Movie review: Spirited Away (2001)

Spirited Away is a movie that is related to Shinto, it has several Shinto aspects. This movie was directed and written by Hayao Miyazaki, he directed other Japanese anime like Totoro, Howl’s moving castle, princess mononoke and more. The movie begins with a young Japanese girl named Chihiro, she and her parents are moving to a new city. Chihiro pouting in the back seat when his father takes a wrong turn, they passed an old tori, a symbolic gateway marking the entrance to the sacred precincts of a Shinto shrine in Japan, and numerous “spirit houses”

The road leads to a tunnel-like entrance of an abandoned amusement park, her parents went down to explore and force Chihiro to follow. They crossed a dry river bed and went into a small town, once inside the town, they found a food stall open but unattended, her parents started to eat the food with a crazy appetite. Chihiro was worried that they shouldn't be eating the food in the town, she refuses to join them and looks around the town and she stumbles across a large building that is apparently an operative bathhouse. As dusk approaches, Chihiro meets a boy named Haku who urges her to leave at once, she runs back to the food stall to get her parents, her parents are still eating and they have grown fat and slowly transforming into pigs. She is unable to leave that place because the river bed is filled with water, Haku then appeared, he comforted and helped Chihiro by escorts her through a strange realm of ghosts and goblins, a world with all sort of wondrous creatures who have come to the bathhouse that run by an old woman named Yubaba. Haku brings Chihiro to the bathhouse and introduces her to the owner, Yubaba. Eventually Yubaba steals Chihiro’s name and gives her a new name called “Sen” which is commanded to use. Yubaba forces her to work for her, she is given a difficult job cleaning the bathhouse but is befriended by several strange creatures like an old man with spider arms named Kamaji who is in charge of the boiler room, and an assertive woman named Lynn. In order for Chihiro to save her parents, her and her new friends must get her name back and pass Yubaba’s test.

The reference of Shintoism is first viewed about 10 minutes into the movie when Chihiro passes a torii that is surrounded by numerous smaller shrines. A torii at the entrance of a shrine where kami come, in the movie it can be seen on the side of the road right before they reach the area of the bathhouse. The bathhouse is the main setting in the movie, where the central theme of purifying oneself. This theme is the major part of Shintoism that humans become polluted and end up doing things poorly, so they act in a way to wash the dirt away as purifying ourselves. This is one of the lessons Chihiro has learned and the reason for many dirty creatures visiting the bathhouse to get clean. The part where the god of the river went to the bathhouse and bath, Chihiro pulled out a lot of trash like bicycle, television, and boxes from the god’s body, it shows that humans polluted the river by throwing trash into it. Other than that, the transformation of Chihiro’s parents is also shown by the disrespectful and greediness of humans, her parents eat the food with crazy petite without getting permission and get punished by Yubaba. Another strong aspect of Shintoism that is shown in this movie is the creature, Kami, who visits the bathhouse. The creatures shown are from folklore but the main kami in this movie is Haku and Kaonashi, called No face. Haku is a river dragon that covered up himself as a human, Kaonashi is a ghost-like Kami, at the beginning of the movie it seems evil, but there is no real evil or good in Shintoism, so Kaonashi is not an evil and it just needs the bathhouse in order to clean his attitude and behaviour. These things make this movie an amazing and entertaining reference for Shintoism. Spirited Away is one of the best Miyazaki’s films because of the Shinto references.