Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away

Japanese: 千と千尋の神隠し

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Information

Type: Movie

Episodes: 1

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Jul 20, 2001

Producers: Dentsu, TOHO, Tokuma Shoten, Tohokushinsha Film Corporation, Nippon Television Network, Mitsubishi

Licensors: Disney Platform Distribution, GKIDS

Studios: Studio Ghibli

Source: Original

Genres: Adventure, Award Winning, Supernatural

Theme: Mythology

Duration: 2 hr. 4 min.

Rating: PG - Children

Statistics

Score: 8.77¹ (scored by 1,296,899 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #40²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #44

Members: 1,851,212

Favorites: 32,799

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8.77

Ranked #40Popularity #44Members 1,851,212

MovieStudio Ghibli

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Episodes: /1

Trailer English dub version

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Synopsis

Stubborn, spoiled, and naïve, 10-year-old Chihiro Ogino is less than pleased when she and her parents discover an abandoned amusement park on the way to their new house. Cautiously venturing inside, she realizes that there is more to this place than meets the eye, as strange things begin to happen once dusk falls. Ghostly apparitions and food that turns her parents into pigs are just the start—Chihiro has unwittingly crossed over into the spirit world. Now trapped, she must summon the courage to live and work amongst spirits, with the help of the enigmatic Haku and the cast of unique characters she meets along the way.

Vivid and intriguing, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi tells the story of Chihiro's journey through an unfamiliar world as she strives to save her parents and return home.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi held the record of being the highest-grossing film in Japanese history from 2001 until 2020. As of December 2020, it has amassed a total of 31.68 billion yen from Japanese box office sales and a total of $395.8 million worldwide.

This critically acclaimed film has won numerous awards, including the Academy Award—more commonly known as the "Oscar"—for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003 as well as the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival (alongside Bloody Sunday). It is also among the top 10 in the British Film Institute's list of the "50 films you should see by the age of 14."

The English version of Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi was dubbed by Walt Disney Pictures and premiered in 2002. The film was released on DVD and VHS formats in North America by Buena Vista Home Entertainment in 2003.

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Haku

Main

Irino, Miyu
Japanese

Ogino, Chihiro

Main

Hiiragi, Rumi
Japanese

Kaonashi

Supporting

Nakamura, Akio
Japanese

Makkuro-Kurosuke

Supporting

Kamajii

Supporting

Sugawara, Bunta
Japanese

Lin

Supporting

Tamai, Yumi
Japanese

Oshira-sama

Supporting

Yasuda, Ken
Japanese

Yubaba

Supporting

Natsuki, Mari
Japanese

Ootori-sama

Supporting

Zeniba

Supporting

Natsuki, Mari
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Suzuki, Toshio

Producer

Ishii, Tomohiko

Assistant Producer

Miyazaki, Hayao

Director, Script, Storyboard, Original Creator

Kimura, Youmi

Theme Song Composition, Theme Song Performance

Edit

Opening Theme

"Day of the River/Ano hi no kawa" by Joe Hisaishi

Edit

Ending Theme

"Itsumo Nando demo (Always with Me)" by Yumi Kimura

Reviews

Dec 11, 2008

Aeterna

Recommended

When I first saw the movie, I didn't see what the big deal was. All right, so a girl gets whisked away to a fantasy world? We've heard that story before. And, unlike many other movies, there's no dramatic love story or epic battles and action scenes to keep you at the edge of your seat. Consequently, I didn't think of it as being very exciting.

Still, I watched it again and, for some reason, I got it the second time around. Spirited Away isn't meant to be anything grand, with all the bells and whistles. It has a quiet, subdued way of telling a simple ... story about a simple girl in a very strange world. Instead of expecting something huge, just sit back, watch, and appreciate the world and story Miyazaki has finely crafted for us all to enjoy.

To get to the technical aspects...

The art is, of course, amazing. The colours are rich and the animation is fluid. When Chihiro and her family first walk into the spirit world, you can practically feel the breeze as you watch it whisk through the grass. The lights of the spirit world at night are breathtaking. And watching the train ride closer to the end of the movie, coupled with the amazing music score (the track is called "The Sixth Station"), remains one of my most favourite animation sequences out of anything I've seen. Which brings me to another point: the music.

I will get this out of the way first - Joe Hisaishi is one of my favourite composers. His music style is very simple, but he makes every note count. Most of his music is quite subdued in nature and takes a careful ear to notice when your eyes are being captivated by what's going on in the screen, but do take notice if you have the chance. Or search on YouTube for videos of his live performances. His music is a joy to listen to. Like with Spirited Away, Hisaishi's music lacks all the "bells and whistles" per se, but it's beauty lies in its simplicity. Hisaishi has not failed here in Spirited Away.

I dearly loved the characters. One of the best parts of this movie, for me, was that it lacked any clear good or evil characters. Everyone has a bit of both, though perhaps some allow the evil sides of them to come out a bit more obviously than others. In this way, it's very realistic. Granted, the characters were all quite predictable and Chihiro grated on my nerves at times, but overall, I enjoyed each and every one of the characters Miyazaki has create here.

Overall, Spirited Away is one of my favourite movies and will always be a treasured item in my small DVD collection. It requires some patience to get through since it's not packed with action or drama, but it's a nice fairy tale to watch and enjoy.

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Mar 24, 2015

Gamer_2k4

Mixed Feelings

At the time of this writing, Spirited Away is ranked #2 among anime movies on this site. In my opinion, that is sorely inaccurate. Reading the reviews for it, there are a lot of remarks about the excellent animation and soundtrack (rightfully so) and the strong character design (understandably so), but beyond that, the praise begins to falter. People struggle to justify the disjointed nature of the film, sometimes going with "shows remarkable creativity" and sometimes just falling back on "makes me nostalgic." Viewers who liked it don't know why they liked it, and that doesn't surprise me.

In short, Spirited Away ... feels like a three hour recreation of someone's dream that was carelessly edited down to two hours for the sake of runtime. For starters, the movie has no true plot. Chihiro (the protagonist) has lost her parents in a spirit world and needs to get them back and escape. With that as a distant theme, the movie proceeds to throw characters and situations at us that are only tangentially connected to each other or that goal.

Are there high points along the way? Absolutely. The animation far surpasses the usual anime standard. The musical composition is excellent. The characters are unique and well-defined. Everything is vivid and bombastic and well-done...except for an actual STORY.

I'm afraid the only way to properly explain my issue is with specific examples from the film, so there are spoilers ahead. You've been warned.

Let's start with Chihiro's helper and guide, so to speak: Haku. You begin to get an impression that he's someone like her - someone who got lost in the spirit world but managed to survive by becoming Yubaba's assistant. He helps Chihiro get on her feet and avoid trouble, and then promptly ceases to be anything more than a plot device. Haku steals a trinket from Yubaba's sister for a reason that's both not fully explained and ultimately irrelevant. Yubaba's sister is angry enough to try to kill him, then just forgives him when the trinket is returned. He promptly loses any interest in taking it again, remembers he's a water spirit (...okay?), and that's the last we hear about him.

How about No-Face? An interesting character, absolutely, but pointless overall. Yes, there's a scene where he helps Chihiro, but after that, he eats a bunch of people, spits them out, and becomes a seamstress. Fun.

Characters don't so much "develop" as they change into completely different people for the sake of the story. People hate Chihiro...until they don't. There's a baby that cries and throws fits because he's worried about the germs outside...then he goes outside willingly and becomes a nice person. The witches are angry one moment and friendly the next.

And then there are all the little inconsistencies and allowances made for the sake of making the story work (or forgotten when it no longer matters). For example, there's a big deal made about the importance of names and how losing your name is losing your identity, but it's only relevant for two characters: Chihiro and Haku. Chihiro forgets her name but then sees it on a card and remembers it again. Haku makes a big deal about how she needs to hang onto that card so she'll always remember...and then it's never touched on again. Haku can't remember his original name, and this is treated as significant, but then Chihiro figures it out for him and exactly nothing comes of it.

Simply put, this is a mess of a movie that nonetheless gets praise because it's presented well. Perhaps I just don't have the context to really understand it (for example, maybe there are lots of details I didn't catch because I'm not familiar with Japanese culture or mysticism), but from my perspective, as someone who appreciates a good, coherent plot, Spirited Away fell utterly flat.

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Apr 27, 2008

slpless

Not Recommended

In many ways this is a difficult review to write. This is because I’m clearly not the target audience, as Spirited Away is a film that is clearly targeted towards children. In the end, I simply decided to review the film as I normally do and leave a disclaimer about not being the target audience.

I first watched this film 5 years ago during my senior year in high school when a friend of mine was raving about it. Back then I found the film to be boring and feature a paper thin plot. Now 5 years later and a few hundred ... anime titles later I was compelled to review this. However, since it was 5 years since I viewed the film, I decided to re-watch Spirited Away in preparation for this review as my memory is a bit foggy. After watching it again, I discovered 2 things about Spirited Away. I now know why I forgotten many of the events, thus needed to re-watch it and my perspective about the film really hasn’t changed.

Spirited Away begins with Chihiro’s family moving to their new home. Like any normal 10 years old girl she is quite sadden and angry about leaving her old life (hell anyone would feel this way). Chihiro’s father makes a wrong turn somewhere and decides to take a short cut through the forest. Ok, perfectly normal but what gets me is when they see an abandon building they decided to go in and explore. Next, they go, “oh look food that’s sitting out with no-one around” let eat. The events leading up to Chihiro getting trapped in the fantasy world are way too plot devicy for my taste. However, this isn’t my main complaint about the film, it’s just that the rest is so shallow I can’t really analyze it with much depth. The rest of the story can be summarized by Chihiro get a jobs, does a job, returns something, get freed and goes home. In fact, I’m quite dumfounded as to how they created a 2 hour movie with this plot line.

Although, perhaps I’m being too critical with the story and story structure that Spirited Away takes. What I think Spirited Away tries to do is create a magical world in which the viewer can escape to. It tries to take us on an adventure to somewhere very different. That is does, studio Ghibli creates a worlds that is both imaginative and beautiful. I could go on and on about the world but words wouldn’t do it justice. However, something is very wrong when the only major praise I can give is about the fantasy world that is created. They spend way too much time creating and focusing on this world. When I analyze a few scenes I realize how drawn out Spirited Away makes each scene. They could have easily cut 30-40 minutes and have a more focused story. This is how they were able to stretch such a thin plot out for 2 hours.

When reviewing anime I put the most weight on the plot and characters. I’ve already talked about how thin and weak the plot is in the above paragraphs. Sadly the characters don’t fare too much better. Chihiro does grow over the course of the movie and in the end she is a bit stronger and can now face new challenges (i.e. new school, neighborhood, etc). After going through what she went through, I don’t think a new school will faze her. However, there really isn’t much to Chihiro’s character, she’s simply a random girl that happens to go on an inadvertent adventure and becomes a little bit stronger in the end. She feels a bit like an empty shell for the audience to live through. In general, the characterization for the movie feels a bit weak, I mean do we really know these characters? If that’s all there is to these characters, then I have no choice but to conclude that most of them are extremely flat.

Ok now on to the easy part of this review, the technical aspects. It should be no surprise that the animation and art is top notch. This is studio Ghibli and Spirited Away is also a movie so there should be no excuses when it comes to animation. The environments are beautiful and quite vibrant. Characters designs are extremely consistent but I don’t like the designs that Studio Ghibli uses. Not really a negative, just a personal preference. Music, really works to create and accent the magical world of Spirited Away. However, the music is nothing too note worthy, above average I guess. In contrast, the voice work, this is a meh for me in both the English and Japanese, nothing really outstanding or bad. However, there really wasn’t anything in the movie that would require the VAs to show their talent.

As with any Miyazaki films there are themes of environmentalism along with others in particular, greed. Thankfully, these themes and ideas never become the focus or become too blatant. Also, I have to add another audience that Spirited Away may have been targeted to. That would be nostalgic Japanese adults that long for a more traditional setting away from the modern world. In that respects it does a great job however, I’m neither a child nor a Japanese adult disillusioned with the modern world. So it should be no surprise that I’m not very fond of this film, as none of the positives really appeal to me. Those would be the imaginative/magical or nostalgic world of Spirited Away.

Spirited Away is an imaginative and magical world that child will most likely enjoy. In addition, its nostalgic feel will appeal to some Japanese adults. However, it also features a paper thin plot as well as weak characterization. Spirited Away is a nice watch if you want to get away for 2 hours and turn off your brain but it is ultimately shallow and forgettable. Even now after watching it a few hours ago I’m having a hard time remembering the details.

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Recent Forum Discussion

Do you think Spirited Away is overrated? ( 1 2 3 4 ) deactivated30325 - Feb 3, 2014	179 replies	by mangalicker94 »» Apr 20, 8:15 PM
Poll: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) aaronluis26 - Aug 3, 2009	190 replies	by mangalicker94 »» Apr 20, 8:07 PM
More movie/shows with this plot? _txhsin__ - Mar 30, 2023	14 replies	by Zoldra0 »» May 13, 2023 3:16 PM
Movies as great as this one Kondyaedus - Feb 11, 2022	31 replies	by tamashinochi »» Mar 15, 2023 1:36 AM
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Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi

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Haku

Ogino, Chihiro

Kaonashi

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Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Resources

Streaming Platforms

Synopsis

Background

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

Characters & Voice Actors

Staff

Opening Theme

Ending Theme

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

Recent News

Recent Forum Discussion

Recent Featured Articles

MoreTop Anime

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