Why Spirited Away is Japan’s greatest animated film

Unravel the magic of 'Spirited Away', a masterpiece that has etched its name in the annals of Japanese animation. Explore the reasons behind its unparalleled success and how it continues to captivate audiences worldwide with its unique storytelling and artistic brilliance.

As Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning anime turns 20, Arwa Haider asks why the film’s powerful magic still captivates today.

Spirited Away (2001) is an extraordinary gateway into anime as a unifying form, and into themes of environmentalism, supernaturalism, and humanity that are deeply rooted throughout Miyazaki’s works

• The heroine, Chihiro, is a 10-year-old girl who just wants to be normal, but doesn’t know what normal is any more, and sees her parents succumbing to temptation and greed
• Throughout this tale, nature is intrinsically magical; humans often seem comparatively graceless, destructive, and given to disastrous materialism
• Studio Ghibli has always been interested in environmental themes, partly out of genuine concerns for the environment, partly because the studio is based in a new town in the Tama Hills that used to be open countryside
• Even the name of the studio, Ghibli, is an Italian term derived from Arabic, meaning “hot desert wind”

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Miyazaki has thought about what it is like to be 4ft tall, and he has incorporated it into the way he shoots his world.

The camera shoots here at a child’s eye-level. The adults are towering above us, and they are something solid to grab onto.

Themes of Spirited Away

Miyazaki’s films caught the zeitgeist in the late 20th century, for audiences just starting to come to terms with environmental issues

• In the 21st century, with millennials growing up with a sense that their world has already been despoiled
• Both its spell and earthly message remain multi-generational

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