Throwback Thursday - Spirited Away (2001)
Hey guys, Chuck here. Well, this week for Throwback Thursday, I've been requested by a good friend of mine to review an anime film. While he wasn't necessarily specific about which anime film, he just said AN anime film. Now, as I previously stated in my post, Why I Love Anime, I'm a fan of anime, and I have a few titles in my Blu-ray collection. So, this week on Throwback Thursday, I'm going to take a look at one of my favorites: Hayao Miazaki's Spirited Away.
Released in 2001 to critical and audience acclaim, Spirited Away follows a ten-year-old girl named Chihiro. Now, Chihiro and her parents are moving to their new home, when they get lost and come across what appears to be an abandoned festival. While her parents begin to gorge themselves on all of the food lying around, Chihiro looks around and comes across a bathhouse. It is there that she meets a boy named Haku, who urges her to leave before it's too late. Upon returning to her parents, Chihiro sees that her parents, due to eating all of the food, have been mystically transformed into pigs. Soon after, spirits start arriving to stay at the bathhouse for a vacation, and Chihiro starts disappear. Haku helps her maintain corporeality, and leads her to the boiler room, where she is to seek work from the boiler-man Kamaji. At first, Kamaji refuses to hire Chihiro, but he relents and send his assistant, Lin, to take Chihiro up to the office of Yubaba, the witch who runs the place and turned Chihiro's parents into pigs. Yubaba initially tries to frighten Chihiro away, but sees the girl's persistence, and agrees to hire her. The contract is signed, and Yubaba has taken Chihiro's name, renaming the girl as Sen.
The next morning, Sen visits the pigpen her parents are being kept in, and soon realizes that she's starting to forget her old life. Haku gives Sen a good-bye card that she had with her from before, and warns her that Yubaba controls people by taking their names, and as soon as Sen forgets everything about her old life, she'll be trapped in the spirit world. Now, there's a lot more about the story of this movie that I'd like to get into, but I really don't want to ruin an amazing experience for those who haven't watched it yet. If you want to know the rest of he story, you'll just have to pick the movie up for yourself and give it a watch.
Spirited Away is truly a feast for the eyes. The animation is absolutely stellar, and is a visual marvel to look at. As I said before in my Why I Love Anime post, I find anime, as an art form, to be a truly beautiful style of animation that can be used to tell very rich, very imaginative stories, and this movie is no exception. Studio Ghibli, through their license with Disney at the time, released an amazing film, that (and deservedly so) took home the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. On Disney's part, they brought together a brilliant cast for the English dub. Daveigh Chase, who is most known for voicing Lilo from Disney's Lilo & Stich, was perfect here as Chihiro, and Jason Marsden was terrific as Haku. Disney VO legends like David Ogden Stiers, Susan Egan, and recurring Pixar Voice performer John Ratzenberger, were all terrific in their roles, and even Tara Strong was entertaining with her performance. To wrap things up, Spirited Away is a genuine masterpiece. Brilliant voice acting, gorgeous animation, this film is the very definition of brilliance in anime. I'm going to go ahead and give Spirited Away a rating of 5/5. This is Chuck signing off. See you guys next time.
Released in 2001 to critical and audience acclaim, Spirited Away follows a ten-year-old girl named Chihiro. Now, Chihiro and her parents are moving to their new home, when they get lost and come across what appears to be an abandoned festival. While her parents begin to gorge themselves on all of the food lying around, Chihiro looks around and comes across a bathhouse. It is there that she meets a boy named Haku, who urges her to leave before it's too late. Upon returning to her parents, Chihiro sees that her parents, due to eating all of the food, have been mystically transformed into pigs. Soon after, spirits start arriving to stay at the bathhouse for a vacation, and Chihiro starts disappear. Haku helps her maintain corporeality, and leads her to the boiler room, where she is to seek work from the boiler-man Kamaji. At first, Kamaji refuses to hire Chihiro, but he relents and send his assistant, Lin, to take Chihiro up to the office of Yubaba, the witch who runs the place and turned Chihiro's parents into pigs. Yubaba initially tries to frighten Chihiro away, but sees the girl's persistence, and agrees to hire her. The contract is signed, and Yubaba has taken Chihiro's name, renaming the girl as Sen.
The next morning, Sen visits the pigpen her parents are being kept in, and soon realizes that she's starting to forget her old life. Haku gives Sen a good-bye card that she had with her from before, and warns her that Yubaba controls people by taking their names, and as soon as Sen forgets everything about her old life, she'll be trapped in the spirit world. Now, there's a lot more about the story of this movie that I'd like to get into, but I really don't want to ruin an amazing experience for those who haven't watched it yet. If you want to know the rest of he story, you'll just have to pick the movie up for yourself and give it a watch.
Spirited Away is truly a feast for the eyes. The animation is absolutely stellar, and is a visual marvel to look at. As I said before in my Why I Love Anime post, I find anime, as an art form, to be a truly beautiful style of animation that can be used to tell very rich, very imaginative stories, and this movie is no exception. Studio Ghibli, through their license with Disney at the time, released an amazing film, that (and deservedly so) took home the Oscar for Best Animated Feature. On Disney's part, they brought together a brilliant cast for the English dub. Daveigh Chase, who is most known for voicing Lilo from Disney's Lilo & Stich, was perfect here as Chihiro, and Jason Marsden was terrific as Haku. Disney VO legends like David Ogden Stiers, Susan Egan, and recurring Pixar Voice performer John Ratzenberger, were all terrific in their roles, and even Tara Strong was entertaining with her performance. To wrap things up, Spirited Away is a genuine masterpiece. Brilliant voice acting, gorgeous animation, this film is the very definition of brilliance in anime. I'm going to go ahead and give Spirited Away a rating of 5/5. This is Chuck signing off. See you guys next time.
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