Spirited Away - Is it as good as they say?

 A Quick Message To The Audience

First of all a quick apology on my part! it's been well over a week since I last updated the ol' blog and that's terrible :( so as an extra special treat I'm going to be uploading my last 2 studio ghibli blogs tonight then moving on to the next phase of the blog. a complete overhaul of the ghibli page where I will be changing the topic to a sort of "anything and everything" subject, mostly films I'm thinking so far but I wont limit myself to making that the topic and I've got a very special film lined up for my first non-ghibli review! so make sure and look out for that. anyway that raps up the latest update on the Emmet blog, back to the review!

Spirited Away

Well it's finally here ladies and gentlemen the world renowned Spirited Away, One of Hayou Miyazaki's most famous films and very often one of the first Ghibli films people watch. This is most likely due to it's massive fan base and the amazing reviews it receives. The film had a budget of ¥1.5 Billion Yen ($19 Million Dollars) yet It remains the most successful film in Japanese history grossing over $274 Million Dollars worldwide! it overtook titanic (which was number one at the time) in the Japanese box office to become highest-grossing film in Japanese history.

It has received a huge amount of awards and nominations so rather than writing about each one here's a small list to give an idea of a few:

• Online Film Critics Society Award for "Best Animated Film"

• Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for "Best Animated Film" 

• Academy Award for "Best Animated Feature Film"

• Blue Ribbon Award for "Best Film" 

• Boston Society of Film Critics Award - Special Commendation

• Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA - Won the Saturn Award for "Best Animated Feature" and Nominated for the Saturn Award for "Best Music" and "Best Writing"

I could go on and write about every award the film has one and been nominated for but the review would be way too long! if your interested there is a list of awards and nominations the film received HERE where the full 44 award wins/nominations are listed.


Wow, the review is so long already and i haven't even started talking about the plot or characters of the film yet! thanks for sticking with it this far lol!


The plot revolves around a 10 year old girl name "Chihiro" and her adventure into a new world. The movie begins with Chihiro in the car with her mother and father as they are moving house from the city to a more rural area of Japan. during the drive to the new house they suddenly become lost and stumble upon what appears to be an abandoned amusement park. 


Chihiro's father insists on exploring it as she and her mother reluctantly go with him. As they explore more of the park Chihiro's parents end up sampling the food at an unattended stall. Chihiro wanders off finding a grand bathhouse where a boy approaches and warns her to leave before nightfall. 


When Chihiro runs back to her parents, she finds they have been transformed into pigs and the area starts to swarm with spirits. She eventually learns from Haku, the boy she had met earlier, that her and her parents have become trapped in the spirit world. Haku then brings Chihiro to the bathhouse run by a rather unpleasant yet somewhat likable witch named "Yubaba" where the main story line begins. 


So in a short summary the plot involves Chihiro getting trapped in the spirit world with her parents having been transformed into pigs as she tries to rescue her parents and get back to the human world while working for the witch running the bath house to the spirits Yubaba. The part of the story with Chihiro working in the bath house has got to be my favourite part of the movie, its just so lively and full of fun characters i love it. 


This has got to be in my Top 10 favorite films of all time list!, although it isn't number one it definitely ranks high. I love the style of animation, the story line is immersive, very individual and brilliant! it is full of both crazy and amazing characters and as with most ghibli films i find that it doesn't matter how long a character is on screen each one has it's own very distinct, individual character and personality behind it which is a big plus and something you don't get in most films. The settings in this film are magical, strange and totally amazing where the voice acting is once again top quality and i particularly like the voices of Yubaba/Zeniba and Chihiro. i love sitting down watching this film and just switching off not a care in the world aha. 


overall i think this film is a must see and deserves all the awards its received and more. If you haven't seen this film and the plot sounds AT ALL appealing to you i would highly recommend this film to anyone and if just one person that discovers this film through this i'll be one happy blogger! 


This is Emmet, Signing Off