Movie Review: Spirited Away

Spirited Away is one of my favorite movies ever!! I saw it for the first time when I was about seven, and I have loved it ever since. 

The story follows Chihiro, who is moving to a new town with her parents. On their way there, they take a wrong turn and end up taking a "shortcut" to try and get to their new house. Instead, they end up at what seems to be an abandoned amusement park. 

Her parents' curiosity takes them into the amusement park where Chihiro reluctantly follows. After smelling some food, they decide to cross the small river bank and venture into the park. They come across a food stall that is filled to the brim with delicacies, but no attendants. Chihiro's parents decide to eat there, leaving Chihiro to wander around on her own. 

Chihiro then finds a bathhouse, which appears to be empty but up and running. Outside the bathhouse, she is startled by a boy who gives her some discomforting advice: leave before all the lights go on.

Chihiro seems to take his advice, of course, she could just be freaking out by the weirdness factor of it. Either way, she runs back to her parents. At this moment, the lights of the bathhouse are seen coming on behind her. When she arrives back to the food stall where she left her parents eating, she is astonished to see that they have been turned into pigs!

Chihiro runs out of what seems to be confusion. Eventually, she finds her way back to the river bank, which is now completely overflowing with water making it impossible to cross. She does so anyhow. 

Dragging herself out of the water, she sits on the bank of the river hoping that this was all a bad dream. She closes her eyes and wishes for it to just disappear. Just then, Haku (the boy who gave her the scary advice) finds her again and tells her that if she doesn't eat something from this world, that she'd literally disappear.

Following Haku's advice, again, she eats, which allows her to stay in the spirit world. Once C. eats and starts feeling better, Haku explains to her that she needs to get a job at the bathhouse in order to stay in the spirit world and save her parents. The rest of the movie is an awesome, highly visual story about how Chihiro saves her parents, positively affects the spirits in this world, and eventually finds out just exactly what she needed to learn…that home is where your heart is.

All in all, this is one of my favorite movies ever! Not only is it a great storyline, but the graphics are beautifully done and the characters are unique and interesting.