Spirited Away is generally heralded as one of if not the best movie by Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli and, after watching it for the first time, I can see why. It is one of the best examples of soft fantasy (to the point of surrealism) that I’ve ever seen or read, with the magic never being explore but still feeling real. It also shows imagination to a point where you’re just like wtf is going on.
That said, because the story is grounded in character it never feels cheap or forced. The magic is unimportant to the plot in most ways, as it is something external that makes the journey harder but doesn’t give the protagonist an easy way out.
The main character, Chihiro, is one of my favorite from the studio, being a good person while feeling real and not preachy (which I felt Ashitaka from Mononoke failed to do). She is also not too over-the-top expressive with her emotions (in a way a lot of manga characters are) which helps with immersion and overall enjoyability.
Finally, even though the plot is nothing groundbreaking, it’s still executed pretty solidly. It is a character driven story that explores this really different and scary and amazing world through a likeable character and delivers a wide variety of emotion, from horror to awe to laughs to empathy.
Overall, I would definitely rank this above Princess Mononoke and most of Studio Ghibli’s other work (though I haven’t watched most of them in a long time).
Spoiler Commentary:
The worldbuilding (or magic system) in this story is frankly incredible. The sheer amount of weird and awesome shows the imaginative genius that went into creating it. It is also very surreal and soft, clearly reminding of Mr Miyazaki’s influence in comic artist Jean-Giraud Moebius. The spirit world is constantly growing and never resting on what it has already done but keeps building to the point where you stop trying to understand and let yourself enjoy it. Some of my favorite aspects were the killer paper airplanes, the overall design of the bathhouse and the diversity of spirits.
Another thing it did really well was the pacing, making a two-hour-long film feel bigger and adding to the overall sense of wonder. In contrast, I feel like Princess Mononoke's pacing was too quick and the story went by too fast (though that may just be my perception). This slow pacing also made the power of love much more believable and plausible than it would have been otherwise, as it felt like Chihiro spent a lot of time just exploring the world and the “people” in it.
Chihiro's character I think was really well done, combining fear and goodness and childness in a combination that was easy to like and empathize with whilst also feeling respect for her kindness towards others.
Haku was a character I only cared about because of Chihiro and her liking him. I liked the mystery of the “whose side are you on” but I felt this was better done with Kaonashi. That said, the way he introduces us as an audience to this world, in a powerful combination of fear and awe was really well done. I wasn’t the biggest fan of his hair color though; it felt like a weird compromise between black and green.
Kamaji and Lin, similarly to Haku helped establish the world and its weirdness but also show that there was more good in it than just a random kid.
The giant baby turned rat, the harpy turned little bird and the black spider-thingies were very enjoyable and brought some well-deserved laughs (whilst still being weird and surreal).
Finally, Kaonashi perfectly exemplifies the soft-magic aspect of the movie. It is a character we never really know what it wants or who its allegiance lies with. It is creepy as hell when it first appears but then it’s nice, it eats three beings and destroys the place but sits with Chihiro silently in the train. It is also probably my favorite of the spirit world just based on the presence it has.
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