The Essentials

Name: Spirited Away
Genre: Fantasy
Episodes: N/A
Released: July 20, 2001
Based On: N/A
Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Produced By: Studio Ghibli
US Distribution By: Walt Disney

Major Japanese Cast

Chihiro: Rumi Hiiragi
Haku: Miyu Irino
Yubaba/Zeniba: Mari Natsuki
Kamaji: Bunta Sugawara
Rin: Yumi Tamai
No Face: Tatsuya Gashuin

Major English Cast

Chihiro: Daveigh Chase
Haku: Jason Marsden
Yubaba/Zeniba: Suzanne Pleshette
Kamaji: David Ogden Stiers
Rin: Susan Egan
No Face: Bob Bergen

Scores

Animation: 10/10 (x 4 = 40 pts)
Story: 8/10 (x 4 = 32 pts)
Music: 9/10 (x 4 = 36 pts)
Coherence/Story Arc: N/A
English Dubs: 9/10 (x 1 = 9 pts)
Gut Score: 9/10 (x 5 = 45 pts)

Total: 162/180 (90.0%)

Review

Spirited Away is a story about Chihiro, a young girl who finds herself trapped in a magical world. The story starts as Chihiro is moving to a new town with her family, and is depressed about it. Her family gets lost trying to find the house and stop upon reaching a small tunnel. They decide to go through the tunnel to explore and soon find a town, which seems abandoned, but several shops have food. Chihiro’s parents decide to start eating, but Chihiro declines, and starts to explore herself. Soon, she runs into a boy, Haku who tells her that she doesn’t belong there and must leave. Chihiro runs back to find her parents, but find that the have turned into giant pigs.

Chihiro runs around in a panic before finally breaking down crying, and soon finds herself disappearing. Soon Haku finds her again and gives her some medicine that stops her disappearance. He tells her that he’ll try to get her a job at the bath house he works in. Eventually, through Haku’s guidance, Chihiro finds her way to the office of Yubaba, who is required to give anyone to asks for a job a job. However, to try to control Chihiro, Yubaba takes away her name and renames her Sen and Sen’s adventure of working at the bath house begins as she tries to find a way to save her parents.

Spirted Away is generally seen as the greatest of Miyazaki’s achievements, and the one which finally put his movies on the map in the United States, and this is for good reason. Not only do I think that this is Miyazaki’s best movie, but it may very well be one of the best anime movies I’ve seen. It has a pretty compelling story with likable characters all-around, with great animation quality and an excellent score to go along with it. You really care about the characters, and almost feel like celebrating with the characters when Sen accomplishes something big.

That isn’t to say that Spirited Away comes without it’s flaws, however. I got a bit of a feeling that some of the events in the movie kind of “just happened” and weren’t really driven by anything integral to the movie, though this could have been intentional. However, this isn’t much of a distraction, and is easily overshadowed by the strength of the story and the characters overall.

In the end, Spirited Away is a movie perfect for kids, but can also be enjoyed by just about anyone. It could easily give even the best of Disney’s originally-made movies a run for their money.

First Watched: August 2005
Do I Own: No
Do I Recommend: Yes