Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki (Viz Media) ~Ernie Hoyt

Spirited Away is the international English title for director Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli film 千と千尋の神隠し (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi). This book is the graphic novelization of the 2001 full length animation movie of the same name. 

It is the story of a young girl named Chihiro who is on her way to her new home with her parents. However, the father gets lost and the family finds themselves in front of a tunnel that goes through an old building. The father decides to check it out and although Chihiro is a little afraid, she follows her mom and dad. 

Once they’re out of the tunnel, they find themselves at what the father believes is an abandoned theme park. The father also smells something delicious and as they go into town, they come upon an area with a number of restaurants with a lot of tasty looking items on the table. Although there is nobody serving the food, the parents decide to eat. The father tells Chihiro not to worry, “You’ve got Daddy here. He’s got credit cards and cash”. 

Chihiro refuses to eat any of the food and decides to do a little exploring on her own. She finds herself on a red bridge in front of a large bathhouse. From the bridge, she can see a train and thinks the station must be nearby. She then hears someone shouting at her saying, “YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE! GET OUT OF HERE! NOW!”. 

Chihiro and her parents had unwittingly entered into the world of kami or spirits. The boy she meets on the bridge is named Haku. Haku tells Chihiro that she needs to cross a riverbed before it gets dark and the spirits start showing up. As Chihiro goes to find her parents, she finds that they have been turned into pigs and she can no longer cross the riverbed as it has become flooded. 

Haku comes to help her again. He tells her in order to save her parents and return to the human world, she will have to get a job here in the spirit world. He tells her to go see a person named Kamiji, a man who works at the boiler room for the large bathhouse. Kamiji sends her to the owner of the bathhouse - a witch named Yubaba. 

Yubaba tries to turn Chihiro away but eventually gives her a work contract. As Chihiro (千尋) signs her name, Yubaba takes awa the second kanji character of her name and renames her as Sen (千) and Chihiro soon forgets her real name. Haku later explains that that is how Yubaba controls people by taking their names. If she completely forgets her name, she will be stuck in the spirit world forever. 

Chihiro is taken under the wings of a bath worker named Lin. Lin shows her the ropes. However, Yubaba and the bath workers make things difficult for Sen. One of her first jobs is to clean a tub that hadn’t been cleaned in months. She then has to take care of a customer who is not only really large but also smells really bad. 

Later on, she sees another spirit and believing it to be a customer, she lets it into the bathhouse. However, that customer turned out to be a monster called No-Face and it is causing havoc on the premises. 

Can Chihiro save the bathhouse from the monster? Can she be able to find her parents and help them become human again? Will she be able to remember her real name and will she be able to help Haku find his own real name as well? All the answers to these questions will depend on the courage and spirit of Sen herself as she faces many challenges and obstacles to reach her goal. 

Spirited Away is not only a beautiful story that incorporates Japnese myth and folklore, it was also the first non-English language film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Annual Academy Awards held in March of 2003. It was also Japan’s highest grossing film until until 2020’s Demon Slayer : Kimetsu no Yaiba - The Movie Mugen Train,