Some of her outbursts at the start are because she's overwhelmed. Bratty Half-Pint: Chihiro at first, but she gets better.
Blush Sticker: Chihiro has them throughout the entire film.Blue and Orange Morality: This being the spirit world, after all.Makes sense since Kamaji says he is bleeding from the inside. Blood From the Mouth: Haku due to the effects of Zeniba's curse.While it's true that Japanese makes extensive use of puns, the character's name in Japanese is kaonashi, so the no/noh similarity is most likely just a coincidence.Big No/ This Cannot Be!: When Yubaba realizes Boh is gone.No-Face, who combines this with Extreme Omnivore (he swallows several people whole).Chihiro's parents when they transform into pigs.The first time when Sen was with the Stink Spirit and later with No Face. Big Sister Instinct: Lin becomes quite protective of Chihiro over the course of the event.Because You Were Nice to Me: Word of God states that this is the reason No Face followed Sen around after she let him into the bath-house.Baleful Polymorph: Chihiro's parents and the other humans turned into pigs.It's also missing some key elements of an Award Bait Song, most notably the lack of "sparkly" synth.Interestingly, the song actually helped inspire the film, instead of being written for it. Award Bait Song: "Itsumo Nando Demo" ( Always With Me) by Youmi Kimura.Author Appeal: A determined heroine, a flood, young love, flying sequences and precipitous heights.On the Sliding Scale of Anti-Villains, she would be a Type I or possibly IV. Although somewhat greedy and rather strict, she is fair and doesn't go back on her word when Chihiro passes her final test correctly. Yubaba is a crow/raven who are known to be cunning, ominous and foretell death and destruction, such as Yubaba taking the names of her workers and "killing" their past selves so they can't remember who they are and thus are enslaved to her forever (unless they remember their name).Animal Motifs/ Animal Stereotypes: All bathhouse workers are animal spirits.Amusement Park of Doom: It's really a bathhouse for spirits.Always Identical Twins: Yubaba and her sister Zeniba.Afterlife Express: The train that Chihiro takes to get to Zeniba's home is intended for use by the dead moving onto the next life, and has phantom passengers.Losing your parents and having to rescue them? Your best friend almost bleeding to death and having to save his life? Chihiro deals with some pretty grown-up situations while maturing as a person. Adult Fear: Despite being a young girl.Adults Are Useless: Well, Chihiro's parents are, hence the need to rescue them.Your best friend, Rumi." (In the Japanese version, Chihiro was voiced by Rumi Hiiragi.) Actor Allusion: "I'll miss you, Chihiro.Or that film's 2002 remake/Madonna vehicle.
Not to be confused with the Australian TV show Spirited. The fact that it won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film (the only traditionally-animated film and the only anime film to do so to date) should be noted as the Oscar's tend to favor CG Western Animated productions. It should go without saying that the trademark stunning animation of Miyazaki's Studio Ghibli is also showcased in this film. Oh, and that's just the first half-hour - which doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the odd denizens of the spirit world, ranging from the villainous bathhouse manager Yubaba to arachnid worker Kamajii to the enigmatic, voiceless spirit No Face.ĭespite its bizarre events, Spirited Away is regarded by many to have succeeded in depicting a world that was strangely realistic and engrossing it also never loses sight of the self-growth of Chihiro as she matures from a whiny girl to a confident young woman. At first, her only aid is Haku, a mysterious boy who finds her shelter and a job in a bathhouse that caters to these spirits eventually, Chihiro makes more friends as she searches for a way to make her parents human again and escape the spirit world before she forgets her real identity. Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, "Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting-Away"), is a surreal adventure film (said to be inspired by a 9-year-old girl Miyazaki met) that defies simple explanation, but can be simplistically described as Japan's version of Alice in Wonderland:Ĭhihiro, a sullen young girl unwillingly moving to a new town, is stranded in the spirit world after her parents stop by what appears to be an abandoned amusement park and eat food that turns them into pigs. Originally, Princess Mononoke was meant to be Hayao Miyazaki's swan song, but much to the delight of the anime world, he returned with a film that managed to top Princess Mononoke's staggering box-office numbers.