

I found myself developing certain expectations of how the story would develop, but each time the story heads off in a completely unexpected direction.Ĭhihiro’s bravery and innocent selflessness is quite surprising at times, as well as inspiring and heartwarming. One reason the story is so captivating is that the whole film is unpredictable. From the moment when Chihiro meets Haku, the male lead character, the pace of the film catapults. This film is gripping from the beginning to the end. Though Yubaba will appear to be the film’s main villain, the audience is not made to hate her enough to wish peril upon her since there is a compassionate and comical side to her as well. There are no clear lines between good and evil in Spirited Away, as all the characters (except perhaps Chihiro) will exhibit characteristics, true to real life. What sets this animated film apart from most of the popular children’s animated films (such as Disney titles) is that there is no real enemy that the main character has to vanquish. In the world of Spirited Away, everyone is bound by their own words and names. Even Yubaba is bound by the oaths she has made in the past.
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When Chihiro becomes employed by Yubaba, the witch who rules the spirit world, she has to renounce her own name, which she needs in order to free herself. This story’s underlying theme concerns the importance of names and promises. The world of Spirited Away, in some ways, is wilder and more surreal than Alice in Wonderland yet at the same time more believable and coherent as well.įor a film aimed at such a young audience, Spirited Away is surprisingly profound. Spirited Away is comparable to Alice in Wonderland, as the story of Chihiro going through the tunnel is very much like Alice falling through the rabbit hole, but the similarities are superficial. Despite the intended age group, adults will probably gain more from this film, however. This epic tale is a departure from Miyazaki’s other fantasy adventures such as Nausicaa, Laputa, and Mononoke Hime, as it is a fantasy aimed for the 10-year old audience. Two decades later, Spirited Away remains the only hand-drawn, non-English film to have won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and it’s routinely regarded as not only one of Miyazaki’s strongest overall works but one of the greatest animated films of all time.Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away is his most imaginative work to date. The film arrived just over 20 years ago in 2001, and the universal critical acclaim it received helped to greatly broaden the appeal of Japanese animation around the world, particularly in the U.S., where anime was suddenly regarded with much more critical legitimacy. Chihiro must then enter the witch’s employment as she seeks a way to transform them back into humans, so the entire family can escape back into the human world. Spirited Away is a fantasy drama, focused on the plight and heroics of 10-year-old Chihiro Ogino, whose parents fall victim to the spell of an evil witch when they are transformed into pigs.

The show is currently making its way through Japan with dates in cities such as Osaka, Fukuoka, Sapporo and Nagoya. Each broadcast will actually be subtly different, as a “double cast” system means that all the primary performers will be different on the second day of the broadcast than they were on the first. The Disney-owned streaming service will be showing the final two days of the play’s run in Japan, which will take place at the Misonoza Theater in Nagoya. And the final two shows of that run, in July, will be seen by more than just Japanese audiences, as the show will reportedly be livestreamed on Hulu on July 3 and 4. A live stage adaptation of Miyazaki’s classic Spirited Away is currently running in Japan, recently finishing its run in Tokyo and now beginning to travel around the country. Devoted fans of Japan’s Studio Ghibli and the works of director Hayao Miyazaki will soon have an opportunity to see one of his most famous creations rendered in a new and strange way.
