The other day someone tweeted asking Studio Ghibli what the relevance was of Chihiro's parents turning into pigs. They replied that the transformation is reflective of how people turned into pigs during Japan's bubble economy of the s, which was followed by a crash, and once someone becomes a pig, he or she will gradually have the "body and soul of a pig," which "doesn't just apply to the fantasy world. Image via Wiki. What anyone of any age can take away from Spirited Away is the importance of balance.
There's no evil character, despite poor motives. Everyone has a good side or the potential for good—even Yu-baaba, as seen in her twin sister. The mud monster isn't actually terrible but underneath it all is a kama no kami , a "god of the river.
This delivery of sensitive spiritual and emotional messages made Spirited Away the highest-grossing film in Japanese history. It won awards across the world, including an Academy Award, an event that Miyazaki politely declined to attend because he was against American involvement in the war in Iraq.
Significantly, it was with this film that he introduced hundreds of thousands to the films of Studio Ghibli, who might not have discovered the animation house otherwise. It's a rare film that young fans will keep with them and show to their children and grandchildren. Ultimately, Spirited Away showed how breathtaking, heartfelt, and serious animation can be; its lessons ones that Pixar, Disney, and other mainstream animators have still failed to genuinely realize 15 years later.
Follow Hannah Ewens on Twitter. Sign In Create Account. This story is over 5 years old. On the 15th anniversary of Miyazaki's cult animation, a look back on its huge global significance. July 20, , pm. They find themselves in a magical world where Chihiro is separated from her parents. This could be a metaphor for overconsumption, consumerism and taking advantage of things.
After this, Chihiro is forced to work in the bathhouse and a witch named Yubaba gives her a new name. Therefore, the bathhouse is rumored to be a metaphor for a brothel in which Chihiro must work to free her parents. Historically, bathhouses in Japan used to have prostitutes working in them and offering their services, until it was banned by the Edo police. In Japanese, this word is used for a woman who works in a bathhouse to bathe and massage clients, but very often this service would include sexual services.
So a yuna in the past would often become a bathhouse prostitute. We also see Yubaba, the owner of the bathhouse, dressed in a very western style, and looking far more stylish and glamorous than anyone else at the bathhouse. This may be indicative of the fact that she is taking much more money from the enterprise than she should, a sad and common practice among these kinds of establishments. Another connection might be that, historically, prostitutes in occupied Japan were wearing a lot of fancy and western clothes given to them by American soldiers.
My Neighbor Totoro in particular was a glimpse of country life for latchkey kids stuck in dormitory suburbs, and I think Spirited Away takes that further, allegorising the constant pressures and distractions of modernity, for a little girl who just wants to be normal, but doesn't know what normal is any more, and sees her parents succumbing to temptation and greed. Throughout numerous Miyazaki films, we experience a nostalgia for the natural world, respect for spirit realms and Shinto traditions , and concerns about climate change, along with narratives where young girls and boys tend to be far braver and smarter than their elders.
Numerous Hayao Miyazaki films feature nostalgia for the natural world, respect for spirit realms and concerns about climate change Credit: Alamy. Miyazaki himself hasn't always sounded upbeat on environmental matters; in a interview in The New Yorker, he exclaimed: "Our population could just suddenly dip and disappear! I talked to an expert on this recently, and I said; 'Tell me the truth'.
He said with mass consumption continuing as it is we will have less than 50 years… I'm hoping I'll live another 30 years. I want to see the sea rise over Tokyo and the NTV tower become an island. I'd like to see Manhattan underwater… Money and desire — all that is going to collapse, and wild green grasses are going to take over. And yet, as we see in his films and their intriguingly ambiguous "baddies" , there remains a capacity for positive transformation. In Spirited Away, Chihiro befriends a mysterious "Dragon Boy", and is forced to work in an opulent bathhouse owned by the grotesque witch Yubaba who seizes Chihiro's identity, and renames her "Sen".
In one pivotal scene, Chihiro is enlisted to help wash a hulking "stink spirit" who has visited the bathhouse. Amid the messy chaos, Chihiro treats the creature with gentle compassion, and it transpires to be a sacred river spirit who had suffered from human pollution. Miyazaki has explained that he drew from his own youthful experience of helping to clean a local river, removing random detritus including an abandoned bicycle, and eventually watching wildlife return to the waters.
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