Chihiro
Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi?, lit. Sen and Chihiro’s Spiriting Away) is a 2001 Japanese animated film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film views a sullen ten-year-old girl in the middle of her family’s move to a new town (presumably the countryside) and her adventures in a world of spirits and monsters.
Haku & Chihiro
The film received many awards, including the second Oscar ever awarded for Best Animated Feature, the first anime film to win an Academy Award, and the first (and so far only) non-English speaking animation to win. The film also won the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival (tied with Bloody Sunday) and is among the top ten in the BFI list of the 50 films you should see by the age of 14.
Spirited Away overtook Titanic in the Japanese box office to become the highest-grossing film in Japanese history.
Ten-year-old Chihiro and her parents are moving to a new town, much to Chihiro’s displeasure. While driving, they get lost and her father decides to take a ‘shortcut’ down a mysterious forested pathway. After a short but bumpy drive, the family comes to a stop at what seems to be an abandoned theme park. Curious, the father leads his family through a tunnel and explores the park, finding a deserted town and a stall full of freshly-cooked food. The parents greedily help themselves while Chihiro refuses to eat. As Chihiro’s parents are eating, she wanders off and meets a boy named Haku. Haku seems to be familiar with Chihiro and warns her to escape with her parents; she returns to find they have turned into pigs, and that the way back has become a deep river. Spirits appear and go about the park. Haku secretly takes Chihiro to a large bathhouse to avoid alerting the spirits to her presence. Haku then tells her that she must get a job from the witch Yubaba, the owner of the park’s bathhouse, until he can help her recover her parents and escape.
Promised Reunion
With the help of the six-armed boiler room master Kamajii and a bathhouse servant girl named Lin, Chihiro is able to convince Yubaba to give her a job; in exchange, Chihiro is forced to give up her name so that Yubaba may keep her in service for eternity. Yubaba gives her new servant the name “Sen(千),” which is derived from “Chihiro(千尋)” by removing the second character and using the alternate reading of the first. Chihiro eventually learns that Haku is similarly indebted to Yubaba. Chihiro is put to work alongside Lin, helping to bathe and serve the most difficult spirits in the bathhouse. Chihiro is able to successfully bathe a “stink spirit” (later revealed to be a river spirit who had been heavily polluted), who rewards Chihiro for her service with gold and a magic medicine made from special herbs.
Chihiro discovers Haku’s true form, a dragon, as he is attacked by paper birds controlled by Zeniba, Yubaba’s twin sister. Haku had stolen Zeniba’s sigil under orders from Yubaba. Chihiro tries to help Haku recover from his injuries using the medicine given to her by the river spirit, which acts as an emetic to the dragon, thus recovering Zeniba’s sigil and squashing a peculiar black slug that had been attached to it. Haku remains comatose, so Chihiro decides to travel to Zeniba’s home to return the sigil, hoping to break her curse over Haku. Chihiro sets out on a train ride across the spirit world, along with a wraith-like spirit called No Face, who terrorized the bathhouse and tried to earn the affection of Chihiro, and Boh, Yubaba’s gigantic infant son whom Zeniba had transformed into a mouse.
Chihiro & Haku (Dragon)
The group arrives at Zeniba’s house to find that Zeniba is friendlier than expected, and that the curse on Haku was placed on him by Yubaba, but Chihiro’s love and caring has broken the spell. Zeniba makes Chihiro a special hairband to show her that her friends are with her, as well as for protection, and No Face is offered to stay at Zeniba’s home as her assistant. Haku, now recovered, shows up to return Chihiro to the bathhouse, explaining that Yubaba will return Chihiro’s parents to normal and allow all three of them to leave in exchange for returning Boh. As they travel on Haku’s dragon form, Chihiro realizes that Haku is the same river spirit that saved her as a small child when she fell into the Kohaku River, and the realization helps to break Yubaba’s control on Haku completely. At the bathhouse, Yubaba reveals that Chihiro must pass one more task as part of Haku’s deal: identify which pigs in the huge herd are her parents. Chihiro passes the test, as she states that none of them are her parents, and Yubaba is forced to let her and her family go. Haku escorts her to the entrance of the spirit world, telling her that her parents are waiting on the other side, but not to look back or else the deal will be broken. Chihiro rejoins her parents, not once looking back. The family returns to their car and continues to their new home. Zeniba’s hair band is still in Chihiro’s hair, proving her adventure to be true. The movie ends as Chihiro’s parents tell her that they understand her worry, to which she replies that she thinks she’ll do fine.
- Rumi Hiiragi (Daveigh Chase in the English adaptation) as Chihiro Ogino (荻野 千尋 Ogino Chihiro?), the ten-year old protagonist of the film. Chihiro is in the process of moving to a new town when her family stumbles upon the entrance to the spirit world. During her adventure she matures from a whiny, self-centered, and pessimistic child to a hard-working, responsible, optimistic young girl who has learned to care for others. She is renamed “Sen” (千 sen?, lit. “a thousand”) by the proprietor of the bathhouse, Yubaba.
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Haku & Chihiro
Miyu Irino
(Jason Marsden in the English adaptation) as Haku/Nigihayami Kohaku Nushi (ハク/ニギハヤミ コハクヌシ Haku/Nigihayami Kohakunushi?), a young boy who helps Chihiro after her parents have transformed into pigs. Haku works as Yubaba’s direct subordinate, often running errands and performing missions for her. He has the ability to fly and his true form is a dragon. Toward the end of the story Chihiro recalls falling into the Kohaku (コハク?) river, of which Haku is the spirit; she thus frees him from Yubaba’s service by helping him remember his real name and past, which he had forgotten due to the name change and the curse which Yubaba has placed on him. Haku had entered the spirit world seeking to learn magic from Yubaba, and as a result became an apprentice who followed her every command. When Yubaba is nearby, Haku is as sharp-voiced to Chihiro as to anyone else.
- Mari Natsuki (Suzanne Pleshette in the English adaptation) as Yubaba (湯婆婆 Yubaaba?, lit. “bath crone”), an old witch with an inhumanly large head and nose, who supervises the bathhouse. She reluctantly signs Chihiro into a contract. Yubaba then takes Chihiro’s name and renames her “Sen” in order to hold power over her for the duration of the contract. She also does this to her other workers, so she can keep them in service forever. Yubaba has an over-bearing and authoritarian personality, but does show a soft side toward her giant baby, Boh. In contrast to her simple and hospitable sister Zeniba, Yubaba lives in opulent quarters and is only interested in taking care of guests for money.
- Bunta Sugawara (David Ogden Stiers in the English adaptation) as Kamajii (釜爺 lit. “boiler geezer”?), an old man with six arms, who operates the boiler room of the bathhouse. These arms can apparently extend indefinitely, so as to allow him access to the upper cabinets from his original position. A number of Susuwatari (ススワタリ?) work for him by carrying coal into his furnace. He has a large cabinet where he keeps all the herbs that are used in the baths. After some persuasion, he allows Chihiro to work at the bathhouse and even pretends to be her grandfather to protect her, though this ruse does not stand for long. He later takes an injured Haku into his boiler room and cares for him while Chihiro, given train tickets by Kamajii, journeys to Zeniba’s cottage. At first he seems cold and uncaring, but by the end of the film he seems to have grown a soft spot for Chihiro and for anyone whom she calls her friend.
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Comedy: No Face & Chihiro
Tatsuya Gashuin (Bob Bergen in the English adaptation) as No Face (カオナシ Kaonashi?, lit. “without face”), an odd spirit who takes an interest in Chihiro. Seeing No Face standing outside in the rain, Chihiro takes pity on the creature and lets him into the bathhouse to take shelter from the storm. At first, he is a strange, cloaked, masked wraith that merely breathes and smiles. No Face is a lonely being who seems to sustain itself on the emotions of those he encounters, particularly their emotional reception to his gifts. He is helpful to Chihiro because she helped him, whereas after observing the bathhouse staff’s reaction to gold and his own attempts to win them over with more gold, he reacts to their greed by becoming a grotesque monster which eats lots of food and some of the staff. After Chihiro feeds him the final piece of the medicine ball given to her by the River Spirit, No Face regurgitates everything he consumed, including the bathhouse staff members. Once he has emptied himself of these foreign influences and left the bathhouse, No Face reverts to his former state. At the end, he stays with Zeniba as a helper.
- Yumi Tamai (Susan Egan in the English adaptation) as Lin (リン Rin?), a worker at the bathhouse who becomes Chihiro’s caretaker. Although aloof at first, she warms up to Chihiro and grows a strong bond with her. At the end, she is happy for Chihiro when the latter finally goes home. Lin states that she wishes to leave the bathouse for some better life. But there is a possibility she was once human like Chihiro, but doesn’t remember.
- Ryūnosuke Kamiki (Tara Strong in the English adaptation) as Boh (坊 Bō?), Yubaba’s son. Although he has the appearance of a young baby, he is twice Yubaba’s size. He is also very strong and can be dangerous. Yubaba goes out of her way to give him whatever he wants. When Zeniba turns Boh into a mouse, he becomes good friends with Chihiro and eventually stands up to Yubaba to protect Chihiro.
- River Spirit (川の神 Kawa no Kami?) is a customer of the bathhouse originally thought to be a “stink spirit”, who is assigned to Chihiro and Lin. Yubaba suspects that he may be something more than a stink spirit; when Chihiro helps him by pulling trash that had been dumped into his river out of his side, her suspicions are proved correct. He is in fact a famous and wealthy river god. As a reward for cleaning him, he gives Chihiro a ball of plant material which is a “healing cake” that she later uses to heal an injured Haku through ingestion and to cause No Face to vomit the people and vast amounts of food he ate during his rampage.
Zeniba (銭婆 Zeniiba?) is Yubaba’s older twin sister and rival. Although identical in appearance, their personalities are almost polar opposites. At first she appears no kinder than Yubaba when she becomes enraged at Haku for stealing her magic sigil and threatens to take it back, regardless of what happens to Haku. Hoping to gain Zeniba’s forgiveness, Chihiro journeys to Zeniba’s cottage to return it and apologize. It is then that Zeniba reveals her true character as that of a kind, grandmotherly figure. She forgives Haku for stealing her sigil and tells him to look after Chihiro. She then sees everyone off, assuring Chihiro that she will be well.
