Spirited Away, the one a friend talked me into
A girl wanders into a spirit world, her parents get turned into pigs, and she has to work in a bathhouse to win them back. The Miyazaki film I keep coming back to, plus the two others I've actually liked.
Some spoilers ahead.
I watched Spirited Away in English, and I honestly can’t pin down exactly when, but it was somewhere in my main anime-watching stretch. A friend of mine who worked at the cable company was big into Hayao Miyazaki, the director, and she’s the one who talked me into it. That puts it around the same time I first watched Cowboy Bebop, since it came from the same person. I’ll be honest: I’ve never managed to get into most of the other Ghibli films. Of the three I’ve seen, Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle both stuck, and Howl’s is genuinely just as good as this one. I’ve also seen Kiki’s Delivery Service. That’s the lot.
Walking into a world with no rules explained
My first reaction was just “what is happening here.” People are turning into pigs, magic is everywhere, and there’s this thread of Japanese folklore running underneath the whole thing. The center of it is a bathhouse, which is built around an onsen, a hot-spring bath where spirits come to soak and relax. I’d never even heard the word onsen at the time, so the whole setting was new to me: rows of tubs and rooms where everything goes to unwind. The movie never stops to explain its world, and somehow that’s part of why it works.
Chihiro’s arc
What I love most is Chihiro. She starts as a kid with no confidence at all, and she ends up steady and capable, at home in a world that is pure chaos: people turning into things, things turning into people. Her parents eat where they shouldn’t and get turned into pigs, and suddenly they aren’t there to take care of her. She has to figure the whole quest out alone and grow up fast to do it.
The part that stuck with me is how her reason for saving them changes. At first it’s just fear. By the end it’s something firmer: these are her parents, they don’t deserve to be fattened up and slaughtered for pig meat, and getting them back becomes a real responsibility instead of a panic. That search for the answer is the spine of the movie.
The quirks and No-Face
I love how quirky it is, and how many little side stories are happening around the edges. The one everyone remembers is the creature with the white face and the black hood, No-Face. He starts out harmless, swells into this devouring monster inside the bathhouse, and then comes back around to being gentle again. A whole roller coaster in one character.
The sound design and the visual art are phenomenal, which is the thing this movie is most famous for, and the praise is earned. It’s a strange, beautiful film, and it’s the one Miyazaki I’d happily watch again.