Spirited Away Movie Analysis

Director Miyazaki illustrated in “Spirited Away” and “Ponyo” how love, identity, perseverance, and adversity can conquer anything. At the beginning of the movies, we see how food and water set Chihiro, Sosuke, and Ponyo’s adventures, and the conflict, they endure and how they were perceived in the spirit and human worlds. The spirit world was less tolerant of anything different, whereas the human world was more welcoming; however, they both illustrated the same message about how people should be more open-minded and to be more accepting. An example in “Spirited Away” showed how the Spirit world viewed Chihiro as nothing more than just a human being who came to their world to cause trouble, according to Yubaba; whereas in the human world, Ponyo

was welcomed by Sosuke, even though at the start of the movie, Ponyo was appeared to be a goldfish, nevertheless she was still welcomed by a human. The narrator showed his audience how difficult it was for Chihiro in the spirit world, in “Spirited Away”, but, Ponyo was the opposite in the human world but she still had adversity. By the contrast of both worlds, Miyazaki is showing his audience how humans are more accepting of things that are different vs the spirit world which rejects differences. The storyteller showed a scene in “Spirited Away” where Yubaba tried to trick Chihiro into choosing her parents from a group of sprit she had turned into pigs, but it didn’t work the way Yubaba wanted it to, because Chihiro was able to sense that her parents were not there. An example was also shown in “Ponyo” where Ponyo’s father had tried to trick Sosuke into giving up Ponyo but the little boy, did not fall for his tricks because he could see through them. The storyteller shows the audience that children have good instincts because that they can sense when something is not right, like when Chihiro and Souke used common sense in their situations to resolve their issues with their antagonists.

Another important scene in the movies is identity – In Spirited Away, if you want to get back to the human world, for example, that it’s very important that you don’t forget your name. Additionally, in “Ponyo” an example in the film showed when Sosuke assigned Ponyo a name – for human beings, names represent the importance of personal identity and uniqueness, just as in the spirit world. In the movies, “Spirited Away” and “Ponyo”, Miyazaki shows his audiences how Chihiro and Ponyo’s lives became conflicted in the spirit and the human worlds. Chihiro was very conflicted by not knowing what will become of her life since her parents were not able to take care of her. Also, Ponyo escaped her magical world and like Chihiro was not sure what would become of her life. For both protagonists’, it’s natural for anyone to succumb to that kind of pressure, but it is especially difficult for someone who is five or ten-years old, and now has to take care of

themselves.
In the beginning of “Spirited Away”, the narrator shows the audience how defiant Chihiro was towards her parents while they were driving to their new home, in a new town.

Because of her actions, her parents took the wrong exit into this mystical world and they became trapped. Also, in “Ponyo” the movie begins with Ponyo’s dad creating life in the ocean and here the narrator showed an example where she saw an opportunity to escape her father’s oppression and leave. In these regards the narrator is illustrating that both characters share similar circumstances that even though their situations might not have been the same experiences, that they both share the complexities of their existence. The narrator showed examples in “Spirited Away” how powerful food was, and that eating food from that world has consequences. Human beings should make sure that before they eat the sprits world’s food that it was essential that it was cleaned or else, you will be turned into a little piglet. Chihiro’s parents didn’t see the warning signs and eat uncleaned spirit world food and they were transformed into pigs. This was a hard lesson learned for Chihiro and her parent even though her parents’ don’t remember anything that had happened to them after taking the wrong turn. However, the narrator is advising his audiences to be aware, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Also an example, we see in “Ponyo” were she was forbidden by her father not to leave her world much less to eat

human’s food. She not only eats food that was forbidden, but she tastes Sosuke’s blood and is contaminated by his DNA and began to transform. Miyazaki is telling his audiences that if something doesn’t belong to you, or if you find yourself in a strange place, do the right thing and ask questions, get approval before indulging. In “Spirited Away”, you would think as adults that Chihiro’s parents would have known better, and not eat food left unattended. In “Ponyo” she did the right thing by asking for food: something some human beings lack, commonsense.