“Where’s your home? Don’t you have any friends or family?” says Sen. “ No, no. I’m lonely. I’m lonely.” cries No-Face.¹ Spirited Away, by Studio Ghibli, is an amazingly produced and illustrated film. It explores ideas of sin, maturity, and true love, and is a very beautiful movie.

Chihiro, aka Sen, the lovely main character, explores the outside of an abandoned bathhouse when her parents notice the food stalls filled with meat, vegetables, etc. Consumed by greed, they begin eating until they turn into pigs. Scared, Chihiro runs and ends up meeting Haku, who feeds her food from the spirit world so that she doesn’t disappear. She gets a job working for Yubaba, the director, and her name becomes Sen. On the bridge heading to the bathhouse is a spirit named No-Face, who watches her closely. Later, a guest, thought to be a Stink Spirit, shows up and it’s Sen’s job to help clean him. After finding a plug in him, she takes it out and a water spirit comes out. He gives her a ball of an unknown substance and leaves. No-Face finds his way into the bathhouse and begins eating workers who are consumed with greed for the money that he’s giving out.

On the other side of the bathhouse, Sen meets Yubaba’s twin who comes after Haku for stealing her golden seal. Haku and Sen fall down a chute to escape, and while in his dragon form, Haku is fed some of the water spirit’s ball by Sen and he returns to normal. Yubaba calls for Sen to clean up the mess with No-Face, and Sen, using the rest of the ball given by the water spirit, feeds it to No-Face and he begins throwing all the food and people up. The two leave for a train that will take them to Yubaba’s twin’s house, in order to return the golden seal that Sen got from Haku. At her house, Sen returns the seal in time, and Haku shows up at her door. They fly back to the bathhouse and as they do, Sen finds out Haku’s actually the spirit of the River, and this breaks his contract with Yubaba. Once they get back, Sen is tested by Yubaba in order to leave. She had to pick out her pig parents from a group of pigs, and Sen knew they weren’t there, so she was able to break her contract. She then left with her parents, leaving behind the spirits.

Exploring the first idea of the film: sin. Throughout the film, the sin of greed is shown through Chihiro’s parents and the workers of the bathhouse. In the beginning, when Chihiro’s parents are stuffing their faces full of food, they turn into pigs. This is their fit punishment because similar to pigs, all they did was laze around and eat food, becoming bigger and bigger. The workers of the bathhouse were greedy for the gold that the water spirit and No-Face gave them. Three of the most greedy workers were eaten by No-Face. This was due to their greed and hunger for gold, and in return, they too got eaten.

The second idea of the film: maturity. Chihiro, after getting the job with Yubaba, is forced to become mature really fast, skipping past her childhood years. At such a young age, she has a job, is required to communicate with guests who are far bigger than her, and deals with large problems and works to create a solution. She also has to deal with her parents becoming pigs and being hidden from her in the pig pens. All of these big changes made it hard to adjust, but thankfully she was able to become accustomed to life at the bathhouse.

The last idea of the film: true love. Most of this film doesn’t revolve around love, yes, but it does serve a minor plot in the movie. Haku, who remembers Chihiro’s name even when it changes to Sen, is her true love in the film. Chihiro follows his instructions, and when told that he is Yubaba’s assistant and may be evil, she still has faith in him because he helped her. When Haku is hurt, Chihiro gives Haku the water spirit’s ball in hopes of saving him. He was only able to return to normal because of Chihiro. Kamaji, the worker who controls the water, says that only true love could break the spell on the golden seal that Haku had stolen. Haku coming to save Chihiro from Yubaba’s twin and bring her back to the bathhouse is also an act of love because he wants her to be able to get her parents back. The final act of love is when Chihiro tells Haku his real name. Chihiro remembers a time when she was younger and the river gave back her shoe. Not with the current or otherwise, but the spirit of the river gave it back. This is why she thinks Haku is the river spirit, and he is. This breaks the spell on Haku.

Another point to touch on is the beautiful illustrations and animations in the film. Two of my favorite scenes are the introduction to the bathhouse at night where the lights are bright and shining against the dark background. The second scene is when Haku and Chihiro are running through a flower field and it’s super bright and beautiful. While the two scenes show the contrast between dark and light, good and bad, they are really gorgeous panels of the movie and are definitely a sight to see.

I love this film so much and I recommend watching this and any of the Studio Ghibli films. They all have amazing original music, animations, plots, and voices. The unrealistic world in which they are all in makes them amazing to watch. I rate Spirited Away a 5/5 and I definitely suggest that you watch this beautiful film.