Spirited Away

If there was ever a film that helped put anime on the map, it was “Spirited Away”. Winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in 2002, this film by director Hayao Miyazaki is yet another that can be enjoyed by all ages and the whole family.

Spirited Away – the characters
Spirited Away – the storyline

Spirited Away

The highest grossing film in Japanese box-office history

Unrated | Format: DVD

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Spirited Away - the characters:

Chihiro Ogino: a ten-year-old girl who becomes trapped (or “spirited away”) in a bathhouse for spirits when her parents eat food that turns them into pigs. Chihiro gives up her name to get a job to stay until she can find a way to return her parents to normal.
Haku: A mysterious boy who helps Chihiro find the means to cure her parents. The apprentice of Yubaba, he can turn into a silver-colored dragon.
Yubaba: The old woman who runs the bathhouse where spirits come to restore themselves. Caring only for the money she gets from the guests, she only has a soft side for her baby, Boh.
Kamajii: An old man with six arms who runs the boiler room in the bathhouse. Though rather grumpy, he is nice enough to look after Chihiro and help her find a job.

No-Face: A mysterious spirit with a mask who takes an interest in Chihiro. He helps her at one point but seems to have his own agenda.
Lin: One of the girls who works at the bathhouse under whose care Chihiro is placed. Though not happy about it at first, Lin comes to like Chihiro and worry about her.

Spirited Away - the storyline:

While moving to their new town, Chihiro and her parents take a wrong turn and end up in what they think is an abandoned amusement park. Chihiro soon discovers that the “amusement park” is really a bathhouse for spirits, but is unable to escape when her parents eat food meant for the spirits, turning them into pigs. Under the advice of Haku, a boy she meets while trying to hide, Chihiro manages to get a job at the bathhouse in order to stay until her parents can be cured. But in order to do so, she has to sign a contract with Yubaba, the old witch who runs the bathhouse, and give up her name in the process. (Of course, this is how the movie got its title “Spirited Away”.)

Now known as “Sen”, Chihiro struggles to work at the bathhouse, not liked by the various spirits and beings there, save for Haku, who everyone says can’t be trusted, and the mysterious No-Face. Soon Chihiro gets up in a feud between Yubaba and her twin sister, Zeniba, as she struggles to remember her true name, her parents, and what connection she has to Haku.

Chihiro and Haku in garden