Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi) was the first anime to ever win an Academy Award. Centering on a 10-year-old girl, Chihiro (voiced by Rumi Hiragi/ Daveigh Chase), and her transformation, the narrative is often compared to Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, but to me, Spirited Away is a deeper dive into more complex themes while treating the characters with profound empathy.
A creation by Studio Ghibli, Spirited Away is not only distinguished by its technical mastery and philosophical depth, but is also known for its stunning visuals and emotional resonance.
In this article, we’re analyzing Spirited Away, the highest-rated animated film on IMDb for the last 25 years, with a remarkable 8.6 rating.
[Spoilers Ahead!]
Story Analysis
The story begins with 10-year-old Chihiro, who is all set to leave her hometown to move to the suburbs with her parents. It’s the day of moving, and the family of three set out on the road.
The car ride isn’t a very happy one, as Chihiro is extremely upset about the move. All throughout the drive, she can’t stop thinking about everything she is leaving behind, especially her friends.
The family is close to their destination when they take a wrong turn and end up at an abandoned amusement park. Chihiro is skeptical, but surprisingly, her parents are not. Despite her unwillingness to enter the theme park, her parents take her inside to explore. After a while, they come to a street with multiple street food stalls set in a line. But eerily, there are no customers.
Chihiro is creeped out, but her parents, hungry and too tempted by the delicious smell of the food, order meals at a particular stall. As soon as the food arrives, her parents dive right in, hogging on every morsel, despite Chihiro’s objections. Chihiro rejects the food and goes out to explore. While exploring, she meets Haku (voiced by Miyu Irino), who warns her about the place and urgently tells her to leave.
Scared, Chihiro rushes back to her parents, only to discover that they have turned into pigs. Suddenly, dark, ghostly figures appear, causing mayhem that separates Chihiro from her “pig” parents.
Chihiro notices that she is now all alone and everything around her is different from what it was. As she tries to find an exit, she realizes that she is stuck inside the world of spirits, and her parents are lost here. At the Witch Yubaba’s (voiced by Mari Natsuki) bathhouse, Chihiro loses her old name and identity after signing a contract with Yubaba. Now she doesn’t even remember who she was anymore.
At the bathhouse, she is Sen—a completely different person, who is hell-bent on rescuing her parents. Unlike Chihiro, Sen doesn’t whine or make excuses; rather takes responsibility.
All’s well that ends well: Chihiro manages to save her parents, but this little incident, which felt like a nightmarish dream in the end, has transformed her from the inside out. They drive away, with her parents having no memory of anything whatsoever, but Chihiro is a new person.
‘Spirited Away’Credit: Toho
Themes
The central theme of Spirited Away is growth and transformation. The narrative intimately captures Chihiro’s journey, as she rises to the occasion, from a scared, dependent child to a courageous, self-reliant individual who ultimately saves her parents. It also centers on the most universal childhood fear–losing your parents to an unfamiliar world, trapped and all on your own.
Yubaba’s main condition for employment symbolizes both the fragility and importance of identity, capturing the struggle to hold onto one’s true self, in the face of drastic changes..
Miyazaki uses supernaturalism and Shinto beliefs as a metaphor for the real world that Chihiro is yet to face all on her own. The film reminds us that growing up means moving out of our comfort zone to become functional individuals in an ever-chaotic and ever-changing world.
The film also critiques materialism and greed, most explicitly in the transformation of Chihiro’s parents into pigs after their gluttonous consumption, while advocating for ecological respect with visual motifs such as the polluted river spirit. Spirited Away also explores the themes of loneliness and connection through characters like No-Face, Yubaba, and Haku, by duly painting them in shades of gray, instead of plain black and white.
Analyzing How “Ma” Plays an Important Role in Spirited Away
In Japanese, “ma” means “a slow-moving emptiness”. Spirited Away is a wild fantasy, but also a brooding tale of identity and growth. The film focuses on highlighting stillness every chance it gets. The visual language is beautifully embedded with pauses to capture the lingering stillness in every moment, which allows the viewer to absorb every moment, making the experience not only more immersive but also intimate. Miyazaki relies on “ma” to simply let the characters exist, making an opportunity for the audience to form a deeper connection with every single one of them. He also uses stillness to reflect on the vulnerabilities of his characters.
Analyzing the Visual Language of Spirited Away
Miyazaki, with his team at the Studio Ghibli, creates a world both magical and tactile, creating an eclectic fusion of Japanese architecture and traditional motifs with Western elements, to depict the abandoned amusement park like an illusion or dream.
Miyazaki shifts between lighting and color schemes, as per Chihiro’s emotional state. Both the spirits and the scenarios are inspired by traditional Japanese tales. A masterclass in world-building, even the mechanics and customs of the spirit world, are intricately designed to enhance the plausibility, even in fantasy.
Spirited Away is fundamentally a hand-drawn 2-D Ghibli animation, meticulously created frame by frame with hand-made illustrations. Studio Ghibli believes that hand drawing on paper is the core of animation. Therefore, Miyazaki and his team drafted every single frame, following traditional animation, hand-drawing everything on paper.
The visuals are like watercolor on paper, with colors and lighting delivering depth and nuance to each frame, while evoking a surreal feeling of nostalgia that’s often associated with Ghibli-style animation.
While the foundation remains hand-drawn, Spirited Away blends tradition with technology by using CGI sparingly, specifically for complex elements to enhance the hand-drawn work, instead of allowing CGI to dominate traditional animation.
Spirited Away demonstrates how animation is not just a vehicle for plot, but a means to externalize emotion, build atmosphere, and express themes in the most visceral way possible.
For those who have never watched any Hayao Miyazaki movies, here’s your sign to begin your journey with Spirited Away.
