Analysis of Subtext and Characters from the Anime Movie Spirited Away

The subtext of Spirited Away is when Hayao Miyazaki said that the inspiration for the story came from meeting the sullen 10-year-old daughter of a friend and his desire to make a film that would give her some useful lessons. These lessons provide us with the film’s main themes. Young girls as the main characters are a common form of story in anime. This is referred to as ‘Shojo’ in Japan and uses the perspective and situation of a young girl to explore many themes and stories. These can be issues of cultural change, family values, growing up or a convenient way to inject the ‘cuteness’ factor that is very popular in Japan.

Chihiro starts the film as a ‘whining’ character, complaining about the move and the number of flowers bought for her on her birthday. The journey that awaits her is the director’s way of telling her counterparts in the real world that she should act a little less spoiled and be aware of more things than her. Chihiro develops over the course of the fi lm into a more self-reliant and confident individual that, by the end, is no longer spoiled and is far more aware of who she is and what is important.

The most Personal thing she comes to value is her family. The simple idea of ‘you never know what you have until it’s gone’ is played out through her initial isolation and her struggle to get back what she has lost. Never was the adult request to ‘grow up’ so imaginatively and impressively realized.

Sarah Kim Columbia in 'The Journal Of Pastoral Theology' writes about Spirited Away's “Being a big fan of Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki's work, I collect most of my animated feature films whenever they are available, but the movie Spirited Away had such an effect on me that I was at first scared to include it in my collection. It is undoubtedly one of Miyazaki's masterpieces, winning the Academy Award for the best animated feature film, and being Japan's largest box office sensation to date. As usual, Miyazaki demonstrates in the film the brilliant artistry of hand drawn animation with enchanting qualities of visual surrealism, juxtaposing aesthetic details of visual realism. The film is an impressive works of art, which all the more questions my initial anxiety about-literally and figuratively-owning it”(Sarah Kim Columbia).

Characters

Chihiro is the main protagonist and heroine of Spirited Away. At the start of the movie, Chihiro is a stubborn and ignorant ten year old child who always wants everything to be what she wants to be, but when her she enters the Spirit World and her parents get turned into pigs, she pulls herself together with the help of Haku. On her arrival at the bathhouse, her name gets stolen and changed to Sen. This is the name that she is known by in the bathhouse. During her stay in the bathhouse, Chihiro develops and becomes a much more mature and brave person as she determinedly does everything she can to free her parents, and escape from the Spirit World, which she succeeds to do.

Haku is the main hero of Spirited Away. Haku is a river spirit of the Kohaku River that is stuck in the spirit world, as the Kohaku has been covered up with pavement and is no more. He can also change into a white dragon. When Chihiro comes into the Spirit World, Haku is the first person to help and show kindness to her, and in turn, she comes back to help him when he needs it most. When first met, Haku is perceived as a good person, but doubt starts entering into the mind when it is found out that he is actually Yubaba's apprentice, but later in the movie, Chihiro squashes a little black slug in his body that releases Haku from Yubaba's power. Chihiro also helps Haku remember who he really is, and that gives Haku alot of inner peace with himself.

Rin is a common female worker of the bathhouse. She is one of the first people to befriend Chihiro in the Spirit World. Her character is kind and fair, but her real character is shown, when no-face starts giving out gold. She becomes greedy and becomes just like everyone else in their attempt to get some gold.

No-face is a monster of the spirit world who cannot remember who he is and where he lives. In the movie, he drifts along to the bathhouse and befriends Chihiro and ventures into the bathhouse to cause a lot of different consequences. In this way, he becomes the main character in one of the sub-plots of Spirited Away.

In this subplot, he starts to give away gold for food, and even starts eating the people in the bathhouse. Eventually, Chihiro comes to the rescue and takes him along to Zeniba's house, where he comes decides to stay.