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Spirited
Away - An Anime Review by Shad |
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In the present day… Chihiro and her family are moving
to their new home. Chihiro isn’t too thrilled to be leaving her friends
and school behind, but her parents seem pretty optimistic. Unfortunately,
a wrong turn seems to put them in the middle of the woods somewhere
near their house. Small shrine totems and statuettes line parts of the
road and in front of a large tunnel on the side of a structure that
seems fairly new. The family decides to investigate, and realize that
it is an abandoned theme park. On one end of the theme park, however,
sits a large bath house, from which clouds of smoke continue to bellow
up the exhaust from the bath’s boiler room. Once Chihiro steps on the
bridge crossing over towards the bath house, a whole new world takes
her in and she finds strange people and creatures, and learns that her
parents have been turned into to pigs. Now, Chihiro’s only hope is to
made a deal with Yubaba, the sorceress who runs the bath house, in order
to stay in the strange bath house and try to save her family and return
home. Another Studio Ghibli triumph. Every time I watch a Ghibli movie, I feel inspired and happy. Of course, the quality of the animation and music goes without saying – their reputation is well known in these areas. The really interesting thing about Spirited Away is the kind of story it is and how well it’s translated into English dialogue and delivered to an English (or round-eyed, if you will) culture. This movie is not really about pigs and sorceresses… it’s about a bath house where 8 million spirits and gods can go to rest up and replenish themselves. What a concept!
Anyway, now I’m inclined to go out and buy more Studio Ghibli films wherever and whenever I can. I knew that they were a name that was associated with quality after seeing Totoro and Laputa previously, but now I want to own them all. If you get the chance to see Spirited Away at a convention, and art house, or a college anime club, make it one of your priorities to go out and see it… It’s worth it. I give Spirited Away 10 out of 10 Shin-chan’s!
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The
character design is a lot different from Princess Mononoke, the most
recent Studio Ghibli movie to be released before Spirited Away in the
US. Actually, everything is different really, and it’s kind of a good
thing. Everything seems to have a lot of color, with emphasis on the
costumes worn by the spirits and gods and less emphasis on the workers
in the bath house. As far as the characters themselves, every character
has their own charm, even Yubaba the sorceress who enslaves her servants
by stealing their name. There is even a huge baby (whom we are made
to assume that it is Yubaba’s baby, I think it’s the head) who seems
somewhat menacing at first but we learn that Baby has just been sheltered
and deprived of the outside world and of friends. Everything about this
movie just keeps making me think of the word charming. Also, besides
fantasy there is a theme of love and friendship in the movie, as indicated
through the dragon spirit Haku and the strange creature No Face. 
This
is also another surround sound gem. The 5.1 in Spirited Away is pretty
impressive, but doesn’t over-stimulate. As I mentioned, the soundtrack
is excellent, and every song brings to mind the fantasy and fairy tale
atmosphere brought out in the film. We got a huge group together to
go see this movie at Neshaminy 24 in Bensalem, where we saw the Disney
English dubbed version. It was very good and seems to follow the Japanese
script from the region 3 dvd almost exactly, except for a few lines
where something was interpreted differently in order to help an American
audience understand the plot more easily. I couldn’t wait for the domestic
release, so I bought the HK release dvd so I could watch it at home,
even though I know I will be buying the domestic release from Disney
when it comes out.
