**spoiler alert**
Cover of the DVD
Ten-year-old Chihiro Ogino is moving with her parents to a new town when they become lost and find what appears to be an abandoned amusement park. Chihiro’s father decides to explore it while a reluctant Chihiro and her mother accompany him. They soon discover a stall with food, and Chihiro’s parents sample the food, but find themselves unable to stop eating. Chihiro soon realizes that she is in a magical world when she sees her parents literally turn into pigs.
Running to get help, Chihiro finds a boy, Haku, who smuggles her into a large bathhouse and tells her to find a job so she can stay there until he can help her recover her parents and escape. Haku also hints that he knew Chihiro when she was little. Haku instructs Chihiro to see Kamaji at the boiler room to ask for work. Kamaji, a six-armed, grumpy, but kind-hearted fellow, says he has no work for Chihiro and entrusts her to Lin to take her to Yubaba. Yubaba, the cranky, elderly witch who runs the bathhouse, agrees to let Chihiro work for her, but takes all of Chihiro’s name except the first character of her first name, which Yubaba calls “Sen.” Sen later learns that Yubaba controls her servants by taking their names.
While working, she sees a masked spirit, named “No Face,” outside of the bathhouse. She leaves the door open and he enters the bathhouse. Sen’s first customer is a heavily polluted river spirit that all of the other workers avoid. When Sen successfully cleans the spirit, it rewards her with a dumpling-like object. Afterward, Sen discovers that Haku is actually a dragon, and when he is attacked in this form by shikigami in the form of paper birds, leaving him seriously wounded, she feels him the dumpling. Haku coughs up a gold seal and an odd black slug, which Sen squishes. When Haku remains unresponsive, Kamaji tells Sen to visit Zeniba, Yubaba’s identical twin sister, who owns the seal, so the curse of the seal can be lifted. Kamaji gives Sen train tickets for her to be able to travel to Zeniba’s swamp. She is accompanied by Boh, Yubaba’s giant baby son, whom Zeniba had turned into a mouse.
During this time, No Face swallows a spirit in order to use his voice and makes fake gold nuggets to order food and other items from
Yubaba and Chihiro
the staff. No Face becomes larger as he eats, and swallows several spirits after Sen declines his offer of gold. Later, Sen lures him out of the bath house by feeding him the remainder of the dumpling, which causes him to vomit until his stomach is empty and he is back to his normal self. No Face accompanies Sen and Boh/mouse to Zeniba’s house on the train.
Sen visits Zeniba, who she finds is very friendly and pleasant, in sharp contrast to Yubaba. Zeniba says that Sen had broken the seal’s spell by her love and caring and that the slug that Sen killed was a curse that Yubaba had placed on Haku to make him her slave. Haku, now fully recovered, comes to pick up Sen. No Face remains with Zeniba. On the way back, Haku says that if they return Boh, Yubaba’s son, to Yubaba, she will free Sen and her parents. Sen returns the favor by helping Haku remember his full name by reminiscing as a child when she fell into her hometown’s river and was saved by the current (Haku in his river dragon form). The river’s name was the Kohaku River, and Haku’s real name was Kohaku. At the remembrance of his name, Haku is completely freed of Yubaba’s spell.
Haku in Dragon form
At the bathhouse, Sen returns Boh to Yubaba, but the witch has one final test: Sen has to identify which of a group of pigs are her parents. Sen looks closely, then says that there must be a mistake; her parents aren’t there. This breaks the spell on the pigs and forces Yubaba to give Sen the rest of her name back and let her go. Now “Chihiro” again, Haku leads her to the entrance of the spirit world, saying that her parents are on the other side but warns her not to look back (he did not explicitly state a reason for this), though they promise to see each other again. Chihiro meets her parents, and they continue on to their new home.
*wikipedia.org
malonewc 
Spirited Away was a pretty good movie, but I wouldn’t suggest that children under the age of 12 watch it. The movie has quite a few “spirits” and “monsters” that could really scare younger children: the No Face and Yubaba being some of the scariest along with the stink spirit. Other parts that were really creepy include: the beginning when Chihiro finds her parents turned into pigs and all of the spirits begin to appear, when Chihiro goes to the boiler man and first meets him, and when Haku comes back badly beaten in his dragon form. There are also some properties of mysticism throughout the movie, as well as superstition. Some parents of younger children may not like this. Good does triumph over evil in the end, something parents can appreciate, and Chihiro and her parents do make it home safely. But I’m 22 and I was weirded out a bit, so I can’t imagine showing this to young children.
-Amy
P.S. The reason I used wikipedia.org for both the Ponyo and Spirited Away summaries was because I wanted it to be an unbiased, third-party description, rather than something I had written up myself, which would have come out skewed. I also wanted to be able to have kind of a common description for us all to be able to comment off of.
-Amy
With respect to the age of the viewer, I agree with Amy. Some of the depictions within this film could be quite unsettling and scary for children of certain ages. Aside from the fear factor within the film, I think that Miyazaki strays a bit from the themes that centralize in the previous movies that he has made. One of those main themes is environmental, such as in Princess Monanoke and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Spirited Away did have environmental tones, but they were underlying. One that registered to me after the movie plays out is that the “Stink God” that comes into the bath house as a pile of sludge is able to leave as a refreshed dragon after Chihiro starts the chain of events that removes all of the garbage piling up within the sludge. This “Stink God” is acutally not a Stink God at all, but a River Spirit who has been drastically polluted by humans. We are unable to see that this is the true form of this spirit until we discover Haku’s true nature as a River Spirit in the form of a dragon at the end of the film. But like I said, this theme is underlying. The main focus of this film is economic concerns of financial greed. It can be seen in Chihiro’s parents’ idea that they can do no harm by eating the food in the café because “Daddy has credit cards and cash,” the witch’s desire for nothing but wealth and profit at her bathhouse, and the desire of all the workers at the bathhouse for the gold No Face hands out. Nothing turns out well for these characters as a result of their greed. Again, I do not recommend this film to young viewers, but it is rich in theme and meaning. Love and independence are two other themes that are portrayed within the film. If you have teenage children, this could be a potential film to expose to them.
** BETH **
After watching “Spirited Away” I have to agree with both you (Beth) and Amy. It is certainly not a good film for children under the age of 7; possibly even older. I thought it was a fascinating film even though it was really strange and I suppose the strangeness of anime is what keeps its viewers coming back for more. I remembered the post of the movie, “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” when you mentioned the “stink god” because that film also apparently had an issue with pollution judging from what I read. Miyazaki definitely puts clear messages in his films so that it even sticks inside a child’s mind. I guess he, like many other geniuses, can be strange but with it comes brilliance in some form.
-Matt Ellis-
I agree with all of you guys! I was really looking for superficial environmental lessons to be learned from this film. I didn’t catch them until I started doing some research on the film and dug a little deeper into it. The Stink God was one that stuck out to me. I found myself routing on Sen as she tried to prove to Yubaba that she could take care of the biggest, dirtiest, but most respected guests. I compared this film to another one of Miyazaki’s films, Porco Rosso. Both of these films contained some scenes of bloody fights. I just felt that both of these films were catered to a little older of an audience than what some of Miyazaki’s other films were addressed to. I would recommend this film to a 12+ audience. I felt that Spirited Away contained aspects of mostly childhood independence which could be good for teenagers. Sen goes from being a scared and dependent child to saving her dragon friend and cleaning up the Stink God. She even challenges Yubaba! I felt that this film encouraged the viewer to be brave and courageous and to stand up for what is right. I also liked Sen’s heart. She was a whole and good spirited child that wanted the best for all. I noticed this, when she treated the No Face monster so kindly. Everyone feared him but she befriended him. Sen also nursed Kamaji back to health. Her kindness to all was a main reason why I enjoyed this film. I think parents will find some peace of mind with Sen’s character in the film!
By: Lindsey
I was looking for environmental/ pollution elements as I watched this movie, because of the original post everyone put up about their film being very environmentally conscious. So one thing that did stand out to me in regards to the bath house was the amount of dirty smoke that was shown before Chihiro entered the bath house. It was almost foreshadowing of the corruption that was going to occur there.
This movie was definitely made for older children and I believe the viewers can connect with the characters. I believe many children will be able to connect to Chihiro’s character. When children are growing up, they learn how to become independent. Throughout the movie, Chihiro has to become independent and make decisions on her own. When she has to try “fit in” at the bathhouse, she has to ask for a job. She goes to Kamaji, the boiler room guy, to beg for a job. He tells her to go see Yubaba and ask her for work. She yet again has to go talk to her by herself to ask for a job. When her first task came into play she did it all her own. Later in the movie, she has to talk to the “no face” spirit and be courageous to help the community. I feel in this movie children can see how to become independent in some cases and be courageous about things in life. Chihiro seems to gain trust with the people in this community pretty fast. She learns fast how a work environment works. She started off cleaning the stink spirit herself, but then it gets a little out of hand and everyone lends a helping hand. In a working community even if you do not get along with everyone, there will be times where everyone will need to come together and work as a team. Even though your children watching this movie probably won’t be working, I think this movie shows a great deal of good examples of what a good working environment should look like. Your children can see this and, even though not working, they will need to work together with other peers in the classroom or on a sports team. So in watching this movie, your children can see good examples of trust, team work, and becoming independent at the same time.
By: Megan Fisher
I feel that this film, like all of you have said, isn’t suitable for children of all ages, however it does bring up important lessons for children to learn. Besides the environmental aspect, growth as independent person and the theme of love this film also focuses on the idea of gluttony. The parents turn into pigs, because the binge on the food provided for the ghost. The bath house workers feed the Stink God all food they have which in turns makes bigger requiring more attention and food. The bath house workers get eaten, because they are so focused on getting gold. All of these things turned out to be detrimental and lead to the downfall of the characters. The parents are stuck as pigs and rely on the their young daughter in order to save them, if she didn’t save them they were going to be pigs for the rest of their life therefore leaving their daughter all alone. If the Stink God wouldn’t have been fed as much as he was then he wouldn’t have gotten so big and acquired so much power. Finally if the bath house workers wouldn’t have wanted gold and wealth then some of them would not have been eaten. All of these things were reversed at the end of the movie showing that even if at times you are gluttonous you are able to redeem yourself by realizing that most things are okay in moderation. So an outstanding theme in this movie was gluttony only causes problems. I think this is an important lesson for children to learn and be reminded of at any age.