~ In describing what kind of story Spirited Away follows, coming-of-age would be the most logical way of putting it. In that, we follow our main protagonist Chihiro and how she handles certain situations that would prove to be difficult for any other young person such as herself. When she first encounters this Spirit World, she is lost, hopeless, and confused. Not knowing what will happen to her or her parents after being turned into pigs, she finally finds help from other characters willing to help her be acquainted with this world, unlike her own. Once she is acquainted with the Spirit world, we now see her as a strong individual once she is more aware of her surroundings and can take care of herself without the help of Haku. It is by the end of the film an essential point to what makes not only Chihiro a fantastic character but also how Spirited Away paces its story structure. Art and animation are nothing but superb in Studio Ghibli’s legacy in how they incorporate more emphasis on impressionist-inspired backgrounds with traditional hand-drawn animation. The scope of Miyazaki’s artistic vision is vast and organic in each of his films, and some other Ghibli films not directed by him sometimes lack minimal detail. Spirited Away may not have the most extensive scope in terms of scale, such as his previous films Nausicaä or even Princess Mononoke. I would argue the minimal scope works magnificently with the show’s structure. From the wonderfully drawn buildings to the tiniest detail of rust and wood splinters to the hypnotic waters surrounding the spirit world, it complements Miyazaki’s ascetic vision and Ghibli’s artistic talents exceptionally well. Regarding the art, the one aspect of it that Spirited Away shines on the most is its creative art designs of the characters of each spirit you come across. They look original and not thought of from the previous animation, despite most of them being inspired by Japanese folklore. It’s not as if most of them are forgettable the minute after you see them. They all stick with you as you go along with the film, how impressive and imaginative the art design is even years after you finish it. ~~~img500(https://gonzonyan.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/spirited_away_-_00912.jpg)~~~ To describe how the character Chihiro is treated, as in how she is portrayed in the film, it would be essential to realize how Miyazaki wrote her as to how a real child would act. You’ve probably seen kids that behave like Chihiro, or you may have been like here at her age, and that behavior would be considered “bratty” or “immature.” But these shouldn’t be seen as negatives since, realistically, kids are at her age, as you see Chihiro before she goes to the spirit world. We see Chihiro go through hardship when she arrives through the spirit world, and then we have this sense of hoping for her to succeed due to her bravery and strong courage to help her parents. It gives her a sense of humanity that could make you feel so much empathy for her as not only just some drawing in motion but as a human being in the flesh in some ways. Other characters such as Kamajii, Lin, Kaonishi, and Yubaba fill in the cast quite nicely. Kamajii and Lin fill in as likable slight comic relief characters giving Spirited Away an excellent needed level of charm from the voice acting and dialogue. Yubaba, at first, does seem like the main villain, but from how you see around it, there isn’t a villain in this movie. She’s nothing more than just a woman who wants to run her bathhouse in a very traditional way that has no ambition to do anything evil in nature. Kaonishi, the spirit that follows Chihiro in the bathhouse, gives the film a vulnerable side from his troubles of being alone, all through no dialogue at all, at least from his voice. ~~~img500(https://gonzonyan.files.wordpress.com/2022/05/1-spirited-away-blu-1.png)~~~ Now we come to music. Composed by Joe Hisaishi, Miyazaki’s main collaborator in almost all of his films as a composer, it is pure excellence in Hisaishi’s backlog. This excellence shouldn’t be surprising, considering how he composes scores from listening to his songs, how they interact with what is going on, and how it leads the story from each scene to another. These aspects are accomplished by how Hisaishi makes the songs so vibrant. I guarantee that there is not one person in the world with a clear conscience who listens to “One Summer’s Day” and does not burst into tears. With utmost sincerity, Spirited Away is Hayao Miyazaki’s magnum opus. Though many will claim this to be his most “accessible” film in his filmography, especially the Miyazaki “purists,” it is the film with the most heart out of the rest. It’s the type of film that almost hurts to love. You feel so vulnerable watching this, yet you feel a sense of awe because you're mesmerized by how much Miyazaki put sublime creativity into making Spirited Away. From all of its likable characters, brilliant pacing, memorable score, and a great coming of age story, from what minor minimal flaws there are to be found in the film, it is all worthwhile to take in what is grandeur and admire it wholeheartedly. Like its atmosphere, nostalgia is part of how special Spirited Away is. Not nostalgia in the sense of how you were a kid when you first saw it, but from how it invokes nostalgia from the film’s ambiance of showcasing childhood curiosity and adventure. Something which more kids films need to learn from in future generations. Grade: A+
__THIS REVIEW IS SPOILER-FREE! Unless you click on the parts hidden with a spoiler warning, ofc.__ ___ I think it's been a while since I watched a movie which feels so magical. I think it was when Haku suddenly appeared when the night cane, when Chihiro ran through the streets only to find out that her parents became pigs. It was like when a switch was suddenly pulled and the world depicted on screen suddenly was so different. From this point on, I was completely sold and eager for whatever this movie had to offer for me. And it sure offered a lot, it was pure magic. I don't think I can really condense this movie to an overarching theme, like many other stories, or I can point out something which I find good, because this movie as a whole, this world, was just so interesting, immersing and charming. The characters, who breathe in this world, were charming. It was an extraordinary synergy between godly visuals, a strong musical score, and also a well-written story, managing to bundle main plot threads, nuanced characters, and also the world itself, without never stopping being boring, into one, cohesive plotline. ~! webm(https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/d4ac087a0b6bee11a0b8dfeecd792659.mp4) webm(https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/d66fe99dc357c366771622a3773fcbaf.mp4) !~ Everything just _worked_. Usually I would point something out which is kinda meh to me, but apart from very little nitpicks, I don't think I dislike anything about this movie. ~! Every character had his merit, like, even the squashed in no-face, who is a separate story thread on its own, worked well and I think it ended up concluding pretty sweet, with him finally finding a place where he's not alone. The movie also was more graphic than I anticipated for a movie which is also suitable for children, for example when Haku was hurt, or how her parents turned into pigs and were hit by the whip. It ended up making the world more interesting & intriguing, so it's not a complaint at all. webm(https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/177c20d9742de0efd713fef802d956e9.mp4) !~ So yeah, frankly, I don't know much more to say than that. The magic really comes from watching this movie, by experiencing all the different aspects together. I couldn't really do it justice by writing about it, to be honest. Maybe, as someone is a bit nerdy when it comes to visual-related stuff, this movie was just a constant treat for the eyes. So lively colors, strong backgrounds, and the constant absurdly good animation, in both quantity & the quality of the character acting itself, it was gorgeous. It's unironically one of the best-looking, if not the best-looking anime movie I have ever watched. ~! webm(https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/d9c3525482f2900cf3eae2cc4d3e0597.mp4) webm(https://www.sakugabooru.com/data/ed76d6a41b43f7879c5675ee88e79479.mp4) !~
# ___Heads up: this review is not spoiler-free___
This review maybe will be somewhat different than what you usually see in Anilist, as it is focused
mostly on explaining the underlying meaning and messages of the film – but my personal opinion is
still included.
Just to be clear – I think very highly of Spirited Away. It is by far my favorite film, not just among
anime films. I believe it is a brilliantly crafted piece worthy of being regarded as a national
treasure of Japanese culture. However, there is a lot of depth in it that a Western viewer may have
some difficulty to grasp, at least in the first watch. My aim in this review is to provide some
context and explanations that will aid others in seeing and understanding this depth – that makes this
film even more impressive and intriguing.
There are a lot of ways to interpret the ideas and messages in the film, so I will do my best breaking
down this review to different sections in a logical order, each section focusing on a different theme.
I also must clarify that I do not consider myself an expert on Japanese culture and folklore at all,
and what I write here is mostly based on some research I did specifically on this film and is
subjective in many parts. If you spot a mistake I have made, I will be glad if you let me know.
# __1. A very Japanese version of Alice in Wonderland__
~!One could summarize Spirited Away as Chihiro's journey getting home from an extremely bizarre and
unfamiliar world. While this kind of overly brief summary doesn't do justice to the film's much deeper
story, it points out an unmistakable similarity to Western stories such as Alice's Adventures in
Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. For this reason, the plot of Spirited Away is of a kind a Western
viewer is likely to have encountered before, and one they can enjoy.
However, even a viewer with little familiarity with Japanese culture will easily recognize the visuals
in the film as very Japanese, or at least definitely Asian. Even though Miyazaki usually refrains from
explicitly exposing connections to Japanese folklore, many of the characters have clear similarities
to beings in Japan's myth (that are expressed not only visually). This sets the film apart from
similar Western stories not only in appearance but also in themes that those Japanese elements define.
While a Western viewer may understand the meaning of these elements in some ways, they will probably
mean more to a Japanese viewer. What purpose does all that serve?
First, borrowing symbols and characters from Japanese myth allows Miyazaki to further enrich the world
he creates in Spirited Away, meaning it has more depth than you can expect from a world created in a
two-hour film. The presence of creatures and buildings with deep roots intrigues you, and makes you
wonder what is the full scale of the world Chihiro wanders into.
Secondly, Miyazaki intends to show the Japanese heritage in its full glory – beautiful, awe-inspiring,
full of spirituality and many more things. Additionally, it allows him to make use of motifs found in
Japanese folklore as building bricks for his own narrative. In the next section, I will explain this
in more detail.
!~
# __2. Miyazaki's vision of modern Japanese culture__
~!First some context should be provided. In Japanese folklore it is believed that forests are the
realms of the gods, and in ancient times the borders between the human world and the spirit world were
not difficult to cross. There are many stories of children who go to play in the forest, and later
find themselves trapped between gods and spirits – in other words, they are spirited away –
"kamikakushi" (神隠し)in Japanese.
The film's title in Japanese can be translated to "Sen and Chihiro hidden by the Gods". The name and
the plot are quite straightforward references to this motif. But before we can understand why Miyazaki
makes this reference, we should look into more hints to his message presented in the movie.
Chihiro's parents, despite being marginal characters, are an important hint. In the very first minutes
of the film, we can see they drive a German Audi car, which is a bit ironic considering Japan is a
major car manufacturer.
Additionally, they do not seem to care much about how their surroundings gradually become more and
more prominently Japanese. They rudely begin to feast on food even though the stall owner is not
present, the dad excusing this behavior by pridefully placing faith in his credit card, until they
eventually become pigs – a symbol of capitalism in the West.
The first impression Chihiro's parents make is not one you would expect from representatives of
Japanese culture. If anything, their behavior is more similar to that of disrespectful Western
tourists. Is them turning into pigs a punishment for it? Perhaps, but it is too early to deduce from
this that Miyazaki dislikes Western culture. After all, in other films he has taken inspiration from
the West, and said scenes are just the very beginning of Spirited Away.
Going a little backwards, an important thing to note about the stories of kids being spirited away is
that the children rarely, if at all, ever get back unharmed. In a sense, Chihiro's journey has an
un-Japanese ending – she does return safely. So, it's not as if Miyazaki is telling the Japanese
viewers to fully return to their roots. But at the same time Miyazaki doesn't intend the Japanese
audience to forfeit them.
Haku's clothes resemble those of a Shinto priest, he is trained in magic that appears in Japanese myth
and is actually a river spirit. He is a very Japanese character in the traditional aspect.
Haku is a major positive force in Chihiro's journey, and he helps her not only survive but also grow
as a person. Through Haku's kindness, Miyazaki presents Japanese heritage as something positive that
gives Japan its spirit and meaning. Despite that, it is still in Haku's intentions that Chihiro safely
returns home.
So what is Miyazaki's belief of how Japanese culture should be? A possible answer can be found in the
ending. Before leaving, Haku tells Chihiro not to look back until she returns to her world. And after
she finally crosses the border between the worlds, Chihiro does look back into the tunnel, for a few
long seconds, thinking about what she has gone through and what it means for her, until her parents
call her. One interpretation to this is that Miyazaki believes modern Japanese culture should respect
its roots and heritage and appreciate the spiritual value it brings, but at the same time accept
changes and progress that come from the West and modern times.
!~
# __3. Toxic Capitalism__
~!The film also highlights the dangers of capitalism, greed and pursuit after materialistic value.
The employees of the bathhouse, including Yubaba herself, are motivated by money. Even actually
enslaved by it.
In many cultures, names are strongly connected to a person's identity. Consequently, when Yubaba
steals a few letters from Chihiro's name after signing the work contract, in a way she steals Chihiro
herself. It is said in the film that knowing one's real name is necessary to return home, so if
Chihiro had really forgotten her name and thought of herself as Sen for the rest of her life, she
might have never gotten back, forever waiting for her next payslip.
When No-Face enters the bathhouse, the employees frantically fulfill every request he makes after
finding out he can freely produce gold – and for this reason alone. All this without first questioning
his suspicious and sudden appearance – until it's too late and some of them are literally devoured.
Furthermore, shortly after No-Face leaves the bathhouse, the gold created by him – the one and only
thing that has motivated everyone to work so vigorously - turns into ash, making their hard work
absolutely meaningless.
!~
# __4. No-Face – a victim of empty identity__
~!No-Face – or Kaonashi as others prefer to call him, has received his name for a good reason. Unlike
other characters Chihiro meets in the spirit world, there are barely any connections that can be found
between him and characters in Japanese myth. It's unclear what kind of creature he is or what is his
origin.
No-Face suffers of this – he doesn't have anything to which he feels attached. In attempt to obtain an
identity and a sentiment of belonging, he absorbs (metaphorically and literally) his surroundings.
No-Face's behavior in the bathhouse reflects the atmosphere prevalent there – he becomes greedy,
short-tempered, violent and manipulative. However, after leaving the bathhouse and joining Yubaba's
more peaceful sister in a rural setting, he becomes much calmer and perhaps happier. This is another
means Miyazaki utilizes to criticize capitalism.
But No-Face's character also has another message – having no identity is a miserable fate. When
Chihiro actually asks him something we all want to ask – where he came from – his fierce demeanor
stops for one moment, he crawls into his shell unable to answer her clearly, instead admitting he's
extremely lonely.
This relates to the value Miyazaki sees in Japanese culture – abandoning the heritage may lead to
immense loneliness and emotional emptiness.!~
# __5. Children are wise__
~!There are only three kid characters that play a meaningful role in Spirited Away – Chihiro, Bo and
Haku (or at least he takes on the appearance of a 14-years old boy). Each of them, in their own way,
seem to perceive things differently than the adults around them.
In Japanese folklore, young children are said to be closer to the gods, which is one reason there are
many stories of kids getting lost in the spirit realm – they are believed to be naturally drawn to it.
It appears that Chihiro is no exception – even before going through the tunnel she feels she has
arrived at a strange place.
Chihiro is able to understand things that other characters cannot, in the mythical sense and by simply
being young. Throughout the film she retains behavior and innocence befitting a ten-years old kid, yet
she is definitely not a fool. Free of adult interests, she manages to see the harmful influence of the
greediness that drives the bathhouse and finds value in things others regard as undesirable or
useless.
She keeps trusting Haku when others tell her she should not; She welcomes No-Face into the bathhouse
despite his odd behavior; She holds onto the vomit-inducing food the river spirit gifts her; She
doesn't lose sight of her goals no matter how much gold No-Face offers her.
These and more of Chihiro's actions likely stem from childish mind and innocence, and she is awarded
greatly for them. Without having done them, it is highly possible she may have not managed to return
home and save her parents.
Through Chihiro's behavior and bravery, Miyazaki makes us ponder if we actually get wiser as we are
absorbed deeper into adulthood and tells us not to take the insights of children lightly. The
characters in the film seem to have learned that, and by the end of the film they root for Chihiro,
despite finding her repulsive at the beginning.
!~
# __6. Conclusion__
~!Spirited Away is a film of the kind you can talk about for hours straight and find more depth as you
look more into it – this review covers this just partially. The interactions between modernity and
myth, between individualism and collectivism, between adults and children, between nature and
humanity, between spirituality and materialism combined with Chihiro's growth throughout the story,
all brilliantly come together and result in a beautiful presentation of the ideals and form Hayao
Miyazaki believes Japanese society should take in modern times.
The animation that pays attention to every tiny detail, Joe Hisaishi's impressive music that
accurately amplifies the emotions and tone of every scene, and Miyazaki's experience in directing and
storytelling go a long to enhance the visual, auditory, intellectual and epic experience that is
Spirited Away. Some may think my praises are exaggerated, but in light of what I've covered in this
review, I adhere to my reasons to consider Spirited Away as a true masterpiece.
I hope this review has contributed to your enjoyment of the film and inspired you to explore it more
in depth or re-watch it. If you'd like to comment on this review or have a discussion with me about
Spirited Away, you are more than welcome to reach me as you see fit through Anilist.
!~
Despite watching anime for quite a long time now, I still hadn't seen arguably the most iconic anime movie of all time. Due to me having in possession the first volumes of Kaze no Tani no Nausicaä from when I was kid, I was a little familiar with Miyazaki's works. His artstyle and technics absolutely blew my mind away and the worldbuilding was out of this world. And those precisely are my two favorite things about this movie ____ __VISUALS__ img500(https://media.tenor.com/rQLeqnxOL2gAAAAd/spirited-away-ghibli.gif) Needless to say, the animation is incredible. Everything looks so organic and nothing goes by the wayside. It is super detailled and by that I don't mean the artstyle itself but rather how each piece in [x] scene is animated. I'll take a spoiler free exemple even though it's probably not needeed. When Chihiro meets Kamajii for the first time, the way he moves his arms is uncanny because of how much motion there is. It feels like each arm has a personnality and move for an actual purpose, no arms just stands there, the character design is actually used and it feels accurate, like, if a 6 arm creature were to appeare, I'd assume it'd move it's arms like this. What is impressing is that while one character has a lot of motion, other "pieces" in the scene also have their own unique animation. Even when there's one character that is clearly the focus of the scene, the other background characters are well animated as well. There's always so much motion it makes the characters feel very real. When Chihiro runs, walks or pretty much does whatever, it feels so natural and human that this is legit as good as well done rotoscopy. There's many beautfiul shots and the artistic direction is just something else. ___ __WORLD__ I talked about the worldbuilding but for this movie I guess the word immersion would fit better. This is largely due to the animation but let's not forget about the storytelling. You don't know where the story goes and you're trapped in this world with Chihiro. The atmosphere settings scenes are by no mean rushed. Chihiro has to go to a location so that the plot moves forward, that makes you think the least important thing is going to be the processus of getting to that destination and that's where the immersion starts. There's a few minutes scenes of Chihiro just passing through the stairs. This creates a "hold back" because technically this scene isn't necesary to the plot but that's exatcly what makes it so captivating. Despite the objectives of the protagonist, the world exists of it's own and that's beautifully done. ___ __SUBSTANCE__ Last but not least, my personnal interpretation of the movie. To me, this is mainly a coming of age. You see Chihiro in low spirits because she has to move out. She's attached to the past, scared of the future and uninterested by the present. The only way we perceive her in the beginning of the movie is as a scared girl. She's scared of the unknown and she'd rather stick to what's conforting. The only way she can face her fears is with the help of her parents. They take her by the hand and lead her through the dark alleys of life. Unfortunately, growing up precisely mean letting go of those conforting hands and face situations without always relying on your parents. And that's what the story forces her to face. ~!That's why I think the parents turning into pigs is kind of a metaphor to describe how your parents become burdens. I don't necessarily mean it in a bad way. Altough there's negative burdens, there's also positive and even necessary ones. When you become mature enough, instead of just profiting off your parents love, you realize you have to give it back to them. You have to help them out just like they did for you your whole childhood. At first, the transition from your parents that always seemd to be strong and dependable to vulnerable and even needy may become an abjection in your eyes but it is a necessary one to grow up.!~ ____ __CONCLUSION__ Great watch, mainly due to what I said in "World" section, I think this is one of the most unique anime I've ever watched. I felt really immersed and intrigued throughout the whole movie. I also like how many characters are a parallel to Chihiro in their arcs of growing up and letting go of their past fears. The narration is vastly unconventional, making the message much more interesting to comprehend than it would have been with a more regular aproach to storytelling. This movie has a solid identity and the art direction is peak. I absolutely don't fail to see how it obtained it's legendary status and I'm glad I could actually connect with the movie at, more than an artistical level, an emotional one.
La Citta Incantata è un film che non muore mai, un cult senza tempo, un capolavoro che andrebbe visto anche solo per l’importanza culturale che ha ottenuto negli anni. Innanzitutto è stato l’unico film d’animazione giapponese ad aver mai vinto un premio Oscar, il lungometraggio ha anche parte dei meriti di aver portato al grande pubblico fuori dalla patria l’animazione nipponica, è infatti, insieme ad Akira di Katsuhiro Otomo, di cui magari vi parlerò in un’altra recensione, il più grande esempio di come il Giappone abbia fatto aprire gli occhi al resto del mondo sull’ importanza che stava avendo nell’industria dell’animazione. Ed ecco, per chi non ha ancora ben chiaro cosa sia un capolavoro, quello che vi ho appena raccontato ne è un esempio perfetto. img220(https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.6a6d866f9c98d8c0ac341d41a299d029?rik=8F%2bbZAyZLpeZsg&riu=http%3a%2f%2fwww.studioghibli.it%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2013%2f11%2fc1290B_posterr_ex.0001.jpg&ehk=rULB60912X1Uu0f29kUGcr2yIAU4mEk6wRN5dXHIsDY%3d&risl=&pid=ImgRaw&r=0) img220(https://www.moviemag.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Immagine-5-960x516.jpg) La Citta Incantata è senza dubbio uno dei tanti capolavori di Hayao Miyazaki, in questo film il maestro ci porta in un mondo fantastico dalle tinte tanto colorate e festose e tanto macabre ed inqiuetanti. La trama è molto semplice: Cihiro, una bambina di 10 anni, e la sua famiglia stanno traslocando in un’ altra cittá, quando il padre prende la strada sbagliata e raggiunge uno strano tunnel. I genitori si addentrano, malgrado Cihiro sia contraria, e si trovano in una radura con diverse case; a seguito di diversi eventi straordinari, inizia il viggio di Cihiro all’interno di questa strana cittá. Parlando del film si potrebbero analizzare mille idee e concetti che Miyazaki ci ha voluto esprimere con quest’ opera, ma non sono qui per questo, quindi se vi interessa una spiegazione del film vi lascio un video qua sotto. Questo è un film che può colpire bambini, ragazzi e adulti, un film che ha moltissimi layer di lettura, dal bambino che riesce a coglierne l’importanza del coraggio e dell’intraprendenza, alla persona un po’ più matura che riesce invece a captare una rappresentazione del lavoro e della società moderna. Ed è questo che rende così forte il film, l’essere perfetto per chiunque, parlare dritto al cuore di di oguno, che sia grande o piccino. img220(https://media.tenor.com/MfLrkz3cKesAAAAC/spirited-away-no-face.gif) img220(https://media.tenor.com/sTyoc0vowzYAAAAC/chihiro-spirited-away.gif) Anche solo a livello puramente narrativo questo film è fantastico, la città che nasconde una miriade di misteri, i personaggi altrettanto misteriosi e un ritmo pacato ma perfetto rendono questo film interessantissimo. Inoltre film è veramente piacere per gli occhi, carachter design, ambientazioni, colori, e animazioni rendono un gioiello l’opera di Miyazaki anche sotto il punto di vista visivo. Sarò banale ma questo è il mio film preferito del maestro, tutti i significati che nasconde, tutti gli insegnamenti di vita che ci da, la crescita di Cihiro attraverso questo viaggio; è un film che mi ha lasciato veramente tanto, mi ha preso tanto e soprattutto è un film che mi rivedrei un sacco di volte! img220(https://media.tenor.com/GMHO7sGXMGEAAAAC/spirited-away.gif) img220(https://media.tenor.com/fS_143fv5nYAAAAC/spirited-away.gif)
A infância é uma das fases mais importantes de uma pessoa, de lá irá começar fases de transições, mudanças, e seja elas fáceis de lidar ou não, é necessário se impor a elas e ter agência pra não estagnar em um ponto, sendo só mais uma pessoa a deriva de tudo sem nenhuma identidade. Curiosamente eu vi "Spirited Away" pela primeira vez nessa época, eu provavelmente deveria ter mais ou menos a idade da Chihiro no filme, e mesmo com toda a fantasia incrível que o filme traz pra olhos de uma criança, não foi algo que me fisgou tanto, no máximo me marcou de uma maneira negativa, levando em consideração que eu tinha pavor da cena dos pais virando porcos. E de uma maneira não intencional, vi esse filme três vezes: Na minha infância, adolescência e agora na maior idade. Três vezes e três experiências completamente diferentes, com agora entendendo o do porque esse filme é tão especial. Se o Studio Ghibli traz visuais incríveis, com seu estilo artístico charmoso no ponto com character designs marcantes, Miyazaki traz uma unicidade na direção e escrita que faz juz ao renome do estúdio. Com um projeto que estorou em níveis astronômicos, "Spirited Away" mostra um Miyazaki com uma cabeça mais pro lúdico e até onírico, trazendo uma fantasia marcante viajando entre o fantasioso e o folclórico do Japão, fazendo visuais, cenários e tudo o que o Studio Ghibli consegue fazer enchendo os olhos de quem vê. Esse filme sendo uma das animações mais importantes do século, consegue mostrar que fez por onde, trazendo uma jornada narrativa, temática, visual e todas as outras coisas que esse filme consegue fazer bem de maneira magistral, vidrando qualquer um em sua riqueza textual e em seu charme único. A direção de Hayao Miyazaki aqui chega em uma crescente sem parar, conseguindo entregar até nas cenas mais "simples" sentimentos que nem os melhores textos poderiam entregar. Em caminhadas dentro de um jardim de flores, em uma viagem de trem, e até em uma observação da noite, tudo aqui demonstra e fala muita coisa sem precisar ter nenhum diálogo, o vazio trazido por Miyazaki em muitas cenas é um dos maiores exemplos disso, conseguindo demonstrar uma contemplarão do "nada", o filme consegue demonstrar um simbolismo fortíssimo dentro de suas cenas, mostrando um storytelling rico envolto aos sentimentos de uma maneira que poucos diretores e roteiristas conseguem fazer. E isso se complementa muito bem dentro de sua trilha, feita de maneira sensível no ponto certo por Joe Hisashi, que aqui faz uma das trilhas mais memoráveis do Studio Ghibli, que mesmo sendo poucas, com o tema principal tocando na maioria das vezes, consegue trazer uma composição diferente toda vez que o tema toca, trazendo a sensibilidade necessária dentro da música pra cada cena. Em uma parte a qual eu ignorei quando criança, não entendi quando adolescente, e consegui compreender melhor agora, a história, narrativa e os temas de "Spirited Away" são coisas que mesmo sendo simples, conseguem tocar de uma maneira sensível e delicada que poucos filmes conseguem. Amadurecer é um negócio difícil, e vendo a Chihiro passar o que ela passa durante o filme, negando as mudanças que a vida dela está tomando, e querendo empacar no passado por não gostar do agora, é algo que eu consigo me relacionar mais hoje em dia. Viver no passado é cômodo, pensar que as coisas eram melhores antes, e agora que tudo tá mudando é terrível e te deixa em um desespero gigante, tendo medo das mudanças e a viagem que é até lá. Ver esse filme, e acompanhar a Chihiro nessa jornada fantasiosa que ela passa me lembrou de muita coisa, fazendo com que eu ficasse mais sensível vendo ao filme. Toda a vertigem de ver um lugar novo e ficar com medo de encarar ele, o sentimento de que você não é mais você, todos os problemas de amadurecimento e identidade de que Chihiro passam é algo relacionável, é uma coisa que todas as pessoas passam, principalmente no momento de ir pegar um trem só de ida, e de não olhar pra trás pra algo que já se foi, só contemplado a viagem que tá sendo até o ponto final dessa jornada. Além disso, "Spirited Away" me lembra infância em outros quesitos, além dos problemas de amadurecimento e identidade, não sabendo mais quem você é mais, e não se encontrando direito no seu a redor, toda a ideia da Chihiro passar o que ela passou, e após isso só ir pra frente me lembrou algo simples mas que me pegou de certa forma. As viagens a qual você faz na infância sempre é estimulado bem mais nos olhos de uma criança, tudo é muito mágico, a comida, os lugares, e acima de tudo as amizades que são as melhores possíveis naquele momento, onde mesmo que você passe por aquilo em um curto espaço de tempo, você aproveita na maior intensidade possível. Ver a Chihiro conhecendo pessoas únicas, indo pra lugares mágicos e experienciando essa fantasia me remeteu a isso, os breves momentos de passeios e viagens em lugares, onde quando criança são as coisas mais oníricas possível, e que mesmo no final da viagem termine do mesmo jeito, voltando pra casa nunca mais vendo tudo aquilo de novo, uma marca daquele momento fica, e "Spirited Away" me fez voltar pra esses momentos infantis, que eu tenho certeza que foi uma das melhores coisas possíveis na minha visão na época. Acima de todo o primor técnico que "Spirited Away" tem, a coisa que mais me tocou vendo esse filme foi essa lembrança constante da infância, me vendo como a Chihiro o tempo inteiro enquanto o longa se desenrolava, com minha cabeça lembrando desses momentos infantis os quais eu tive. E assistindo esse filme pela terceira vez, me fez perceber que só agora ele foi algo que me marcou bastante, me acompanhando por fases completamente distintas da minha vida, mas que de certa forma conversam com o que o filme fala de certa forma, fazendo eu gostar ainda mais dele. O que esse filme me fez ter é algo que poucos conseguem, e agora tendo experienciado ela de maneiras bem diferentes, eu consigo valorizar muito mais a viagem que ele traz.