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Spirited Away, or is a 2001 movie by the Japanese anime studio Studio Ghibli, directed by famed animator Hayao Miyazaki. Spirited Away is arguably the most famous anime film of all time. Many Studio Ghibli films have rivaled its popularity in Japan, yet no previous anime film has attracted such a wide audience and universal acclaim across the globe. The runner-up is Studio Ghibli's own Princess Mononoke, released in 1997.

The film was named Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards. It was the first anime film to win an Academy Award, and notably it won a Best Animated Feature Oscar before any other traditionally hand-drawn films. In fact, no other hand-drawn film has yet won the award. Shrek, the first winner, was made from CGI animation.

Users of the Internet Movie Database have voted the film among "The Top 250 Rated Films" as well as "The Top Rated Animation Title".

Release dates and box office gross

Spirited Away was released in Japan in July 2001, drawing an audience of around 23 million and revenues of ¥30 billion (approx. States dollar|$" target="_blank" >*250 million), to become the highest-grossing film in Japanese history (surpassing the 1997 American film Titanic for overall highest grossing and 1997's Princess Mononoke for highest grossing animated features). It was the first movie to have earned $200 million at the worldwide box office before opening in the United States. By 2002, a sixth of the Japanese population had seen it.

The film was subsequently released in the United States in September 20 2002 and made slightly over $10 million dollars by September 2003. It was dubbed into English by Walt Disney Pictures, under the supervision of Pixar's John Lasseter.

It was released in North America by Disney's Buena Vista Distribution arm on DVD format on April 15 2003 where the attention brought by the Oscar win made the title a strong seller. Spirited Away is often marketed, sold and associated with other Miyazaki movies such as Castle in the Sky, Kiki's Delivery Service and, most recently, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (due in part to the latter's recent US release).

The English-dubbed version was released on DVD in the UK on March 29 2004.

Story

In the movie, Chihiro Ogino is a little girl who is moving to a new town with her parents, Akio and Yuko. She is clearly unhappy about the move and appears rather petulant. They lose their way and come across a tunnel, and out of curiosity enter it, unaware that it actually provides access into a spirit world—specifically, to a spirit bathhouse, where the spirits and gods (drawn from the Shinto religious tradition) go to rest and relax.

The family enters what is apparently an abandoned theme park populated with restaurants, and Chihiro's parents, finding a place to eat, immediately help themselves to a meal. Chihiro is uneasy, and hesitates outside, watching her parents eat like pigs. When her parents offer her some food, she refuses and runs off to explore more of this abandoned theme park by herself. She comes to a grand looking bathhouse and approaches a bridge leading up to it and looks down to see a mysterious train passing below. Suddenly, a mysterious boy named Haku appears on the bridge and orders Chihiro to leave before it gets dark. Just then the sky darkens and the lamps of the bathhouse light up. Haku creates a magical diversion and tells Chihiro to get across the river. Chihiro then runs back down to the restaurant where her parents are still eating and discovers to her horror that they have been transformed into large pigs. Terrified, Chihiro screams and runs off back the way she had come, in attempt to find the tunnel back to her parents' car. As she runs, ghostly spirits and shadows appear in the previously-deserted theme park and frighten Chihiro even more. However, she is stopped from going back to the tunnel by a river, which has replaced the grassy plain she originally crossed with her parents to get to the park.

When Chihiro's distress at losing her parents is compounded by discovering that she's turning transparent, Haku finds her and comforts her, giving her something to eat from the spirit world so she does not vanish. He knows her name somehow, and helps her sneak into the spirit world palace of Yubaba the witch. He tells her that the only way she can safely remain long enough to rescue her parents is to find work in the spirits' bathhouse.

Chihiro follows Haku's advice, descending a long outdoor staircase to the boiler room where she asks the human-looking, six-armed boilerman, Kamaji, for work. He rebuffs her, until one of the coal-carrying sprites (reminiscent of My Neighbor Totoro's soot sprites) collapses under an extra-heavy lump. Chihiro picks up the coal and feeds the boiler, despite the fact that she can barely carry the fantastically heavy coal. Kamaji warms towards the girl, and assists her in getting a job in the bathhouse.

A young woman named Lin (Rin) helps Chihiro find her way through the labyrinthine palace undetected, diverting a fellow servant by tantalizing him with food while Chihiro squeezes into an elevator behind a gross but benign radish spirit (daikon kami).

Pulled into Yubaba's penthouse suite, Chihiro discovers her to be a regal but monstrous lady, who dotes on an equally monstrous (and unfeasibly large) baby. Chihiro repeatedly and stubbornly asks for a job, and finally Yubaba consents, on condition that she give up her name. Yubaba complains that she is too nice and regrets taking an oath to give whoever seeks work a job. Yubaba literally takes possession of Chihiro's name, grasping the kanji from the contract in her hand and leaving Chihiro only one piece of her original 2-character name on the contract, in isolation pronounced "Sen". The next morning, Haku shows Sen where her parents are being kept (along with scores of other pigs). Outside, Haku gives Sen her old clothes and the card from her farewell bouquet of flowers at the beginning of the film. Reading the card, she remembers her name. Haku warns her that Yubaba controls people by stealing their names; once they forget their names as Haku forgot his, they belong to her.

While at work Sen has a difficult time adjusting to the work regime, but wins respect by dealing with a difficult customer, a slimy "stink spirit" whom she discovers is actually a heavily polluted yet powerful river god. The river god rewards her with an herbal cake ball, or medicine ball, which acts as an emetic. Sen succeeds only with the help of a somewhat monstrous spirit called No Face, who is attracted to her because she was kind to him, unwittingly allowing him to enter the bathhouse against policy. The bathhouse seems to bring out the worst in No Face. Able to produce gold out of thin air, he feeds off of the greed of the bathhouse's employees. Eventually he goes out of control and begins eating everything in sight, including three staff members. While No Face is keeping everyone busy, Haku returns to the bathhouse in the form of a dragon, but he is in trouble as he is being pursued and attacked by a large flock of enchanted origami birds. Badly injured, he makes his way to Yubaba's quarters. Recognizing him in dragon form, Sen goes to find him but is secretly followed by one of the paper birds.

While looking for Haku, Sen encounters Yubaba's giant baby boy, Boh, who wants to play with her. She manages to get away from him to see Kashira trying to push the dying Haku down a shaft. The paper object that followed Sen transforms into Zeniba, Yubaba's twin sister, who was chasing Haku because he had stolen her gold seal. The seal has a spell on it so that whoever steals it will die. Zeniba transforms the baby into a little mouse-like creature because he makes too much noise, and Yubaba's hawk-like lieutenant into a tiny bird-creature. She then transforms Kashira into a clone of Boh to fool Yubaba. Haku cuts Zeniba's paper puppet in two with his tail, causing her image to split and disappear. He then tumbles down the shaft, taking Sen with him, but they land safely in Kamaji's room.

Sen manages to feed Haku a piece of the herbal cake, causing him to spit out the stolen seal. The seal has a black slug on it which Sen squashes with her foot. Resolving to help the unconscious Haku by returning Zeniba's seal and apologizing on his behalf, Sen first returns to the bathhouse to deal with the out-of-control No Face. She feeds him the remaining herbal cake, causing him to regurgitate the food and three bathhouse workers he has eaten. His pathological gluttony is cured once he follows her outside. Using a train ticket from Kamaji, Sen takes a train to where Zeniba lives, accompanied by No Face and Boh (who shares a mutually helpful relationship with the tiny bird creature).

Haku later recovers from his wounds. When Yubaba finds out that her baby is missing she is furious. Haku manages to make a deal: he will get the baby back and, in return, Yubaba must set free Sen and her parents. (The plots of the Japanese- and English-language versions differ slightly here: in the original, Yubaba and Haku talk about what's necessary to break the spell on her parents.) At Zeniba's simple cottage, it is revealed that the black slug Sen squished was put in Haku by Yubaba. The slug was how Yubaba controlled Haku. Zeniba states that the only way the spell on her seal can be broken is by love (Haku's illness in the boiler room was the spell of the seal, and Chihiro's love actually breaks the spell).

Haku, again a dragon, finds Sen at Zeniba's cottage. Zeniba forgives him for stealing her seal and takes No Face in as a helper before seeing Chihiro off. The two of them fly back to the bathhouse. While riding on Haku's back, Chihiro remembers where she and Haku met before: when she was young, she fell into a river and somehow got carried to shallow water. She was actually saved by Haku, who was the river spirit of the Kohaku River, near which Chihiro used to live but has since been drained and built upon. Upon remembering Chihiro tells him that his name is 'Kohaku River', and the spell breaks; Haku is free from the control of Yubaba. At the bathhouse Chihiro has to perform one last task to free her parents: she has to pick them out from a group of pigs. She correctly answers that none of the pigs are her parents. As a result she and her parents are set free and return to the human world, with Chihiro more grown up from her experiences.

When they return to the human world, you can see that some time has passed, as Chihiro's parents' car has many fallen dead leaves covering it. Her parents have no recollection whatsoever of the incident, and the same goes for Chihiro (although this is debated because of a line at the end of the English dub that suggests she might have some recollection; Miyazaki maintains that she had no memory). There is proof that the "spiriting away" really did happen though, because of the leaves, and a glittering hair tie on Chihiro's head, which was given to her by Zeniba.

Characters

: Chihiro is the 10-year old protagonist of the movie. Chihiro is in the process of moving to a new town when her family stumbles upon the entrance to the bathhouse. During her adventure she matures from a whiny, self-centered, and pessimistic child to a hard-working, helpful, optimistic young woman. She is re-named by the proprietor of the bathhouse, Yubaba. Note that in Japanese orthography, the character for "Sen" is one of the kanji of her true name, "Chihiro".

: Chihiro's father. Akio's impulsive behaviour catalyzes the unfolding of events in the beginning of the movie.

: Chihiro's mother.

: A young boy who helps Chihiro after her parents have transformed into pigs. He helps prevent her from becoming a spirit and gives her advice on getting work at the bathhouse in order to survive to see her parents again. Haku works as Yubaba's direct subordinate, often running errands and performing missions for her. He has the ability to fly and become a dragon. Toward the end of the story Chihiro recalls falling into the river, of which Haku is the spirit, and she thus frees him from Yubaba's service by helping him remember his real name. While he seems often cold, and is not terribly popular with the bathhouse staff, Haku is unfailingly kind to Chihiro, perhaps because of his experience with her in the past. (He remembers her name, though not his own.) Haku is probably only cold to Chihiro at certain times because he knew Yubaba was watching him and that they both could be punished if she knew that he helped Chihiro get into the bathhouse, or even that Chihiro might remember Haku (as he recognized her from the start) and remind him of his real name. Yubaba seems to care about Haku only as a magical errand boy: when he is dying in her quarters because of the seal she ordered him to steal, she is mostly concerned about getting rid of the body before he bleeds on more of the carpet.

: An old sorceress with an unnaturally large head and nose who runs the bathhouse. She also appears to be extremely intuitive. She reluctantly signs Chihiro into a contract, taking her name and re-naming her "Sen" in order to hold power over her for the duration of the contract. Yubaba has an over-bearing and authoritarian personality, but she does show a soft side through her love for her giant baby, Boh. In contrast to her simple and hospitable sister, Yubaba lives in opulent quarters and is only interested in taking care of guests for money. Though she is very intuitive (she senses the approach of No Face and realizes that the River God is not a stink spirit as he appears), she doesn't notice that her own baby is gone. When Haku prompts her, her first reaction is to scrutinize the gold.

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: A trio of heads living in Yubaba's office that move around by bouncing. They do not speak except in small grunts when they bounce about. They are later changed into an illusion of Boh by Zeniba in order to trick Yubaba.

: An old man with six arms who runs the boiler room of the bathhouse. A number of (Soot balls) work for him, by carrying coal into his furnace. Also, he has a large cabinet where he keeps all the herbs that are used in the baths. After some persuasion, he allows Chihiro to work at the bathhouse and even pretends to be her grandfather to protect her. He also takes an injured Haku into his boiler room and cares for him while Chihiro journeys to Zeniba's cottage.

: A worker at the bathhouse who becomes Chihiro's caretaker. Although cold at first, she warms up to Chihiro and grows a strong bond with her. She warns No Face, who had previously gone on a rampage, not to harm Chihiro or there would be trouble. At the end, she is very happy for Chihiro when she finally manages to find her way home.

: No Face is an odd spirit that takes an interest in Chihiro. Chihiro lets No Face into the bathhouse through a side door. At first he is merely a strange cloaked and masked shadowy thing that merely breathes and smiles.

No Face is a lonely being who seems to feed on the emotions of those he encounters. He is helpful to Chihiro since she helped him. After observing the bathhouse staff's reaction to gold and attempting to win them over with more gold, he reacts to their greed by becoming a grotesque monster and eating lots of food and some of the staff. He calms down and reverts back to normal after he leaves the bathhouse's influence, and at the end he stays with Zeniba as a helper. No Face's mask, movement and even name share many similarities with the Japanese Noh theater.

: A customer of the bathhouse originally thought to be a "stink spirit" who is assigned to Chihiro and Lin. Yubaba suspects that he may be something more than a stink spirit, and when Chihiro helps him by pulling trash that had been dumped into his river out of his side, her suspicions are proven correct. He is in fact a famous river god. As a reward, he gives Chihiro a ball of plant material which we are told by Kamaji, in the English-subtitled version, is a "healing cake." In the English dubbed version he just states that it is medicine from the river god. The "healing cake" is later used to heal an injured Haku through ingestion and to cause No Face to vomit the people and vast amounts of food he ate during his rampage.

: Boh is Yubaba's son. Although he has the appearance of a young baby, he is twice Yubaba's size. Yubaba spoils him and goes out of her way to give him whatever he wants. He believes that going outside will make him ill; Sen tells him staying in his room all that time will make him sick. Later, Zeniba turns him into a mouse. Though the spell wears off, Boh stays as a mouse simply because he doesn't want to change back. He becomes good friends with Chihiro while in his mousey form and eventually stands up to Yubaba to protect Chihiro. In the original, Boh tells Yubaba he had a good time when he was with Chihiro. His little adventure may be seen as an analog to Chihiro's adventures and growing up. This idea suggests that Boh is so overgrown because he has never really matured under Yubaba's doting care.

: Zeniba is Yubaba's twin sister and rival. Although identical in appearance, their personalities are almost polar opposites. At first she appears no better than Yubaba when she becomes enraged at Haku for stealing her magic seal and threatens to take it back regardless of what happens to Haku. Hoping to set things right, Chihiro journeys to Zeniba's cottage to return it and apologize. It is then that Zeniba reveals her true character as being a kind, grandmotherly figure not at all like Yubaba. She even tells Chihiro to call her "Granny" in the English version, makes dessert and tea for her and No Face and does her best to help Chihiro while realizing that there are limits to what she can do. She forgives Haku for stealing her seal (in the Japanese version she states that she no longer blames him, prompting some fans to speculate that when Chihiro told her about the control-slug that Yubaba put in him that she realized that Yubaba was more guilty than Haku ever was) and sees everyone off, assuring Chihiro that she will be just fine. She also takes No Face in as a helper, giving him a place to call home at last.

Note: Zeniba is voiced by the same actors as Yubaba in both the English and Japanese versions.

Minor characters

  • The female workers in the bathhouse are referred to as .
  • The management of the bathhouse are or .
  • The male workers in the bathhouse are either or .
  • Chihiro shares an uncomfortable elevator journey with a .
  • The bathing bird gods are known as , the ones with red cloaks and masks are , the gods who exit the elevator wearing the bathrobes are and the gods with horns, orange faces, and green bodies are the .

Music

The closing song, "Itsumo Nandodemo," (何時も何度でも; English title: "Always With Me", literally translates as "Always, No Matter How Many Times") was written and performed by Yumi Kimura, a composer and lyre-player from Osaka. The lyrics were by Kimura's friend Wakako Kaku. The song was intended to be used for a different Miyazaki film which was never released.

The other music, "Anohi no Kawa," (あの日の川; "Day of the River"）was composed by Joe Hisaishi, for which he was awarded the 56th Mainichi Film Competition Awards for Best Music, the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2001 Best music Award in the Theater Movie category, and the 16th Japan Gold Disk Award for Animation Album of the Year. Later, Hisaishi added lyrics to Anohi no Kawa and named the new version "Inochi no Namae," (いのちの名前; "The Name of Life") which was performed by Kimura.

The original soundtrack CD contains 22 tracks (21 from Hisaishi's soundtrack plus Itsumo Nandodemo).

Possible themes

It is often commented that the film constitutes an allegory on the progression from childhood to maturity, and the risk of losing one's nature in the process. The theme of a character being lost inside a (fictional/different) world if he/she forgets his/her real name is reminiscent of Michael Ende's Neverending Story, where two books with two distinct worlds intertwine. The protagonist of Ende's book, Bastian, slowly enters the world of the book he reads and is threatened to be forever lost inside it if he forgets his real name. Similarly, Chihiro and Haku could forever stay in Yubaba's possession if they forget their real names and consequently their real identities.

The main character's development in the setting could also be seen as a sullen, spoiled and very modern Japanese ten-year-old being forced to grow up when faced with more traditional Japanese culture and manners.

A separate understanding holds that the film is based on the prevention of greed: those swallowed by No Face were attempting to receive the gold he made. Similarly, compare Yubaba's rich accommodations and interest in gold to Zeniba's rustic home and grandmotherly demeanor.

There are perhaps also veiled references to competing political ideologies, including a theme of environmental awareness (as seen by the river spirit being freed from its stink spirit form once freed of the material dumped in it, and Haku's discovery he is the blocked up River Kohaku) continued from "Princess Mononoke" and "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind". Miyazaki also refrains from creating any characters with complete ideologies of good or evil, exhibiting all characters with some negative and positive traits in different situations.

Differences between the Japanese and English versions

Some changes were made to the film by John Lasseter and the other writers of the English dub of the film, which has caused some argument amongst fans over which version is superior. Most die-hard Miyazaki fans believe that the Japanese original is the better film, but some others point to the statement Miyazaki himself made that non-Japanese speakers should watch his films dubbed in their own languages, so they can better appreciate the animation as their eyes are not drawn to read subtitles.

Changes include:

  • The insertion of a significant portion of background chatter
  • The addition of dialogue explaining or emphasizing certain on screen elements. An example of this would be when Chihiro reaches the bathhouse, and having her state what it was. These insertions are mostly used to explain certain aspects of Japanese culture that are foreign in America, and other English speaking countries.
  • New lyrics were made impromptu by John Ratzenberger for the English version of a song sung by Aogaeru

Some also consider the characters in the English version to be one or two years older than their Japanese counterparts, based on their voices.

Critics of the English dub believe that the characters are cheapened in it and the plot is made more childish, and they resent that lines were edited to make the film more suitable for young children and more fathomable for a Western audience. Although Miyazaki himself claims that Chihiro doesn't remember what happened, there is a line added at the end of the English dub which makes it appear that Chihiro does in fact remember what happened in the spirit world.

On the other hand, many argue, had the film not been adapted at least to some extent, it may not have been awarded the world-wide acclaim and popularity it enjoyed.

Trivia

  • Hayao Miyazaki, the director of My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and Princess Mononoke (1997), came out of retirement to make this film after meeting the daughter of a friend, on whom the main character is based.
  • Chihiro's father (Akio) was based on the real-life father of the girl Chihiro is based on. Miyazaki said the character shares the similarities of always getting lost while driving and eating too fast. Chihiro's mother (Yuuko) is based on a friend of Miyazaki's and an idiosyncratic hand-gesture of hers is copied when she is eating in Spirited Away.
  • In the scene during which Chihiro squashes with her foot the small piece of gunk that inhabited Haku (a spell laid by Yubaba), Kamaji tells Chihiro to "Cut the line!". "Cutting the line" is a Japanese good-luck charm performed by making a chopping gesture through another person's connected index fingers; in a behind-the-scenes featurette included on the Disney DVD, a woman likened the gesture to the children's game of giving someone a "cootie shot" when something bad happened. This is done whenever someone is affected by some impurity, such as having stepped in dog feces. During footage of the dubbing process in the Spirited Away Nippon-TV Special, the young Japanese voice actor playing Chihiro was not aware of this concept and had it explained to her by Miyazaki himself in between takes of the scene in question. One of the sound engineers commented saying "The young don't know it these days".
  • Chihiro's best friend's name is Rumi, which is Chihiro's seiyū's name.
  • The back of the Region 1 DVD from Disney and the Region 4 DVD from Madman states that the aspect ratio is the original ratio of 2.00:1. This is incorrect; it is actually cropped to 1.85:1.
  • The Kompeito that Lin feeds to the soot sprites is called confetti in the English version of the manga.
  • A short scene (Yubaba's outrage) appears in Nanni Moretti's 2006 movie, Il Caimano, as seen through a TV being watched. Miyazaki is thanked in the end screen. The kids who are watching the movie, as their mother urges them to bed, whine "But it's so beautiful!"
  • Japanese pop star Sayuri Horishita is a big fan of Spirited Away See BabeStar Profile of Sayuri Horishita. Accessed July 3, 2006., and even had one of her music videos animated by some former staff members of Studio Ghibli See Minna no Uta Database. Accessed July 3, 2006..

Awards

Notably, Spirited Away is the first anime feature film to win an Oscar. Additionally, it is the first animated film of any kind to win the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

References

See also

External links

2001 films | Anime dubbed into English | Japanese films | Films directed by Hayao Miyazaki | Studio Ghibli | Anime films | Fantasy anime | Best Animated Feature Academy Award winners | Coming-of-age films | Shapeshifting in fiction

Cesta do fantazie | Chihiro og heksene | Chihiros Reise ins Zauberland | El viaje de Chihiro | Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Le Voyage de Chihiro | Avanture male Chihiro | Spirited Away | La città incantata | המסע המופלא | Chihiro Szellemországban | Spirited Away | 千と千尋の神隠し | Chihiro og heksene | Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi | Spirited Away: W krainie bogów | Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi | Унесённые призраками | Henkien kätkemä | Spirited Away | Spirited Away | 千与千寻

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Spirited Away".

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