ANI-MOVIES, *Spirited Away

As winner of the first anime to get Best Animated Feature from the Oscars, Spirited Away has gone down as Hayao Miyazaka's masterpiece and the single highest selling anime movie of all time, at least until the recent Demon Slayer film. Studio Ghibli's production was in fact an original idea by Miyazaki, and not based on a prior source like a book series or manga. The film carries the message of Japanese myths, western commerce, and environmental issues without being like an old Captain Planet episode. This modern fairy tale carries young viewers into a scary but stunning world worthy of Wonderland.

Young girl Chihiro is with her parents as they get lost while on their move to a new city, and the family crosses over to a vacation spot in the spirit world. The parents get turned into pigs after dining on the local cuisine, so Chihiro now has to make a deal working for Yubaba, the enterprising elderly witch who runs the resort. Our heroine is befriended by Yubaba's dragon assistant Haku who can take on the form of a young boy, and secretly saved Chihiro's life from drowning in a river when she was younger. Chihiro's time at Yubaba's bathhouse has her catering to a myriad of gods, spirits, ghosts, and other monsters, including a strange creature called No-Face who becomes corrupted by the resort's consumerism. A trip to Yubaba's twin sister witch helps Chihiro break free of her contract and restoring her parents, although they return to the human world realizing that a considerable amount of time had passed during their spiritual encounter.

Following up his success in Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki came out of semi-retirement to create this original production. As far as animation quality is concerned, this features various realistic designs while still taking influence from Japanese folklore, including taking time to dwell on the mystical background. This can work against it though as some scenes tend to go on longer than necessary, and mostly for those who appreciate the aesthetics of quality animation. Spirited Away succeeds in telling a fantasy tale set in the 21st Century, although it does make it difficult to always tell where the narrative is going with the creator's need to add a new piece of lore to the story with minimal explanation to its relevancy. It's a lengthy film that carries audiences into a completely new realm of imagination, and making them long for more from Ghibli's visual genius.