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.
