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What may sound like hyperbole is really the only way to describe Spirited Away. It is not only one of the greatest animated movies, but also one of the best films ever made. Perhaps, no one will ever know what it’s truly about beyond observing that Hayao Miyazaki is the Japanese Steven Spielberg and, to a large degree, all of his movies are coming-of-age tales. But they are very honest about the pain and suffering of the process.
Spirited Away, his most popular film, opens with one of the most devastating experiences in the life of a ten-year-old girl after her parent’s divorce; moving to a new town. But, when her father finds a job, pouty Chihiro reluctantly follows her parents for the move to another part of Japan.
Hints of the strange new world awaiting her can be found in Miyazaki’s loving little details, such as the tiny spirit houses by the forest road. In Miyazaki’s works, even the ordinary world is magic and the old looking tunnel that Chihiro and her family stumble upon is not merely a curio discovered upon taking a wrong turn, but a portal into a world of spirits.
While her angst is shared by many children, it is obvious early on that Chihiro is an unusual girl. She is certainly wiser than her parents and notices that there is something off about the desolate village at the other end of the tunnel. As in Alice in Wonderland, everything is an illusion. The infrastructure is fake and we are not quite sure of Chihiro’s father is right when he presumes the place to be an abandoned theme park (a relic from Japan’s abruptly ended economic boom of the early 90s). There is evidence (such as rundown arcades) to suggest that he may, in fact, be right. But there has always been something creepy about abandoned parks and this one is no exception.
Here is where Chihiro’s wisdom supersedes that of her parents. Finding some food, they feast gluttonously; resting assured that their wealth will cover any problems that might arise. But they should know never to eat food in a place they don’t want to become stuck in. It’s a myth as old as the story of Persephone, who was forced to stay in the underworld after eating a pomegranate.
Spirited Away shares a trait with a lot of anime and manga in that in Anglicizes its main characters, but that’s not why it translates so well. Its themes and motifs are universal. Especially Chihiro’s need to depend on herself for survival after her parents are turned into pigs for eating food left out for the spirits. But it is also a very Japanese story with many of the land’s legends and social sentiments.
Chihiro’s parents are products of the new Japan. They are high-tech, flaunt credit cards, and are unaware of their country’s ancient beliefs. In a sense, the journey to the other side of the tunnel can be interpreted as a time trip back to the old Japan, a land of kwaidan, ghosts, and spirits. Haku, Chihiro’s guide to this new world, is even dressed in the robes of old times. He tells her that in order to get her parents back and go home, she must find a job and appease Yubaba, the powerful matriarch figure who rules the land with fear. Like the Red Queen, her counterpart in Alice in Wonderland, Yubaba has a giant head and is a strong but frightening figure. With the ability to morph into a gargantuan bird she keeps an eye on her workers from above and is controlled only by her behemoth of a baby.
This is a very unsettling world and, unlike other similar stories (such as the Wizard of Oz), we want Chihiro to find a way back home. It isn’t just that the atmosphere is so disquieting, but that it is nothing short of a work camp and not a place one would like to linger in. Chihiro will meet false and true friends as well as spooky sprites. At first, everyone discriminates against Chihiro for being human, but she eventually wins acceptance by bathing the Stink Spirit, contributing to Miyazaki’s ever-present environmental consciousness (he’s really a polluted river).
Among the friends she makes besides Haku is Lin, a fellow bath house worker, who knows the inner workings of the world well enough but dreams of better things outside. In traditional Japanese lore, spirits can be found everywhere in nature and they are drawn here with the imagination that sets Miyazaki apart. Working with Chihiro is an army of tiny pieces of soot (first seen in Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro), which burn near the furnace only to regenerate from the very ashes.
Upon a magical train ride, Chihiro also meets Zeniba, Yubaba’s kinder sister who, nevertheless, still has a sinister bite. Though to be fair, she casts a spell on Haku because she only knows him as Yubaba’s henchman. This is an ambiguous place anyway as exemplified by No Face, a silent phantom lurking by the bath house. What does he represent? Perhaps how greed can ruin even the best people. In the start of the film, humans were the greedy ones, consuming everything in their path. But once he discovers gold, No Face also becomes corrupted and is reformed only by accompanying Chihiro on the train ride to Zeniba’s cottage.
The train ride is among the most beautifully drawn parts of a gorgeous film. But the beauty of it is more than lush imagery. It is a collective effect of music, nightly atmosphere, and suspense. There are some ghostly passengers on the train that seem to be in a bizarre state between the human and spirit world. Maybe they are humans who died and are crossing over.
What should not be lost beneath Miyazaki’s delicate marvels is Chihiro’s growth as a young lady. It’s not long after her recruitment into the bath house prison that we notice her becoming persistent than she was at first, this even after she “loses herself” when she gives Yubaba her name. This is a common fairy-tale motif, giving your name equates giving yourself away, and it is played traditionally here. She becomes a brave, resourceful, and collected girl, but her true test comes when it is her turn to repay Haku’s favor and save his life. In the end, it is selflessness that proves a true marker of her growth as a woman.
Spirited Away is more than a great film, it is something of a miracle. Few movies have ever been so weird, scary, and, most importantly, have stuck with audiences as firmly as Spirited Away. It is a visual masterpiece and a narrative wonder. But equally rewarding is its foundation as the story of a little girl who prepares to face life.

probobly one of the most imginative stories ever put on screen. It is his masterwork inwhich all the peices fell in place, i think one of the greatest strengths of Spirited Away is how it holds itself together at the end and dosn’t fall apart like some of his other movies(caugh* Howlsmovingcastle caugh* caugh). Some have said that Mr. Miyazaki is the Japanese Walt Disney but this and others are movies Walt wouldn’t be able to make in his wildest dreams.

The wondrous world of Yubaba. Conceived attention and comfort for tiresome godlike creatures. Congregate nameless innocent servants. Sum the wizardry of One, and rule this with sight of greed. The perfect Business! Spirits to attend and pleasures to indulge in this Spa. An unlikely place for a pre-adolescent girl. Who knows when an evil spirit will feel like sucking your own soul just for the hunger of a foodless evening? And so, when Chihiro trades her name for accommodation and work at Yubaba’s Spa, she is initiated in the ways of serving lesser pleasures. By any means don’t let yourself forget your name or else you won’t be able to return to home. But Chihiro is not here to stay. Clear in her goal to bring back her parents from their pig state, the girl confronts every peril placed upon her. Friends along the way will keep her company and good advice. Zeniba, the lovely counterpart and twin sister to Yubaba, the mysterious No-face, Kamaji, that annoying huge baby son of Yubaba (Morphed into a hamster?), and off course: Haku.
Spirited Away (El Viaje de Chihiro), is an overwhelming display of dream like qualities and imagination, a tale of the purest enchantment between the tenderness of a lone child and the magical side of parallel realities. The girl is lost in the beginning, little by little towards freedom and a secret of love, she knows it by heart. In the end everything is bittersweet, but melancholic.
The film is constructed in motion between a continuous 360 degrees exposure of consequent magical places, themes, and landscapes, blending adventure and emotiveness in an effortless chain. Talking frogs, spider like workers , dirty gods eager to be clean and indulge, translucent spirits, and simple-minded black pebbles. By the way, in this Spa the human odors are distasteful. Chihiro is set for a peculiar coming of age story. Fragile and weak, she is nothing but a little girl with bad luck. Far from being a woman at the end of the tale, she is grown in inner dept and knowledge, the rest of her is let to be blossom and developed by the spectator, right there is one of the film’s most touching elements, melancholic is the mood but with great hopes and expectations.
Hayao Miyazaki has created a masterpiece that reminds us of that wonderful age when good was good, mysterious was magical, and when looks didn’t matter, but the goodness of a kind deed. Dragons, spells, ocean sightings, and that long gone first love. Universal and wonderful!
Its main theme is set around being pure and truthful to one’s own soul. Its main vocation is storytelling at its highest and simplest manifestation. From a strong and extend pallet of colors, to a character design: big eyes, big gestures and soft voices. It’s the world we would like to return to some day.
Drawn movement, words, and a simple complelling story, Miyasaki as a creator is one of its finest examples. His films are already a reference mark in Animation History. Perfect in its composition of traditional drawings and computer frames, the balance is achieved with exact momentum. Detail and effortless movement of the Japanimation style is use to express moods and moments with great expansion of emotions and tempos. Miyasaki made his presence and involvement with every step of the process, beginning with its original story, and ending with the final cut. The original score by Joe Hisaichi is beautiful and big, along with a rich sound design to set the tone just right. An exquisite composure of sight and sound. Outstanding!
As any other Art Genre, Film Making is base in the spectator subjectivity. But this subjectivity is valid to a certain point. There are films so bad (for example Pearl Harbor), that anyone that believes that is a good film, doesn’t know anything about cinema quality and good taste. And there are films so good (for example Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal), that anyone how thinks that is a bad film, either misunderstood the story, or simply doesn’t know anything about good film making values. This is the case with Spirited Away. Its genius is undeniable.

There’s nothing quite like the wonders of a film by Hayao Miyazaki, Japan’s greatest living animation director, and this beautiful work of magic from 2002, an award winner all over the world, including the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, is in my opinion one of the ten best animated films of all time. Miyazaki’s standard emphasis on childhood and fantasy has never been better realized than with “Spirited Away”, a story about a sullen 10-year-old girl who, to save her parents from a curse, takes a job in a traditional Japanese bathhouse for wandering spirits, where the friendships she makes, and troubles she endures, sets her on a path for adolescence a year or two away. Miyazaki’s imaginative character designs, from the frogs, ghosts, and spirits of the bathhouse, to Haku, our heroine’s guardian dragon, are all the more impressive considering the traditional hand drawn approach he still utilizes at Studio Ghibili, a throwback to Walt Disney who doesn’t need CGI to create masterworks of artistic and storytelling perfection.