hmmm. interesting.
Spirited Away tv Review
Chihiro Ogino is an ordinary teenaged girl moving to a new town with her parents. Chihiro's dad loses their way and come across a tunnel in which ttakes them into the spirit world. They come across a seemingly abandoned theme park filled with many restaurants in which Chihiro's parents help themselves to the food. Feeling uneasyChihiro goes off to explore and meets a mysterious boy named Haku who warns her to leave before it gets dark. When Chihiro returns she discovers to her horror that her parents have been transformed into pigs. To rescue her parents Chihiro has to remain in the spirit world and find work at the spirit bathhouse to find a way to turn them back.
Written by syeung321.
Story & Characters
Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi), created by Hayao Miyazaki is the story about a 10 year old girl called Chihiro, and has been described as a Japanese 'Alice In Wonderland', except soooo much better. Spirited Away begins with Chihiro and her parents moving to a small town. Along the way they get lost going down a 'short cut' her father found, and end up at a building with a long tunnel through it, which looks like a railway station. On the other side is a beatiful park-like area that Chihiro's father presumes is an old amusement park that closed down in the early 90's. Her parents notice a delicious buffet and help themselves, while Chichiro looks around the strange place and meets a young man named Haku who is shocked to see her and tells her to leave before dark. However she finds her parents have been turned into pigs, and she doesn't manage to leave in time. She finds herself trapped in a magical world with strange creatures, but with help from Haku she needs to find the courage she never knew she had to save her parents and return home. Getting a job in a Bathhouse Chihiro developes as an amazing, yet sweet character. She has her name stolen and changed to Sen by the bathhouse owner, a witch named Yababa, and must remember it in order to return home. In a very believable and intresting way she goes from rejection by some characters to acceptance and friendship from others, and along her journey to save her parents helps others and touches hearts an a very admirable and sweet way.
Rating:
Art
Beautiful. This art style was very unique compared to most Anime I had seen before, but I liked it. The human's eyes were smaller, the noses higher and faces longer, appearing more humanlike than the typical CLAMP anime art style. The colours were vibrant and beautiful, and the varying characters fitted the detailed scenery perfectly. The strange creatures in this world where cleverly thought of and depicted, and the movements and mannerisms of the characters were very fluid and appeared very realistic in comparison to many cartoons/anime. The most beautiful art was the scenery, every detail was included to make it appear as real as possible, whilst still being animation. The strange creatures varied from very human looking ones such as Chihiro, Haku and Lin to humanlike animals such as frogs, ducks, mice and birds and strange creatured such as NoFace, a black shadow with a mask and other characters such as goozey stink spirits and dragon-like river spirits. Backgrounds are beautifully intricate, yet the animation is quite simple but loaded with visual details. Overall, a pleasure to watch because of the intresting art style and design, magical artwork and is overall amazing.
Rating:
Sound
I have watched this in both the English-dubbed version and the Japanese version with English subtitles, and it's funny how much it can change things. Personally, I loved the English voices used. Daveigh Chase's performance as Chihiro was amazing, and her voice fitted perfectly to the role. In English the parents voices are more realistic, as is Haku's and Yababa's, and Kimaji the boiler-man. I think the English language fitted better as it was slower and the voices fitted the characters more, but the Japanese language fitted the Japanese setting more. There is no awkward synchronization between the dialog and the characters speaking, in fact I never knew it had been dubbed until I watched the Japanese version. The DVD is good as it has both Japanese and English versions and subtitles. As for the music, it was expressive, emotional, and beautiful helping to set the scene, involve the audience and give a 'magical' feel to the movie. It is a very european-classical style but with a japanese touch, but some have the traditional Japanese sound to them. The songs in this, although instrumental, are beautifully composed and are very emotional, almost bringing the listener to tears in certain scenes which is a sign of great composition. A beautiful array of songs, yet another factor that makes Spirited Away one of the best movies ever.
Rating:
Presentation
This movie is not only my favourite anime, but my favourite movie. On making this movie Miyazaki did a lot of research into behaviour of certain animals and humans, and this devotion to detail is evident and one of the many reasons why Spirited Away won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film and many other prestigious awards. Little things such as Chihiro falling behind then running to keep up with her mother, tapping her shoe when putting it on, tugging at her clothes when she is scared,holding onto her parents arms, and falling over all the time as she is clumsy add a sense of realism to the fantasy world she is in. Characters manage to convey emotion to the viewers with facial expressions and body movements cleverly so less dialogue is needed. The contrast between the two worlds is amazing, from the western-style modern day with t-shirts and shorts and audi cars in contrast to the more traditional clothes and Japanese architecture and culture of the other world. Beautifully humourous, little things such as soot balls helping chihiro, falling down stairs and running into walls, a mouse being carried by a tiny bird and cute facial expressions make this a very humourous, innocent and sweet entertaining movie that had me laughing at the cutest things. I loved Spirited Away's uniqueness and originality. Its themes, development of character, music and art make it a masterpiece. If you havn't seen it, make sure you do - you will love it. If you have seen it, watch it again. It only gets better ^________^
Rating:
Final Verdict
9.6667 (excellent)
Reviewed by cloudcherry, Dec 13, 2004
Comments
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Paolo Dec 13, 2004
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GaiJiN Dec 13, 2004
Excellent review for a wonderful film, every part is well written and there is nothing I can find to add or remove. And 9.66... is not overrated, it's really one of the best of Miyazaki, which means one of the best animated film ever ^^. *goes watch it again* thanks cloudcherry :) .
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Barbara Dec 13, 2004
Sounds interesting at first glance, I'll save it for reading later, it's too long :sweat:
But still I really appreciate your effort to type and post it here. Thanks, I sure will read it :) -
djhenry Dec 13, 2004
very well done review, i myself still haven't watched spirited away yet, but this ringing endorsement of the movie makes it most certainly tempting to go and watch right away, very well done review cloudcherry :D.
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cloudcherry Dec 13, 2004
^________^ me again!!!
heya if u luv spirited away as much as me, come join my spirited away group! ^_____^
clicky ------> Spirited Away Group
Yea hehehe I know it's a high score, but it is my favey movie, so i felt it deserved it ^_____^
Thanks for the comments!!! (n_______n) -
cloudcherry Dec 13, 2004
doh double post!! >____<
sorry!! ^_____^ -
kumori Dec 14, 2004
Spirited Away is a great movie...I personally didn't like how the characters were drawn though...it was different to what I was used to...It just didn't fit my style...but that didn't really matter, because as your reviews says, it's just an awesome movie
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KittyPuchiko Dec 14, 2004
Great review! ^_^
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Drakonshie Dec 15, 2004
i saw spirited away, and i really enjoy it. i love the instrumental music. i think the rating is fitting. your review is written quite well. it's very descrpitive, and you pointed out many reasons why this movie is great.
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XianPu Banned Member Dec 17, 2004
I finally brought myself to see this movie. All I've got to say is wow. What the hell was I thinking? I guess because Studio Ghibli and Disney went in together it pushed me away from the movie, but man was pleasantly surprised to find that this movie is all that I've come to expect from Miyazaki. Great review for a great movie. :)
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boei Dec 17, 2004
Great review for a great movie.. I have seen this movie for around 4 times and i have not gotten tired of it at all.... I saw the cantonese dubbed version too... not bad.
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chibicow Dec 17, 2004
I personally loved this movie - i cant say much simply because the review speaks for itself! Im no expert but must say a big thankyou to cloudcherry for writing such a wonder piece. IMO - it tells you *99%* of what there is to know about the movie, and i like the movie its great! Sorry if im boring you but thanks!
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shirahana Dec 18, 2004
I haven't seen it yet... but it's definitely on my list of movies to watch. Hayao Miyazaki is a very talented director. I've seen several other animated movies by him, and I enjoyed them.
I'll have to get this movie somehow.... x_x;
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Neriko Dec 19, 2004
Excellent review ms.cloudcherry, Ireally enjoyed reading it .Oh yeah,I'd like to wish you and yours a very safe and merry christmas,A happy New Year and all the best in the years ahead.
c Ya,
NerikoP.S sorry it took me so long to reply ^_^'
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PureTypeDZanza Dec 19, 2004
Excellent review cloudcherry! I still haven't seen it lol! Still have to get my hands on it.
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usagi200 Dec 25, 2004
I love spirited away!! i've seen the dvd 6 times!! and it's still fun to watch when i'm bored.
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destructivemidgets Jun 27, 2005
wow excellent review normally this would be a over rating but not for this movie. I love this movie it is truely great especially the art this was a good review.
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akika Nov 02, 2005
ahh I wouldn't have given such high rating to this movie, no matter how much I love Miyazaki's films....The story wasn't as great as some of his earlier works, I don't quite understand why it became so popular in the westen society. I actually thought it was quite a weird movie, didn't flow as well as say Laputa or Mononoke or Totoro.
Nonetheless, it was still superb of course, the grand art, the soothing adventurous music and development of characters which are present in all Miyazaki's works.
Well done on the review! -
nainoi Oct 19, 2009
I really love this anime.
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Siri Nov 13, 2009
Am a big fan of your review. Was interesting to read and descriptive.
I love this anime too, it was absolutely magical.
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Nessbad94 Jun 26, 2011
It's the most wonderful anime I've seen! Everything here is so magical and just backs you in the tale)
lovely review, though! -
ai-yame Jul 03, 2011
I've also watched both the English dub and the original Japanese audio for this movie, and your comments are my thoughts exactly.
Thank you for this well-written review of one of my Studio Ghibli faves, Spirited Away. It deserves a pretty high rating. :)
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AirJack Jul 14, 2011
Nice review. This is one Anime that I will always re-watch every time.
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angelxxuan Banned Member May 23, 2012
as I tend to not rate reviews of things, for some odd reason I can always find faults in things, but I can't argue with it being one of the better ones out there. has a bit of a few things and still able to keep it clean, rare to find in an anime with such a wonderful artwork and plot.
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