Spirited Away
Encyclopedia
is a 2001 Japanese animated
fantasy
-adventure film
written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki
and produced by Studio Ghibli
. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood and after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba, becomes trapped in an alternate reality
that is inhabited by spirits and monsters. Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse
to find a way to free herself and her parents and escape back to the human world.
Miyazaki wrote the script after he decided the film would be based on his friend's ten-year-old daughter, who came to visit his house each summer. At the time, Miyazaki was developing two personal projects, but they were rejected. Production of Spirited Away began in 2000. During production, Miyazaki based the film's settings at a museum in Koganei, Tokyo
. However, Miyazaki realized the film would be over three hours and decided to cut out several parts of the story for its July 27, 2001 release. Pixar director John Lasseter
, a fan of Miyazaki, was approached by Walt Disney Pictures
to supervise an English-language translation for the film's North American release. Lasseter hired Kirk Wise
as director and Donald W. Ernst
as producer of the adaptation.
When released, Spirited Away became the most successful film in Japanese history, grossing over $274 million worldwide, and receiving critical acclaim. The film overtook Titanic
(at the time the top grossing film worldwide) in the Japanese box office to become the highest-grossing film in Japanese history. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
at the 75th Academy Awards
, the Golden Bear
at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival
(tied with Bloody Sunday) and is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14. In 2005, Spirited Away was voted the 8th greatest cartoon in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Cartoons poll behind The Simpsons
, Tom and Jerry
, South Park
, Toy Story
, Family Guy
, Shrek
and The Lion King
.
. Chihiro's father insists on exploring it, and she and her mother reluctantly accompany him. Chihiro's parents sample the food at an unattended stall. After Chihiro wanders off and finds a grand bathhouse
, a boy approaches and warns her to leave before nightfall. When Chihiro runs back to her parents, she finds they have been transformed into pigs, and the park starts to swarm with monsters.
She eventually learns from Haku, the boy she had met earlier, that her family has become trapped in the spirit world. He also reveals that he had known her since she was a child. Haku brings Chihiro to the bathhouse where he tells her to see Kamaji, a six-armed man who works the boiler room, to ask for a job. Rejecting Chihiro's request, Kamaji entrusts her to Lin, a bathhouse worker. Lin takes her to see Yubaba, the witch who runs the bathhouse. Denying Chihiro's request to work, Yubaba eventually allows her to work on the condition that her name is changed to , the first character of Chihiro's name. Having been told from Haku that Yubaba controls her servants by taking their names, Chihiro is warned that if she forgets her real name, she will be trapped in the world forever.
While working as Lin's assistant, Sen allows a mysterious masked spirit to enter. Later, a "stink spirit" enters the bathhouse. Sen eventually cleans the stink spirit, revealing himself to be a spirit of a polluted river. In return for restoring his health, the river spirit bestows upon Sen an emetic dumpling
.
Sen eventually realizes Haku is actually a dragon
. Having been seriously injured his dragon form by a shikigami
, Yubaba orders her servants to kill Haku, but is eventually rescued by Sen. The shikigami reveals herself to be Zeniba, Yubaba's twin sister. Zeniba informs Sen that Haku stole her gold seal on Yubaba's orders and transforms Boh, Yubaba's large baby son, into a mouse and her bird into a smaller bird, demanding the gold seal to be given back. Haku and Sen flee and fall into the boiler room again, where she feeds him part of the dumpling. Haku coughs up the gold seal and a black slug, which Sen crushes with her foot. Kamaji gives Sen train tickets to visit Zeniba and to beg her to lift the curse on the seal. Boh, in his mouse form, and the bird accompany her.
Meanwhile, the masked spirit Sen allowed into the bathhouse reveals himself as a monster called "No Face." No Face, who swallows one of the servants, a frog, in order to speak, offers gold to the staff in exchange for large quantities of food. No Face continues to eat, causing it to grow to immense size, eventually swallowing several other employees. Later, Sen feeds No Face the remainder of the dumpling, causing him to regurgitate everything and everyone out. Restored to his prior inoffensive form, No Face also accompanies Sen to Zeniba's house.
Haku regains consciousness and learns that Sen has gone to see Zeniba. Yubaba, enraged by both the damage caused by No Face and Sen's departure, orders Sen's parents to be killed. Haku appears and warns Yubaba that something precious to her has been replaced, and she realizes that Boh has disappeared. Telling her that Boh is with Zeniba, Haku proposes should he return Boh, Yubaba will allow Sen and her parents to return the human world. However, Yubaba also insists that Sen has to take one final test.
Sen, Boh, and No Face arrive at Zeniba's house and find Zeniba to be friendly. Zeniba says Sen's love broke the seal's spell, and the slug Sen killed was the curse Yubaba had used to enslave Haku. Haku appears in his dragon form to pick up Sen and Boh, while No Face remains with Zeniba. Realizing that Sen once fell into the Kohaku River as a child, she guesses Haku is the spirit of the river who saved her, freeing Haku from Yubaba's spell.
Haku returns Boh to Yubaba, and Sen, now called Chihiro, is offered a final test to guess her parents from a group of pigs. She correctly answers that none of them are her parents. Haku leads her towards the entrance of the park and promises they will see each other again. Chihiro reunites with her parents, who do not recall their experiences, and the family depart from the park.
of Spirited Away center on the protagonist Chihiro and her liminal journey through the realm of the bathhouse of spirits. A child forced into the fantastic world, Chihiro becomes completely separated from everything she has known and must find her way back to reality. Chihiro's experience in the alternate world, frequently compared to Lewis Carroll
's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
, represents her passage from childhood to adulthood. The archetypal
entrance into another world clearly demarcates Chihiro's status as one in-between. In her transition between child and adult, Chihiro stands outside these societal boundaries, a situation mirrored by the supernatural setting outside reality. The use of the word kamikakushi
(literally "hidden by gods") within the Japanese title, and its associated folklore, reinforce this liminal passage: "Kamikakushi is a verdict of 'social death' in this world, and coming back to this world from Kamikakushi meant 'social resurrection.'" Yubaba had many similarities to The Coachman
from Pinocchio
, in the sense that she transformed humans into pigs in a similar way that the boys from Pleasure Island
were transformed into donkeys. Upon gaining employment at the bathhouse, Yubaba's seizure of Chihiro's true name
, a common theme in folklore, symbolically kills the child Chihiro. Having lost her childhood identity, Chihiro cannot return to reality by the way she came and can only move forward into adulthood. The following trials and obstacles Chihiro must overcome become the challenges and lessons common in rites-of-passage
and the monomyth
format. In her attempt to regain her self, her "continuity with her past," Chihiro must create a new identity.
Beneath the surface coming of age
theme, Spirited Away contains critical commentary on modern Japanese society concerning generational conflicts, the struggle with dissolving traditional culture and customs within a global society, and environmental pollution. Chihiro, as a representation of the liminal shōjo
, "may be seen as a metaphor for the Japanese society which, over the last decade, seems to be increasingly in limbo, drifting uneasily away from the values and ideological framework of the immediate postwar era." Just as Chihiro seeks her past identity, Japan, in its anxiety over the economic downturn occurring during the release of Spirited Away in 2001, sought to reconnect to past values. In interview, Miyazaki has commented on this nostalgic element for an old Japan. Initially, Chihiro travels past the abandoned fairground, a symbol for Japan's burst "bubble economy
", and her parents' credit-card-fuelled gluttony and transformation into pigs, to reach the fantasy world replete with Japanese culture
and fable in the amalgam of the bathhouse.
However, the "bathhouse of the spirits has its own ambivalence, and its own darkness.... Miyazaki is not so simple-minded as to locate a perfect vision in the past or the spiritual." Many of the employees are rude and discriminating to Chihiro, and the corruption of avarice has incorporated itself into the "bricolage
" of the bathhouse and as a place of "excess and greed" as depicted in the initial appearance of the No-Face. In stark contrast to the "archetypal
approaches to cultural recovery such as recognition, proper identification, spiritual cleansing and sacrifice," embodied in Chihiro's journey and transformation, the constant background presence of the ambiguity of the bathhouse reminds the audience reality is not so simple: "the bathhouse's simultaneous incorporation of the carnivalesque
and the chaotic suggests the threats to the collectivity are not simply outside ones." The environmental asides concerning the trash deforming the River God and Haku's plight over the loss of his river to apartment complexes further indicate the sources of pollution within the bathhouse, a place of ritual purity, come from within the Japanese society
.
Every summer, Hayao Miyazaki
spent his vacation at a mountain cabin with his family and five young female friends. The idea for Spirited Away came about when he desired to make a film for these friends. Miyazaki had previously directed films like My Neighbor Totoro
and Kiki's Delivery Service
, which were for small children and teenagers, but he had not created a film for ten-year-old girls. For inspiration, he read shōjo manga magazines like Nakayoshi
and Ribon
the girls had left at the cabin, but felt they only offered subjects on "crushes" and romance. When looking at his young friends, Miyazaki felt this was not what they "held dear in their hearts." Instead, he decided to make the film about a girl heroine whom they could look up to.
Miyazaki had wanted to make a new film for a long time. He had previously written two project proposals, but they had both been rejected. The first one was based on the Japanese book Kirino Mukouno Fushigina Machi, and the second one was about a teenage heroine. Miyazaki's third proposal, which ended up becoming Sen and Chihiro Spirited Away, was more successful. All three stories revolved around a bathhouse that was based on a bathhouse in Miyazaki's hometown. Miyazaki thought the bathhouse was a mysterious place, and there was a small door next to one of the bathtubs in the bathhouse. Miyazaki was always curious to what was behind it, and he made up several stories about it; one of which was the inspiration for the bathhouse in Spirited Away.
Production of the film commenced in 2000 on a ¥1.9 billion (US$
19 million) budget. As with Princess Mononoke
, Miyazaki and his staff had experimented with the process of computer animation. Equipping themselves with more computers and programs like Softimage
, the Studio Ghibli
staff began to learn the software, but kept the technology at a level to enhance the story, not to "steal the show." Each character were largely animated by hand, with Miyazaki working alongside his animators to see they were getting it just right. The biggest difficulty in making the film was to cut down its length. When production started, Miyazaki realized it would be more than three hours long if he made it according to his plot. He had to cut many scenes from the story, and tried to reduce the "eye-candy" in the film because he wanted it to be simple. Miyazaki did not want to make the hero a "pretty girl." At the beginning, he was frustrated at how she looked "dull" and thought, "She isn't cute. Isn't there something we can do?" As the film neared the end, however, he was relieved to feel "she will be a charming woman."
Miyazaki based some of the buildings in the spirit world on the buildings in the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum
in Koganei, Tokyo
, Japan
. He often visited the museum for inspiration while working on the film. Miyazaki had always been interested in the Pseudo-Western style buildings from the Meiji period
that were available there. The museum made Miyazaki feel nostalgic, "especially when I stand here alone in the evening, near closing time, and the sun is setting – tears well up in my eyes." Another major inspiration was the Notoyaryokan, a Ryokan located in Yamagata Prefecture
, notorious for its exquisite architecture and ornamental features.
Pixar Animation Studios
dubbed the English adaptation of Spirited Away, under the supervision of John Lasseter
. Lasseter is a "huge" Miyazaki fan, and he and his staff often sit down and watch some of Miyazaki's work when they encounter story problems. The first viewing of Spirited Away in the United States was in Pixar's screening room. After seeing the film, Lasseter was "ecstatic." Upon hearing his reaction to the film, people at Disney asked Lasseter if he would be interested in trying to bring Spirited Away to an American audience. Lasseter said he had a busy schedule, but agreed to executive produce the English adaptation. Soon, several others began to join the project: Beauty and the Beast
co-director Kirk Wise
and Aladdin producer Donald W. Ernst
soon joined Lasseter as director and producer of Spirited Away respectively.
The cast of the film consisted of Daveigh Chase
, Susan Egan
, David Ogden Stiers
and John Ratzenberger
(considered by Lasseter as his "good luck charm"). With the cast and talent in place, word began to spread around the Internet. But at first, news was light. Pixar had already begun to push their upcoming fall films, but the only trace Spirited Away was coming was in a small scrolling section of their film page on Disney.com. The promotions were also quite trying, as Disney had sidelined their homepage for Spirited Away and hidden it in the confines of Buena Vista's many 'labyrinths'. While homepages for films like Signs were clearly displayed, it was only through some people's curiosity the Spirited Away homepage could be found.
of the Chicago Sun-Times
gave the film 4 out of 4 stars and praised the film and Miyazaki's direction. Ebert also said that Spirited Away was one of "the year's best films." Elvis Mitchell
of The New York Times
positively reviewed the film and praised the animation sequences. Mitchell also drew a favorable comparison to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass
and also said that his movies are about "moodiness as mood" and the characters "heightens the [film's] tension." Derek Elley of Variety
that Spirited Away "can be enjoyed by sprigs and adults alike" and praised the animation and music. Kenneth Turan
of the Los Angeles Times
praised the voice acting and said the film is the "product of a fierce and fearless imagination whose creations are unlike any[thing a person has] seen before". Turan also praised Miyazaki's direction. Orlando Sentinel
critic Jay Boyar also praised Miyazaki's direction and said the film is "the perfect choice for a child who has moved into a new home."
Most of the 155 reviewers selected by Rotten Tomatoes
as of September 2011 have given the film positive reviews, certifying it "Fresh" with an average rating of 8.5/10, and ranks as the thirteenth-best animated film on the site. In 2005, it was ranked as the twelfth-best animated film of all time by IGN
. The film is also ranked #9 of the highest-rated movies of all time on Metacritic
; being the highest rated traditionally animated film on the site. The film ranked #10 in Empire magazine
's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
on July 27, 2001 by Japanese film distributor Toho
, grossing US$229,607,878 to become the highest-grossing film in Japanese history. It was the first film to have earned $200 million at the worldwide box office before opening in the United States.
The film was dubbed into English
by Walt Disney Pictures
, under the supervision of Pixar
's John Lasseter
. The dubbed version premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival
on September 7, 2002 and was subsequently released in North America
on September 20, 2002. The film grossed $449,839 in its opening weekend and had made slightly over $10 million by September 2003. The film went on to gross US$
274,925,095 worldwide.
by Disney's Buena Vista Distribution
arm on DVD
and VHS
formats 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
films such as Castle in the Sky
, Kiki's Delivery Service
and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
The North American English-dubbed version was released on DVD in the UK
on March 29, 2004. In 2005, it was re-released by Optimum Releasing
with a more accurate subtitle track and additional bonus features.
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; the ratio is actually 1.85:1 but has been windowboxed
to 2.00:1 to compensate for the overscan on most television sets. There is much dispute over the validity of this practice, as many displays are capable of showing the entire picture, and as a result the DVD picture has a noticeable border around it.
The Asian releases of the DVD, including Japan and Hong Kong, have a noticeably accentuated amount of red in their picture transfer. This is another case of compensating for home theatre displays, this time supposedly for LCD television which, it was claimed, had a diminished red colour in its display. Releases in other DVD regions such as the U.S., Europe and Australia use a picture transfer where this "red tint" has been significantly reduced.
, a composer and lyre
-player from Osaka
. The lyrics were written by Kimura's friend Wakako Kaku. The song was intended to be used for , a different Miyazaki film which was never released. In the special features of the DVD, Hayao Miyazaki explains how the song in fact inspired him to create Spirited Away.
The film score
was composed and conducted by Joe Hisaishi
, and performed by the New Japan Philharmonic
. His piece received the 56th Mainichi Film Competition Award 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 "Day of the River" and named the new version which was performed by Ayaka Hirahara.
Besides the original soundtrack, there is also an image album
, which contains ten tracks.
Image album track listing
Anime
is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....
fantasy
Fantasy film
Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...
-adventure film
Adventure film
Adventure films are a genre of film.Unlike pure, low-budget action films they often use their action scenes preferably to display and explore exotic locations in an energetic way....
written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
and produced by Studio Ghibli
Studio Ghibli
is a Japanese animation and film studio founded in June 1985. The company's logo features the character Totoro from Hayao Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro...
. The film tells the story of Chihiro Ogino, a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighborhood and after her parents are transformed into pigs by the witch Yubaba, becomes trapped in an alternate reality
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
that is inhabited by spirits and monsters. Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse
Sento
is a type of Japanese communal bath house where customers pay for entrance. Traditionally these bath houses have been quite utilitarian, with one large room separating the sexes by a tall barrier, and on both sides, usually a minimum of lined up faucets and a single large bath for the already...
to find a way to free herself and her parents and escape back to the human world.
Miyazaki wrote the script after he decided the film would be based on his friend's ten-year-old daughter, who came to visit his house each summer. At the time, Miyazaki was developing two personal projects, but they were rejected. Production of Spirited Away began in 2000. During production, Miyazaki based the film's settings at a museum in Koganei, Tokyo
Koganei, Tokyo
is a city located in Tokyo, Japan. As of July 1, 2011, the city has an officially registered population of 116,055 with 56,296 households and a population density of 10,243.16 persons per km²...
. However, Miyazaki realized the film would be over three hours and decided to cut out several parts of the story for its July 27, 2001 release. Pixar director John Lasseter
John Lasseter
John Alan Lasseter is an American animator, director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering....
, a fan of Miyazaki, was approached by Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
to supervise an English-language translation for the film's North American release. Lasseter hired Kirk Wise
Kirk Wise
Kirk Wise is an American film director, animator and screenwriter best known for his work at Disney. Wise has directed such Disney movies as Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Beauty and the Beast...
as director and Donald W. Ernst
Donald W. Ernst
Donald W. Ernst is an American film, music and sound editor and film producer. He commonley works in the animation industry....
as producer of the adaptation.
When released, Spirited Away became the most successful film in Japanese history, grossing over $274 million worldwide, and receiving critical acclaim. The film overtook Titanic
Titanic (1997 film)
Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance and disaster film directed, written, co-produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. A fictionalized account of the sinking of the RMS Titanic, it stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson, Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater and Billy Zane as Rose's fiancé, Cal...
(at the time the top grossing film worldwide) in the Japanese box office to become the highest-grossing film in Japanese history. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
Academy Award for Best Animated Feature
The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is one of the annual awards given by the Los Angeles-based professional organization, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
at the 75th Academy Awards
75th Academy Awards
The 75th Academy Awards honored the best films of 2002, were held on March 23, 2003, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. It was produced by Gil Cates and hosted for the second time by Steve Martin....
, the Golden Bear
Golden Bear
According to legend, the Golden Bear was a large golden Ursus arctos. Members of the Ursus arctos species can reach masses of . The Grizzly Bear and the Kodiak Bear are North American subspecies of the Brown Bear....
at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival
Berlin International Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...
(tied with Bloody Sunday) and is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14. In 2005, Spirited Away was voted the 8th greatest cartoon in Channel 4's 100 Greatest Cartoons poll behind The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
, Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...
, South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
, Toy Story
Toy Story
Toy Story is a 1995 American computer-animated film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is Pixar's first feature film as well as the first ever feature film to be made entirely with CGI. The film was directed by John Lasseter and featuring the voices of Tom Hanks and Tim Allen...
, Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
, Shrek
Shrek
Shrek is a 2001 American computer-animated fantasy comedy film directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow. Loosely based on William Steig's 1990 fairy tale picture book Shrek!...
and The Lion King
The Lion King
The Lion King is a 1994 American animated film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is the 32nd feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series...
.
Plot
Chihiro Ogino, a 10-year-old girl, moves with her parents to a new town when they become lost and find what appears to be an abandoned amusement parkAmusement park
thumb|Cinderella Castle in [[Magic Kingdom]], [[Disney World]]Amusement and theme parks are terms for a group of entertainment attractions and rides and other events in a location for the enjoyment of large numbers of people...
. Chihiro's father insists on exploring it, and she and her mother reluctantly accompany him. Chihiro's parents sample the food at an unattended stall. After Chihiro wanders off and finds a grand bathhouse
Public bathing
Public baths originated from a communal need for cleanliness. The term public may confuse some people, as some types of public baths are restricted depending on membership, gender, religious affiliation, or other reasons. As societies have changed, public baths have been replaced as private bathing...
, a boy approaches and warns her to leave before nightfall. When Chihiro runs back to her parents, she finds they have been transformed into pigs, and the park starts to swarm with monsters.
She eventually learns from Haku, the boy she had met earlier, that her family has become trapped in the spirit world. He also reveals that he had known her since she was a child. Haku brings Chihiro to the bathhouse where he tells her to see Kamaji, a six-armed man who works the boiler room, to ask for a job. Rejecting Chihiro's request, Kamaji entrusts her to Lin, a bathhouse worker. Lin takes her to see Yubaba, the witch who runs the bathhouse. Denying Chihiro's request to work, Yubaba eventually allows her to work on the condition that her name is changed to , the first character of Chihiro's name. Having been told from Haku that Yubaba controls her servants by taking their names, Chihiro is warned that if she forgets her real name, she will be trapped in the world forever.
While working as Lin's assistant, Sen allows a mysterious masked spirit to enter. Later, a "stink spirit" enters the bathhouse. Sen eventually cleans the stink spirit, revealing himself to be a spirit of a polluted river. In return for restoring his health, the river spirit bestows upon Sen an emetic dumpling
Dumpling
Dumplings are cooked balls of dough. They are based on flour, potatoes or bread, and may include meat, fish, vegetables, or sweets. They may be cooked by boiling, steaming, simmering, frying, or baking. They may have a filling, or there may be other ingredients mixed into the dough. Dumplings may...
.
Sen eventually realizes Haku is actually a dragon
Japanese dragon
Japanese dragons are diverse legendary creatures in Japanese mythology and folklore. Japanese dragon myths amalgamate native legends with imported stories about dragons from China, Korea and India. The style of the dragon was heavily influenced by the Chinese dragon...
. Having been seriously injured his dragon form by a shikigami
Shikigami
Shikigami are a kind of spirit, found in Japanese Mythology summoned to serve a practitioner of onmyōdō, much like a western familiar. Shikigami cannot be seen by most people, but according to the Heian period onmyōji who were said to control them, shikigami often looked something like a...
, Yubaba orders her servants to kill Haku, but is eventually rescued by Sen. The shikigami reveals herself to be Zeniba, Yubaba's twin sister. Zeniba informs Sen that Haku stole her gold seal on Yubaba's orders and transforms Boh, Yubaba's large baby son, into a mouse and her bird into a smaller bird, demanding the gold seal to be given back. Haku and Sen flee and fall into the boiler room again, where she feeds him part of the dumpling. Haku coughs up the gold seal and a black slug, which Sen crushes with her foot. Kamaji gives Sen train tickets to visit Zeniba and to beg her to lift the curse on the seal. Boh, in his mouse form, and the bird accompany her.
Meanwhile, the masked spirit Sen allowed into the bathhouse reveals himself as a monster called "No Face." No Face, who swallows one of the servants, a frog, in order to speak, offers gold to the staff in exchange for large quantities of food. No Face continues to eat, causing it to grow to immense size, eventually swallowing several other employees. Later, Sen feeds No Face the remainder of the dumpling, causing him to regurgitate everything and everyone out. Restored to his prior inoffensive form, No Face also accompanies Sen to Zeniba's house.
Haku regains consciousness and learns that Sen has gone to see Zeniba. Yubaba, enraged by both the damage caused by No Face and Sen's departure, orders Sen's parents to be killed. Haku appears and warns Yubaba that something precious to her has been replaced, and she realizes that Boh has disappeared. Telling her that Boh is with Zeniba, Haku proposes should he return Boh, Yubaba will allow Sen and her parents to return the human world. However, Yubaba also insists that Sen has to take one final test.
Sen, Boh, and No Face arrive at Zeniba's house and find Zeniba to be friendly. Zeniba says Sen's love broke the seal's spell, and the slug Sen killed was the curse Yubaba had used to enslave Haku. Haku appears in his dragon form to pick up Sen and Boh, while No Face remains with Zeniba. Realizing that Sen once fell into the Kohaku River as a child, she guesses Haku is the spirit of the river who saved her, freeing Haku from Yubaba's spell.
Haku returns Boh to Yubaba, and Sen, now called Chihiro, is offered a final test to guess her parents from a group of pigs. She correctly answers that none of them are her parents. Haku leads her towards the entrance of the park and promises they will see each other again. Chihiro reunites with her parents, who do not recall their experiences, and the family depart from the park.
Cast
- Rumi HiiragiRumi Hiiragiis a Japanese actress.-Profile:She began her career as a child actress while at the age of six, appearing in numerous commercials. In 1999, she appeared in the NHK asadora Suzuran, portraying the main character, Moe Tokiwa...
as : A ten-year-old girl. While moving to a new town with her family, she accidentally enters the spirit world. In the English version, Chihiro is voiced by Daveigh ChaseDaveigh ChaseDaveigh Elizabeth Chase is an American actress, singer, and voice over artist best known for playing Rhonda Volmer in the HBO series Big Love, Samara Morgan in The Ring and Lilo Pelekai in Lilo & Stitch.-Early life:Chase was born Daveigh Elizabeth Chase-Schwallier in Las Vegas, Nevada, but her...
.
- Miyu IrinoMiyu Irinois a Japanese voice actor born in Tokyo.He is a good friend of voice actor Mamoru Miyano. He is nicknamed "Miyu-Miyu" by CLAMP members....
as : A dragon in the guise of a human who helps Chihiro after her parents are transformed into pigs. Haku works as Yubaba's direct subordinate, often running errands and performing various missions for her. He has the ability to fly in his true form, which is a dragonJapanese dragonJapanese dragons are diverse legendary creatures in Japanese mythology and folklore. Japanese dragon myths amalgamate native legends with imported stories about dragons from China, Korea and India. The style of the dragon was heavily influenced by the Chinese dragon...
. In the English version, Haku is voiced by Jason MarsdenJason MarsdenJason Christopher Marsden is an American screen and voice actor who has done numerous voice roles in animated films, as well as various television series.-Early life:...
.
- Mari NatsukiMari NatsukiMari Natsuki , real name Junko Nakajima , is a Japanese singer, dancer and actress....
as : An elderly witch with an inhumanly large head and nose, who supervises the bathhouse. Yubaba has an over-bearing and authoritarian personality, but does show a soft side toward her giant baby, Boh. Yubaba lives in opulent quarters and is only interested in taking care of guests for moneyMoneyMoney is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
. Natsuki also voices , Yubaba's twin sister. Although identical in appearance, their personalities are almost polar opposites. In the English version, Zeniba and Yubaba are voiced by Suzanne PleshetteSuzanne PleshetteSuzanne Pleshette was an American actress, on stage, screen and television.After beginning her career in theatre, she began appearing in films in the early 1960s, such as Rome Adventure and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds...
.
- Bunta Sugawara as : An old, six-armed man who operates the boiler room of the bathhouse. His extra arms can apparently extend indefinitely to allow him access to the upper cabinets from his original position. A number of work for him by carrying coalCoalCoal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
into his furnace. In the English version, Kamajii is voiced by David Ogden StiersDavid Ogden StiersDavid Ogden Stiers is an American actor, director, vocal actor, and musician, noted for his roles in Disney movies, as well as his performances in the television series M*A*S*H as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III and the science fiction drama The Dead Zone as Reverend Gene Purdy...
.
- Akio Nakamura as : An odd spirit who takes an interest in Chihiro Ogino. At first, he appears to be a strange, demure, cloaked, masked wraith who seems mute other than his breathing and urging grunts. Seen as polite, calm, and quiet at first, No-Face is a lonely being who seems to sustain itself on the emotionEmotionEmotion is a complex psychophysiological experience of an individual's state of mind as interacting with biochemical and environmental influences. In humans, emotion fundamentally involves "physiological arousal, expressive behaviors, and conscious experience." Emotion is associated with mood,...
s of those he encounters, particularly their emotional reception to his gifts. In the English version, No-Face is voiced by Bob BergenBob BergenRobert "Bob" Bergen is an American voice actor. He is the current voice of Porky Pig , and formerly hosted Jep!, a kids' version of the popular game show Jeopardy!Bergen was born in St. Louis, Missouri...
. Bergen also provided the voice for Bandai-gaeru, a frog worker who was swallowed by No-Face. Bandai-gaeru is voiced by Yo OizumiYo Oizumiis a TV personality and a stage actor based in Hokkaidō. He was born in Ebetsu and has been living in Sapporo since 1984.He first made a name in Hokkaidō-based TV variety series called “Suiyō Dōdeshō” and has been actively appearing on various media programs in Hokkaidō since then...
in Japanese.
- Yumi Tamai as : A worker at the bathhouse who becomes Chihiro's caretaker. Lin is a transformed spirit of a Sable (weasel). In the English version, Lin is voiced by Susan EganSusan EganSusan Egan is an American actress and singer known for her work on the Broadway stage.-Early life and career:Egan was born in Seal Beach, California. She attended Orange County High School of the Arts and UCLA. In the meantime she started her career touring with the performance group The Young...
.
- Ryunosuke KamikiRyunosuke Kamikiis a Japanese actor and voice actor.-Biography:When he was 2 years old, his mother enrolled him in Central Group, a talent agency specialising in representing babies and children, and that was the start of his career in acting....
as : Yubaba's son and Zeniba's nephew. Although he has the appearance of a young baby, he is twice Yubaba's size. He is also very strong and can be dangerous. Yubaba goes out of her way to give him whatever he wants. In the English version, Boh is voiced by Tara StrongTara StrongTara Lyn Strong is a Canadian actress, voice-over artist, singer, who is best known for her voice work in cartoons.-Early life and career:...
.
- Takehiko Ono as Aniyaku: The assistant manager of the bathhouse. In the English version, Aogaeru is voiced by John RatzenbergerJohn RatzenbergerJohn Deszo Ratzenberger is an American actor, voice actor, and entrepreneur. He is best known for his role as Cliff Clavin in Cheers.-Early life:...
.
- Takashi Naito as : Chihiro's father. In the English version, Akio is voiced by Michael ChiklisMichael ChiklisMichael Charles Chiklis is an American actor, voice actor, occasional director and television producer. Some of the previous roles for which he is best known include Commissioner Tony Scali on the ABC police drama The Commish, LAPD Detective Vic Mackey on the FX police drama The Shield, Thing in...
.
- Yasuko SawaguchiYasuko Sawaguchi, is a Japanese actress.-Biography:She was born in Osaka, Japan to a Japanese mother, and a British father.In early 1984, the Japanese movie studio Toho Company Ltd...
as : Chihiro's mother. In the English version, Yuko is voiced by Lauren HollyLauren HollyLauren Michael Holly is an American actress. She is known for her roles as Deputy Sheriff Maxine Stewart in the TV series Picket Fences, as Mary Swanson in the 1994 film Dumb & Dumber, and as Jenny Shepard on the TV series NCIS. She was married to comic actor Jim Carrey from 1996 to...
.
Themes and archetypes
The major themesTheme (arts)
In the visual arts, a theme is a broad idea or a message conveyed by a work, such as a performance, a painting, or a motion picture. This message is usually about life, society or human nature. Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a work. Themes are usually implied...
of Spirited Away center on the protagonist Chihiro and her liminal journey through the realm of the bathhouse of spirits. A child forced into the fantastic world, Chihiro becomes completely separated from everything she has known and must find her way back to reality. Chihiro's experience in the alternate world, frequently compared to Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
, represents her passage from childhood to adulthood. The archetypal
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
entrance into another world clearly demarcates Chihiro's status as one in-between. In her transition between child and adult, Chihiro stands outside these societal boundaries, a situation mirrored by the supernatural setting outside reality. The use of the word kamikakushi
Kamikakushi
The expression to "spirit away" means to remove without anyone's noticing. means "spirited away". Kamikakushi, in Japanese folklore, is used to refer to the mysterious disappearance of a person that happens when an angered god takes a person away....
(literally "hidden by gods") within the Japanese title, and its associated folklore, reinforce this liminal passage: "Kamikakushi is a verdict of 'social death' in this world, and coming back to this world from Kamikakushi meant 'social resurrection.'" Yubaba had many similarities to The Coachman
The Coachman
The Coachman , also known as The Little Man , is a fictional character who appears in Carlo Collodi's book The Adventures of Pinocchio .-Role:...
from Pinocchio
Pinocchio
The Adventures of Pinocchio is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi, written in Florence. The first half was originally a serial between 1881 and 1883, and then later completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio , an...
, in the sense that she transformed humans into pigs in a similar way that the boys from Pleasure Island
Pleasure Island (Pinocchio)
The Land of Toys is a fictional location in the novel The Adventures of Pinocchio. In the Disney film adaptation of the novel, the land is renamed as Pleasure Island...
were transformed into donkeys. Upon gaining employment at the bathhouse, Yubaba's seizure of Chihiro's true name
True name
A true name is a name of a thing or being that expresses, or is somehow identical with, its true nature. The notion that language, or some specific sacred language, refers to things by their true names has been central to philosophical and grammatical study as well as various traditions of magic,...
, a common theme in folklore, symbolically kills the child Chihiro. Having lost her childhood identity, Chihiro cannot return to reality by the way she came and can only move forward into adulthood. The following trials and obstacles Chihiro must overcome become the challenges and lessons common in rites-of-passage
Rite of passage
A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person's progress from one status to another. It is a universal phenomenon which can show anthropologists what social hierarchies, values and beliefs are important in specific cultures....
and the monomyth
Monomyth
Joseph Campbell's term monomyth, also referred to as the hero's journey, is a basic pattern that its proponents argue is found in many narratives from around the world. This widely distributed pattern was described by Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces...
format. In her attempt to regain her self, her "continuity with her past," Chihiro must create a new identity.
Beneath the surface coming of age
Coming of age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from childhood to adulthood. The age at which this transition takes place varies in society, as does the nature of the transition. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual, as practiced by many societies...
theme, Spirited Away contains critical commentary on modern Japanese society concerning generational conflicts, the struggle with dissolving traditional culture and customs within a global society, and environmental pollution. Chihiro, as a representation of the liminal shōjo
Shojo
The term refers to manga marketed to a female audience roughly between the ages of 10-18. The name romanizes the Japanese 少女 , literally: "little female". Shōjo manga covers many subjects in a variety of narrative and graphic styles, from historical drama to science fiction — often with a strong...
, "may be seen as a metaphor for the Japanese society which, over the last decade, seems to be increasingly in limbo, drifting uneasily away from the values and ideological framework of the immediate postwar era." Just as Chihiro seeks her past identity, Japan, in its anxiety over the economic downturn occurring during the release of Spirited Away in 2001, sought to reconnect to past values. In interview, Miyazaki has commented on this nostalgic element for an old Japan. Initially, Chihiro travels past the abandoned fairground, a symbol for Japan's burst "bubble economy
Economic bubble
An economic bubble is "trade in high volumes at prices that are considerably at variance with intrinsic values"...
", and her parents' credit-card-fuelled gluttony and transformation into pigs, to reach the fantasy world replete with Japanese culture
Culture of Japan
The culture of Japan has evolved greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period to its contemporary hybrid culture, which combines influences from Asia, Europe and North America...
and fable in the amalgam of the bathhouse.
However, the "bathhouse of the spirits has its own ambivalence, and its own darkness.... Miyazaki is not so simple-minded as to locate a perfect vision in the past or the spiritual." Many of the employees are rude and discriminating to Chihiro, and the corruption of avarice has incorporated itself into the "bricolage
Bricolage
Bricolage is a term used in several disciplines, among them the visual arts, to refer to the construction or creation of a work from a diverse range of things that happen to be available, or a work created by such a process...
" of the bathhouse and as a place of "excess and greed" as depicted in the initial appearance of the No-Face. In stark contrast to the "archetypal
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
approaches to cultural recovery such as recognition, proper identification, spiritual cleansing and sacrifice," embodied in Chihiro's journey and transformation, the constant background presence of the ambiguity of the bathhouse reminds the audience reality is not so simple: "the bathhouse's simultaneous incorporation of the carnivalesque
Carnivalesque
Carnivalesque is an traces the origins of the carnivalesque to the concept of carnival, itself related to the Feast of Fools, a medieval festival originally of the sub-deacons of the cathedral, held about the time of the Feast of the Circumcision , in which the humbler cathedral officials...
and the chaotic suggests the threats to the collectivity are not simply outside ones." The environmental asides concerning the trash deforming the River God and Haku's plight over the loss of his river to apartment complexes further indicate the sources of pollution within the bathhouse, a place of ritual purity, come from within the Japanese society
Culture of Japan
The culture of Japan has evolved greatly over the millennia, from the country's prehistoric Jōmon period to its contemporary hybrid culture, which combines influences from Asia, Europe and North America...
.
Production
| I created a heroine who is an ordinary girl, someone with whom the audience can sympathize. It's not a story in which the characters grow up, but a story in which they draw on something already inside them, brought out by the particular circumstances. I want my young friends to live like that, and I think they, too, have such a wish. |
| — Hayao Miyazaki |
Every summer, Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
spent his vacation at a mountain cabin with his family and five young female friends. The idea for Spirited Away came about when he desired to make a film for these friends. Miyazaki had previously directed films like My Neighbor Totoro
My Neighbor Totoro
, is a 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film follows the two young daughters of a professor and their interactions with friendly wood spirits in postwar rural Japan...
and Kiki's Delivery Service
Kiki's Delivery Service
is a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It was the fourth theatrically released Studio Ghibli film.The film won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989...
, which were for small children and teenagers, but he had not created a film for ten-year-old girls. For inspiration, he read shōjo manga magazines like Nakayoshi
Nakayoshi
is a shōjo manga magazine published by Kodansha in Japan. First published in December 1954, it is a long-running magazine with over 50 years worth of manga publication history. The target demographic for Nakayoshi is aimed at young girls between...
and Ribon
Ribon
is a monthly Japanese shōjo manga magazine published by Shueisha. First issued in August 1955, its rivals are Nakayoshi and Ciao. Its target audience is young girls roughly 9–13 years old. In 2009, the magazine's circulation was 274,167, down from the previous year's circulation numbers of 330,000...
the girls had left at the cabin, but felt they only offered subjects on "crushes" and romance. When looking at his young friends, Miyazaki felt this was not what they "held dear in their hearts." Instead, he decided to make the film about a girl heroine whom they could look up to.
Production of the film commenced in 2000 on a ¥1.9 billion (US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
19 million) budget. As with Princess Mononoke
Princess Mononoke
is a 1997 epic Japanese animated historical fantasy feature film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. is not a name, but a general term in the Japanese language for a spirit or monster...
, Miyazaki and his staff had experimented with the process of computer animation. Equipping themselves with more computers and programs like Softimage
Softimage
Softimage, Co. was a company located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that produced 3D animation software. Their flagship products, Softimage 3D and Softimage XSI, are used in the creation of computer animation for films, television advertisement, and video games...
, the Studio Ghibli
Studio Ghibli
is a Japanese animation and film studio founded in June 1985. The company's logo features the character Totoro from Hayao Miyazaki's film My Neighbor Totoro...
staff began to learn the software, but kept the technology at a level to enhance the story, not to "steal the show." Each character were largely animated by hand, with Miyazaki working alongside his animators to see they were getting it just right. The biggest difficulty in making the film was to cut down its length. When production started, Miyazaki realized it would be more than three hours long if he made it according to his plot. He had to cut many scenes from the story, and tried to reduce the "eye-candy" in the film because he wanted it to be simple. Miyazaki did not want to make the hero a "pretty girl." At the beginning, he was frustrated at how she looked "dull" and thought, "She isn't cute. Isn't there something we can do?" As the film neared the end, however, he was relieved to feel "she will be a charming woman."
Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum
The in Koganei Park, Tokyo, Japan, is a museum of historic Japanese buildings.The park includes many buildings from the ordinary middle class Japanese experience to the homes of wealthy and powerful individuals such as former Prime Minister Takahashi Korekiyo, out in the open in a park.The museum...
in Koganei, Tokyo
Koganei, Tokyo
is a city located in Tokyo, Japan. As of July 1, 2011, the city has an officially registered population of 116,055 with 56,296 households and a population density of 10,243.16 persons per km²...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. He often visited the museum for inspiration while working on the film. Miyazaki had always been interested in the Pseudo-Western style buildings from the Meiji period
Meiji period
The , also known as the Meiji era, is a Japanese era which extended from September 1868 through July 1912. This period represents the first half of the Empire of Japan.- Meiji Restoration and the emperor :...
that were available there. The museum made Miyazaki feel nostalgic, "especially when I stand here alone in the evening, near closing time, and the sun is setting – tears well up in my eyes." Another major inspiration was the Notoyaryokan, a Ryokan located in Yamagata Prefecture
Yamagata Prefecture
-Fruit:Yamagata Prefecture is the largest producer of cherries and pears in Japan. A large quantity of other kinds of fruits such as grapes, apples, peaches, melons, persimmons and watermelons are also produced.- Demographics :...
, notorious for its exquisite architecture and ornamental features.
English adaptation
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
dubbed the English adaptation of Spirited Away, under the supervision of John Lasseter
John Lasseter
John Alan Lasseter is an American animator, director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering....
. Lasseter is a "huge" Miyazaki fan, and he and his staff often sit down and watch some of Miyazaki's work when they encounter story problems. The first viewing of Spirited Away in the United States was in Pixar's screening room. After seeing the film, Lasseter was "ecstatic." Upon hearing his reaction to the film, people at Disney asked Lasseter if he would be interested in trying to bring Spirited Away to an American audience. Lasseter said he had a busy schedule, but agreed to executive produce the English adaptation. Soon, several others began to join the project: Beauty and the Beast
Beauty and the Beast (1991 film)
Beauty and the Beast is a 1991 American animated fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. The thirtieth film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series and the third film of the Disney Renaissance period...
co-director Kirk Wise
Kirk Wise
Kirk Wise is an American film director, animator and screenwriter best known for his work at Disney. Wise has directed such Disney movies as Atlantis: The Lost Empire, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Beauty and the Beast...
and Aladdin producer Donald W. Ernst
Donald W. Ernst
Donald W. Ernst is an American film, music and sound editor and film producer. He commonley works in the animation industry....
soon joined Lasseter as director and producer of Spirited Away respectively.
The cast of the film consisted of Daveigh Chase
Daveigh Chase
Daveigh Elizabeth Chase is an American actress, singer, and voice over artist best known for playing Rhonda Volmer in the HBO series Big Love, Samara Morgan in The Ring and Lilo Pelekai in Lilo & Stitch.-Early life:Chase was born Daveigh Elizabeth Chase-Schwallier in Las Vegas, Nevada, but her...
, Susan Egan
Susan Egan
Susan Egan is an American actress and singer known for her work on the Broadway stage.-Early life and career:Egan was born in Seal Beach, California. She attended Orange County High School of the Arts and UCLA. In the meantime she started her career touring with the performance group The Young...
, David Ogden Stiers
David Ogden Stiers
David Ogden Stiers is an American actor, director, vocal actor, and musician, noted for his roles in Disney movies, as well as his performances in the television series M*A*S*H as Major Charles Emerson Winchester III and the science fiction drama The Dead Zone as Reverend Gene Purdy...
and John Ratzenberger
John Ratzenberger
John Deszo Ratzenberger is an American actor, voice actor, and entrepreneur. He is best known for his role as Cliff Clavin in Cheers.-Early life:...
(considered by Lasseter as his "good luck charm"). With the cast and talent in place, word began to spread around the Internet. But at first, news was light. Pixar had already begun to push their upcoming fall films, but the only trace Spirited Away was coming was in a small scrolling section of their film page on Disney.com. The promotions were also quite trying, as Disney had sidelined their homepage for Spirited Away and hidden it in the confines of Buena Vista's many 'labyrinths'. While homepages for films like Signs were clearly displayed, it was only through some people's curiosity the Spirited Away homepage could be found.
Critical reception
Spirited Away received universal critical acclaim since its release in 2001. Roger EbertRoger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
gave the film 4 out of 4 stars and praised the film and Miyazaki's direction. Ebert also said that Spirited Away was one of "the year's best films." Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell
Elvis Mitchell is an American film critic, host of the public radio show The Treatment, and visiting lecturer at Harvard University. He has served as a film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the LA Weekly, The Detroit Free Press, and The New York Times...
of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
positively reviewed the film and praised the animation sequences. Mitchell also drew a favorable comparison to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass
Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There is a work of literature by Lewis Carroll . It is the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...
and also said that his movies are about "moodiness as mood" and the characters "heightens the [film's] tension." Derek Elley of Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
that Spirited Away "can be enjoyed by sprigs and adults alike" and praised the animation and music. Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...
of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
praised the voice acting and said the film is the "product of a fierce and fearless imagination whose creations are unlike any[thing a person has] seen before". Turan also praised Miyazaki's direction. Orlando Sentinel
Orlando Sentinel
The Orlando Sentinel is the primary newspaper of the Orlando, Florida region. It was founded in 1876. The Sentinel is owned by Tribune Company and is overseen by the Chicago Tribune. As of 2005, the Sentinel’s president and publisher was Kathleen Waltz; she announced her resignation in February 2008...
critic Jay Boyar also praised Miyazaki's direction and said the film is "the perfect choice for a child who has moved into a new home."
Most of the 155 reviewers selected by Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
as of September 2011 have given the film positive reviews, certifying it "Fresh" with an average rating of 8.5/10, and ranks as the thirteenth-best animated film on the site. In 2005, it was ranked as the twelfth-best animated film of all time by IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
. The film is also ranked #9 of the highest-rated movies of all time on Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
; being the highest rated traditionally animated film on the site. The film ranked #10 in Empire magazine
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
's "The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema" in 2010.
Box office
Spirited Away opened theatrically in JapanJapan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
on July 27, 2001 by Japanese film distributor Toho
Toho
is a Japanese film, theater production, and distribution company. It is headquartered in Yūrakuchō, Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group...
, grossing US$229,607,878 to become the highest-grossing film in Japanese history. It was the first film to have earned $200 million at the worldwide box office before opening in the United States.
The film was dubbed into English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
by Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures is an American film studio owned by The Walt Disney Company. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, a subsidiary of the Walt Disney Studios and the main production company for live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, based at the Walt Disney...
, under the supervision of Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
's John Lasseter
John Lasseter
John Alan Lasseter is an American animator, director and the chief creative officer at Pixar and Walt Disney Animation Studios. He is also currently the Principal Creative Advisor for Walt Disney Imagineering....
. The dubbed version premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
on September 7, 2002 and was subsequently released in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
on September 20, 2002. The film grossed $449,839 in its opening weekend and had made slightly over $10 million by September 2003. The film went on to gross US$
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
274,925,095 worldwide.
Home media
The film was released in North AmericaNorth America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
by Disney's Buena Vista Distribution
Buena Vista Distribution
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures is a motion picture and television feature distribution company owned by Disney Enterprises, Inc. Buena Vista International was the international distribution arm, Buena Vista Home Entertainment was the firm's video and DVD distribution arm, and Buena Vista...
arm on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
formats 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
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese manga artist and prominent film director and animator of many popular anime feature films. Through a career that has spanned nearly fifty years, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a maker of animated feature films and, along with Isao Takahata, co-founded Studio Ghibli,...
films such as Castle in the Sky
Castle in the Sky
All compositions by Joe Hisaishi.#"The Girl Who Fell from the Sky" – 2:27#"Morning in Slag Ravine" – 3:04#"A Fun Brawl " – 4:27#"Memories of Gondoa" – 2:46#"Discouraged Pazu" – 1:46#"Robot Soldier " – 2:34...
, Kiki's Delivery Service
Kiki's Delivery Service
is a 1989 Japanese animated fantasy film produced, written, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It was the fourth theatrically released Studio Ghibli film.The film won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1989...
and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind.
The North American English-dubbed version was released on DVD in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
on March 29, 2004. In 2005, it was re-released by Optimum Releasing
Optimum Releasing
StudioCanal UK is a film distributor company working in the UK and Ireland. The company releases many films, including foreign language films, anime releases such as Studio Ghibli's films and independent British, Irish and American films in the UK and sometimes Ireland.Optimum was acquired by...
with a more accurate subtitle track and additional bonus features.
The back of the Region 1
DVD region code
DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
DVD from Disney and the Region 4
DVD region code
DVD region codes are a digital-rights management technique designed to allow film distributors to control aspects of a release, including content, release date, and price, according to the region...
DVD from Madman
Madman Entertainment
Madman Entertainment is an Australian company that distributes international films as well as Japanese anime and manga in Australia and New Zealand. The company is owned by Funtastic Limited and is one of the major entertainment companies in Australia. It employs 130 people and has an annual...
states that the aspect ratio is the original ratio of 2.00:1. This is incorrect; the ratio is actually 1.85:1 but has been windowboxed
Windowbox (film)
Windowboxing in the display of film or video occurs when the aspect ratio of the media is such that the letterbox effect and pillarbox effect occur simultaneously...
to 2.00:1 to compensate for the overscan on most television sets. There is much dispute over the validity of this practice, as many displays are capable of showing the entire picture, and as a result the DVD picture has a noticeable border around it.
The Asian releases of the DVD, including Japan and Hong Kong, have a noticeably accentuated amount of red in their picture transfer. This is another case of compensating for home theatre displays, this time supposedly for LCD television which, it was claimed, had a diminished red colour in its display. Releases in other DVD regions such as the U.S., Europe and Australia use a picture transfer where this "red tint" has been significantly reduced.
Soundtrack
The closing song, was written and performed by Youmi KimuraYoumi Kimura
is a Japanese singer and lyre performer. She was born in Osaka, Japan, and became famous in 2001 for her song "Always With Me" , which served as the closing theme to the popular 2001 anime film Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki....
, a composer and lyre
Lyre
The lyre is a stringed musical instrument known for its use in Greek classical antiquity and later. The word comes from the Greek "λύρα" and the earliest reference to the word is the Mycenaean Greek ru-ra-ta-e, meaning "lyrists", written in Linear B syllabic script...
-player from Osaka
Osaka
is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...
. The lyrics were written by Kimura's friend Wakako Kaku. The song was intended to be used for , a different Miyazaki film which was never released. In the special features of the DVD, Hayao Miyazaki explains how the song in fact inspired him to create Spirited Away.
The film score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
was composed and conducted by Joe Hisaishi
Joe Hisaishi
, known professionally as , is a composer and director known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981.While possessing a stylistically distinct sound, Hisaishi's music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, including minimalist, experimental electronic,...
, and performed by the New Japan Philharmonic
New Japan Philharmonic
The is a symphony orchestra based in Tokyo, Japan. It was founded in 1972 with Seiji Ozawa as honorary conductor laureate. The Philharmonic's primary concert venue is the Sumida Triphony Hall. Since 2003, its music director is Christian Arming....
. His piece received the 56th Mainichi Film Competition Award for Best Music, the Tokyo International Anime Fair
Tokyo International Anime Fair
The Tokyo International Anime Fair also known as Tokyo International Animation Fair is one of the largest anime trade fairs in the world, held annually in Japan. The first event was held in 2002 as "Tokyo International Anime Fair 21". The event is held at Tokyo Big Sight, a convention and...
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 "Day of the River" and named the new version which was performed by Ayaka Hirahara.
Besides the original soundtrack, there is also an image album
Image song
An image song or character song is a song on a tie-in single or album for an anime, game or dorama that is usually sung by the seiyū or actor of a character, in character...
, which contains ten tracks.
| Track | Composer | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3:09 | ||
| 2 | 2:07 | ||
| 3 | 3:15 | ||
| 4 | 2:00 | ||
| 5 | 2:12 | ||
| 6 | 2:33 | ||
| 7 | 3:00 | ||
| 8 | 3:30 | ||
| 9 | 2:02 | ||
| 10 | 3:13 | ||
| 11 | 2:26 | ||
| 12 | 4:01 | ||
| 13 | 2:45 | ||
| 14 | 1:18 | ||
| 15 | 3:47 | ||
| 16 | 3:38 | ||
| 17 | 1:38 | ||
| 18 | 1:29 | ||
| 19 | 4:53 | ||
| 20 | 3:20 | ||
| 21 | 3:35 |
Image album track listing
- – Umi (3:54)
- – Joe HisaishiJoe Hisaishi, known professionally as , is a composer and director known for over 100 film scores and solo albums dating back to 1981.While possessing a stylistically distinct sound, Hisaishi's music has been known to explore and incorporate different genres, including minimalist, experimental electronic,...
(4:25) - – Shizuru Otaka (3:55)
- – Tsunehiko Kamijō (3:56)
- – Joe Hisaishi (3:20)
- – Monsieur Kamayatsu (3:41)
- – Rieko Suzuki and Hiroshi Kondo (3:49)
- – Joe Hisaishi (3:22)
- – RikkiRIKKI, professionally known as , is a Japanese folk singer.Born in Amami Ōshima, Japan, she began to sing traditional Japanese music when she was four years old. Later, at the age of 15, Rikki was the youngest winner ever to win the "Grand Prix" of the Japanese traditional folk music awards...
(3:33) - – Joe Hisaishi (3:20)