Ashley Moltzan

English 4600

Susan Aronstein

5-1-2008

Recovery Power of Spirited Away

Many works of Japanese animation – anime – contain fantastical elements and often contain a primary and secondary world within. Thinking of anime that I merely own, I can share a couple examples. One anime, titled Fruits Basket, is about a teenage girl named Tohru who is taken in by the Sohma family who is changed into their zodiac animal when a member of the opposite sex embraces them. While initially appearing to be an ordinary drama with comic elements, fantasy elements are introduced. The fantasy serves as an important role in the story as well. While not physically in a secondary world, the Sohma family could be said to be a secondary world since they inhibit a curse marking them rather different from the rest of the society that could be said to be the primary world. Another example is the anime Inuyasha which has a few hundred episodes and movies as well. Like Tohru, Kagome is a seemingly normal teenage girl in Japan. There is an ancient well in the yard of her family. She inadvertently falls down the well and finds herself in a physical secondary world. While not a completely different world, this new place is in the time of feudal Japan among warring factions and permeated with demons. She befriends a few others in this secondary world and ventures on a quest. But she travels back and forth with the well causing much interaction between a primary and secondary world. There are also much anime films in the spirit of fantasy and other worlds, my favorite being Spirited Away. Hayao Miyazaki, director of Spirited Away, creates interaction between a primary and secondary world in the eyes of a young girl. This interaction causes many changes to occur and shows the power of what fantasy can bring. While I would love to explore all the anime series I love such as Fruits Basket and Inuyasha as well, I have chosen to singly explore Spirited Away because besides possibly ending up inadvertently writing a book, Spirited Away shows how one benefits from fantasy and gains consolation and recovery.

In the beginning of the film, a young girl by the name of Chihiro is traveling in a small vehicle with her parents because they are moving to a new neighborhood. Chihiro is clearly apathetic as she is shown lying on the back seat without any safety belt and is clutching a good-bye card from one of her classmates. She is yet unable to find any positive effects of the move but is only able to discern negative effects such as being away from her classmates. As her parents drive, they pass a series of shrines. Chihiro’s eyes increase in size with wonder. When she asks her mother the meaning of these structures, her mother replies by saying, “Some people think little spirits live there.” Since she replies with the word “some”, this indicates to me that she isn’t included showing that she has lost the traditional values of Japan. The family finds themselves lost in front of a tunnel leading to an abandoned theme park and venture inside. Chihiro feels that this is not acceptable but her parents push her away and regard her as acting ridiculous. They cross a dry river bed and discover a bunch of abandoned carnival stands. But one appears to not be abandoned. While there is no person or figure of any kind in this booth, there is an abundance of delicious food. Although the viewer can not physically smell the food, the visual imagery of the food and animations of heat rising cause the mind to imagine this great smelling irresistible food. While Chihiro resists temptation and attempts to plead with her parents to resist as well, her parents again brush her off and indulge in their appetites and temptations. Her father tries to calm Chihiro telling her, “Don’t worry. You got Daddy here…He’s got credit cards and cash.” Since they have money, there is not much concern for Chihiro’s behalf. Excess materialism has seemed to replace Japanese tradition. While there is no longer a belief in the little spirit houses seen on the side of the road, there is a certainly a belief in money. As lovers of immediate excess materialism, Chihiro’s parents remind me of Edmund from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe because Edmund immediately indulges himself in Turkish Delights from the White Witch without thinking of any further consequences besides immediate satisfaction caused by those Turkish Delights. While Chihiro goes against her parents by not indulging herself as well, this independence away from materialism saves her life.

Chihiro wanders away and finds a seemingly normal boy named Haku who tells her, “You shouldn’t be here. Get out of here now.” While yet unaware that she has encountered a secondary world, boundaries between the primary and secondary world are being established. Humans like her do not belong in this strange area that her and her family has encountered. A bit confused, she returns to her parents to encourage them to leave as well but they are still eating and have turned into pigs as well. Without the ability to speak, her parents squeal and appear as if they have forgotten they were ever human. Ghostly apparitions begin to appear as well. Chihiro is then justifiably afraid and attempts to return the way they came. But this task is found to be impossible since the dry river bed that they crossed has suddenly been filled with water. A ferry is seen crossing the river filled with ghostly apparitions as well. Chihiro sits at this newly created river band and cries because she believes that there isn’t anything that she is capable of doing and tries to convince herself that this is a dream. After all, she started her day off moving to a new house and was now suddenly seeing ferries full of ghostly apparitions. Chihiro begins to repeatedly say aloud, “I’m dreaming! I’m dreaming! It’s just a dream.” But this secondary world is not a dream. J.R.R. Tolkien would not have considered this fantasy if it was a dream either. As Chihiro opens her eyes, she finds her body appearing to disappear as well to become like the ghostly apparitions. She is an intruder onto this secondary world and needs a purpose or capability so stay. Haku finds Chihiro on the river bank and comforts her and gives her a piece of food from the secondary world. Chihiro is a bit afraid since well her parents turned into pigs after eating food from this secondary world. But unlike delicious appearing and smelling food, what Chihiro receives from Haku is more like a ball of medicine. By her facial expression, the viewer is able to tell that this is not a pleasing food at all. In addition to almost becoming invisible, Chihiro’s body has become rigid but this is easily fixed with an incantation by Haku. This rigidness of her body could be taken as a metaphor of how Chihiro is apathetic and selfish in the beginning regarding her move.

There is a bridge that Haku and Chihiro must use to access the bath house but if a human breathes during the crossing, their appearance is revealed. Chihiro fails at this task and as seen as an intruder. Humans are looked down upon in this secondary world and they are thought to have a horrible smell. This secondary world is full of ancient Japanese tradition. Bath houses were once all over Japan as a way to cleanse oneself physically and spiritually. But as modernization increased, these bath houses have almost disappeared. Chihiro is a product of this modernity and is initially rejected by members of tradition. She is later accepted into this community when she grows as a person by accepting traditional values of Japan such as not putting herself first and having confidence. After escaping from the bath house, Haku gives Chihiro a mission. She must travel by way of numerous stairs to the boiler room to find Kamajii to give her a job. Chihiro continues to sigh while travelling down the stairs and ends up falling, along with screaming into the wall. Her wariness leads to extreme nervousness leading to her stumble perhaps. When Chihiro encounters Kamajii in the boiler room, his employed workers consist of magically transformed soot. The soot was transformed into little black puff balls with arms, legs, and eyes. These soot balls are immediately seen as cute and a secondary world critter that a human from the primary world or viewer could perhaps relate to; they reminded me of black cotton balls with movable eyes from a craft store. As Chihiro watches the soot balls hard at work, one of them drops a rock on its way to the boiler. Automatically, Chihiro goes over to help it displaying her sympathy. She then performs the task for the soot ball, leading to the rest of the soot balls desiring for Chihiro to complete their tasks as well. It is impossible for Chihiro to help all of them so she must learn to pick and choose who to help. The soot balls are already a large group that helps one another even if it isn’t immediately clear. They do not need help from another world to perform their duties. While the prospect of a job may seem modern and materialistic in nature, this is not what a job for Chihiro is meant for. Chihiro has no desire to earn money at this job or earn materialistic commodities. Rather the only purpose for Chihiro in wanting a job is to escape the secondary world eventually and to save her parents. While being forced to do the dirtiest work at the bath house, Chihiro learns that having a job shouldn’t be about money and the ability to access more excess materialism. Rather, a job, no matter what it entails, should be focused on helping out one’s particular group – in this case, helping out Chihiro’s parents.

While in the boiler room, Rin enters and Kamajii tells her to take Chihiro to see Yubaba to receive a job. Rin appears to be human, but the audience is quickly reminded that this is not the case after Rin vocally announces her disdain for humans and has a large appetite for roasted newt. With Rin’s directions, Chihiro finds herself at Yubaba’s door. Decorated with elaborate tapestries outside the door, the viewer knows that Yubaba is important, rich, and a lover of excess materialism as well. After being pulled in by the magical wind of Yubaba, Chihiro and the audience see Yubaba as a menacing figure. She refuses Chihiro a job and then tells her that she’ll give Chihiro the worse job imaginable. Suddenly Yubaba’s baby is heard crying and Yubaba rushes in the nursery to calm the baby. This shift in personality of Yubaba shows that evil is not clearly defined in this secondary world. Yubaba literally zips up Chihiro’s mouth with magic but soon after, talks softly to her baby. After Yubaba finally consents to giving Chihiro a job, she is sent with Haku – Yubaba’s apprentice. But this Haku isn’t the purely sweet Haku that Chihiro remembers from earlier. Instead this personality of Haku tells Chihiro to remain quiet, address him as Master Haku, and tells the others of the bathhouse that “Three days of eating our food and her smell will go away.” He also says after this time, they may do what they want with her such as roast her…like a newt. In this way, Haku has lost his angelic qualities and now seems partly evil as well. Chihiro does not understand yet why Haku is acting like this and breaks down and cries. This film works on showing the dualities of good and evil and rather than having an ultimate good or an ultimate evil, there must be a harmonious balance. And hopefully the audience would take this into account for their own lives and rather than jumping into an excess of greed, there would be lenience towards harmony instead.

When Yubaba finally consents to providing Chihiro a job, Chihiro’s name is changed to Sen. Sen is an alternate reading of the same written character of Chihiro but this transformation of the kanji signifies that Yubaba owns Sen since Yubaba forces upon her a different recognition of those same characters. The literally meaning of Chihiro relates to the story and finding oneself in this fantasy story. Chi refers to the number 1000 while hiro refers to “inquire, fathom, look for”. Taken together, Chihiro could mean “looking deeply” or “inquiring after many things” which is rather fitting for this character (Boyd 2). Chihiro is forced to look keep within herself and find what was once hidden such us the ability to save her parents, courage, and her name as well as the true name as Haku later on in the movie. While watching this movie as well as other fantasy media, we are often founding looking deep inside ourselves to see if we would be capable of performing what the hero or heroine has done if the possibility was real or not. Recovering one self’s true identity as well as recovering the identity of others is an important theme of this movie. Chihiro almost forgets her true identity and might have if she hadn’t had that good-bye card still with her from the class mate, also showing that the primary world and secondary world are connected. Chihiro also rediscovers Haku’s name as the Kolaku River because of a memory from the primary world. Chihiro had been swimming in the Kolaku River and lost her shoe but Haku in his river spirit form has pushed it to shore. The most important case of identification is when Chihiro must discern which pigs are her parents that Yubaba places in front of her. Somehow, Chihiro is able to recognize that none of these pigs are her parents. “The film’s denouement revolves around one final form of recovery through recognition, the scene where Yubaba gives Chihiro a final trial to see if she can recognize her parents among a mass of pigs. That Chihiro passes the test, correctly recognizing that her parents are no longer among the pigs, attests to her new clarity of vision and signals that she may now begin the voyage home” (Napier 308). Through her time in the secondary world, Chihiro learns the value of self identity and discovers a stronger sense of perception after the fear is exposed that identity has the ability to be lost.

While working in the bathhouse, a “stink spirit” appears that needs a bath. Chihiro and Rin prepare the largest bath for this repulsive creature. Although one can not smell the television screen, it is apparently that this creature smells disgusting because of the looks of the other creatures in the bathhouse. Chihiro attempts to cover her mouth but Yubaba tells her that she must be polite and keep her hands to her side. As Chihiro successfully prepares a pleasant bath for the “stink spirit”, she discovers what appears to be a thorn in the creature’s side and tells Rin to help her out. Yubaba, as she is watching from above, overhears Chihiro say that there is a thorn in the creature’s side. Once Yubaba realizes what the problem is, she shifts to a pleasant demeanor and magically creates rope out of nothing to have everyone pull on the rope in order to assist the “stink spirit”. As the thorn is lifted, rather than a thorn being released, a bicycle is pulled out of the creature as well as a multitude of trash. The “stink spirit” is actually a river spirit that had been heavily polluted. Like Tolkien, Miyazaki fears what is happening to the natural environment. As a compliment to Chihiro, the river spirit says “Well done” and gives her a ball of medicine. When the river spirit says “Well done” to Chihiro, I think of these words as appreciation but since they are so simple, this task seems like something she was supposed to do rather than something that is an astounding accomplishment. Rather than being praised for cleaning up a river or land area, this should be something that should be done regardless of any praise at all since we live on the earth and should take care of it since it provides our home. This scene from the movie was actually inspired from a real life experience. From an introduction for the movie on the DVD, the narrator says that Miyazaki had cleaned up a polluted river in his past with a bicycle in it as well. The river spirit was in the form of a dragon with a Noh mask. Noh masks represent traditional elements of Japan’s past from the time when modernization wasn’t prevalent and one would probably not find such a polluted river like the “stink spirit”. Haku is unable to find his true identity as the Kolaku River Spirit because the actual Kolaku River in the primary world has been drained and filled with apartments, causing Haku to be lost. Scenes like this offer recovery because it is possible to also assist a river that has been harmed from pollution in the primary world and to see actual places where river areas have been drained to assist modernization. In his essay “On Fairy-Stories”, Tolkien says regarding recovery that “And actually fairy-stories deal largely, or (the better ones) mainly, with simple or fundamental things, untouched by Fantasy, but these simplicities are made all the more luminous by their setting.” Spirited Away deals with pollution and modernization which doesn’t need a fantastical setting but causes the story to become more intriguing and perhaps causing the viewer to seriously listen to the message.

In addition to recovering from pollution from the environment, Spirited Away desires the viewer to recover from greed. A central character that embodies greed is the phantom like creature by the name of No Face. He is lonely and doesn’t know the correct way of making friends besides being materialistic. Like the other seemingly bad characters like Yubaba and Haku, No Face has a dual personality as well. He desires to be good and be Chihiro’s friend but he appears bad because he does not know the correct manner of making friends. Regarding Shinto religion, No Face is “one whose energy [ki] is inki which means one whose heart is closed (kokoro o tojiru)” (Boyd 5). On a rainy night, Chihiro invites No Face inside the bath house because she doesn’t know what kind of creature he really is. Like No Face, she tries to perform good actions but doesn’t understand that her action will lead to trouble. As Chihiro and Rin work on giving the “stink spirit” a bath, Rin asks Chihiro to obtain an herbal scent card from the foreman. No Face is quietly standing behind the foreman as well. The foreman refuses to give an herbal scent card to a human no matter how much Chihiro pleads. As the phone rings and the foreman answers, No Face hands Chihiro an herbal scent card. Chihiro thanks No Face and proceeds to use the item. No Face then steals the entire basket of herbal scent cards to hand over to Chihiro. She then says to him that she only needs one and doesn’t need anymore. No Face now appears upset and confused. He believes that more is better and doesn’t understand why Chihiro wouldn’t want them all. As the “stink spirit” is cleansed into a river spirit and leaves, he leaves an abundance of gold. No Face witnesses the excitement surrounded by this gold and thinks that perhaps gold will be his key to Chihiro’s friendship. No Face magically creates gold causing greedy excitement from all in the bathhouse. When Chihiro wakes up, everyone is downstairs feeding No Face. He says he wants to eat everything. The crowd is enormous and wants more and more gold. Rin’s friend says that they should get more gold and Rin exclaims, “You bet!” No Face does not know the meaning of satiation and even devours three creatures. Chihiro passes No Face as she passes through the bathhouse on the way to find a bleeding Haku. No Face offers Chihiro a large handful of gold but she says, “I don’t want any but thanks. I’m sorry but I’m in a really big hurry”: No Face does not understand and is upset. But the safety of Haku is much more important to Chihiro than gold. Chihiro is finally able to lead No Face out of the bathhouse and he comes along with her to help out Haku. While at Zaneba’s house, No Face learns to sew and find happiness with a friend without an excess of indulgence. Although creatures like No Face do not exist in the primary world, greed is at the heart of this problem and the viewer is able to see how ridiculous an excess of materialism is while having just enough and happy is the key to a good life.

Chihiro becomes more and more selfless as the movie progresses. In order to save the bathhouse from No Face, Chihiro feeds him the last half of the medicine from the river spirit. She had planned on giving the medicine to her parents in hopes that the medicine would cause them to become human again. But she decides that the safety of the bathhouse and No Face’s need to understand the danger of overindulgence overrides her desire to save her family. Chihiro also makes a sacrifice as she takes the train ticket from Kamajii. The train ticket is a one way ticket since the train only travels in one direction. Still, she accepts the ticket in order to save Haku with the recognition it will not be an easy journey. Love is the reason for her sacrifice. She loves Haku and is willing to put herself at risk in order to protect him. Zaneba tells her that the only reason that the spell she had placed over Haku was erased was because of love. “Miyazaki is possibly portraying Chihiro as being in a genuine, authentic relation with the kami presence of the Kolaku River. In Shinto terms, such an occasion is called shinjin-gouitsu, a ‘uniting of kami with the human spirit’ which occurs only when one approaches the other with the ‘sincerity and purity of one’s heart’” (Boyd 5). An important message of the movie seen in a fantasy realm between a young girl and a dragon is that a good life is guided by love which definitely carries over to the audience and the primary world.

I was reminded of C.S. Lewis while watching the film again because he believed that children were pure in heart and would be able to open themselves up to fantasy, unlike adults. This is true in Spirited Away as well; Chihiro is a young girl able to successfully cross over to the secondary world and also remember it as she returns. But her parents do not successfully cross over as humans and they do not remember the secondary world at all as the movie closes. They still have the same demeanor and did not change at all. But Chihiro remembers and it was not a dream since she is still wearing the hair tie Zaneba had given her. Although Chihiro seems to remember her time in the secondary world, she still clings to her mother while exiting the tunnel so how much she remembers is uncertain. There is the possibility that the memories of the secondary world are stored in her unconsciousness. “What happens in these dark parts of the brain may not always be consciously remembered but may serve at some level to promote action in the real world” (Napier 309). Her new outlook on life will surely cross over to the secondary world while the minds of her parents will stay the same. Like Susan from The Chronicles of Narnia who grew too materialistic and selfish to return again to the secondary world of Narnia, Chihiro’s parents are too materialistic to ever cross over. It is essential to be pure of heart, like children, in order to open up one’s mind to a secondary world.

Another case where the importance of simplicity rather than overindulgence is after Chihiro sees the large pig pen early in the film accompanied by Haku and is unable to discern which pigs are her parents. In order to comfort Chihiro, Haku gives her onigiri which are Japanese rice balls. It is a basic food that is often wrapped in seaweed and may have a flavor such as salty salmon or sour plum. These rice balls were often connected with home and used in family picnics. “The onigirii eating episode thus becomes a classic representation of cultural boundedness, constructed as a vision of the restorative powers of eating pure, homey food to stand as counterpart to the scenes of excess consumption that follow” (Napier 307). Soon after, No Face is seen indulging in dish after dish as he provides gold and disaster results since he is soon chased out of the bathhouse. Previously Chihiro’s parents were turned into pigs for overindulging. But since Chihiro only consumes simple food that contains a reminder of cultural tradition, she does not have disastrous results. This lesson could be extended to audience members to, again, not to overindulge in materialism and the best life may be one that is simple and based in tradition rather than progression to a globalization lifestyle.

Throughout the film, Miyazaki reaffirms cultural and Shinto traditional religious values by showing that “there is ‘a kind of life to everything’ and that certain customs such as cleansing both the external environment and one’s internal kokoro from pollution are practices to be reaffirmed. Likewise, Chihiro’s contribution to Haku’s sense of identity suggests that those of us in the contemporary world who are ‘inquiring after many things’ can assess and critique our inherited traditions and reappropriate those values that have been forgotten or covered in the way the Kolaku river had been.” (Boyd 6). Although the film could be seen as a reaffirmation of Japanese cultural values to benefit society, the film relates to audiences in a universal manner. Like Chihiro questions her materialistic parents, it is important for all to question their backgrounds and to find what philosophy they believe in independent from their parents, whether it may be the same philosophy or not. “The trope of excess consumption, however, transcends Japanese society, functioning as an important signifier throughout contemporary industrialized societies in which capitalism ‘prioritizes consumptive practice’….” (Napier 291). Chihiro teaches the viewer to reexamine themselves and especially check how materialistic and selfish they are.

Works Cited

Boyd, James W. and Tetsuya Nishimura. “Shinto Perspectives in Miyazaki’s Anime Film

‘Spirited Away’”. The Journal of Religion and Film. Vol. 8, No. 2, October 2004

Miyazaki, Hayao. Spirited Away. Studio Ghibli, 2004.

Napier, Susan J. “Matter Out of Place: Carnival, Containment, and Cultural Recovery in

Miyazaki’s Spirited Away”. Journal of Japanese Studies. 32:2

2006 Society of Japanese Studies, University of Texas at Austin.

Tolkien, J. R. R. “On Fairy-Stories”. Tree and Leaf.