Summary of the Movie (English Cast Mentioned) and Thoughts

Rating: 10/10 (15 March 2018)

This film follows the adventure of a young Girl named Chihiro (Daveigh Chase) who is moving to another town with her parents, but along the way is transported to the spirit realm via an abandoned amusement park. She soon meets a mysterious boy named Haku (Jason Marsden) outside a bath house who tries to get her back home before sunset and fails. He then tells Chihiro to find the boiler man Kamaji (David Ogden Stiers) and ask for work to survive. Chihiro soon makes a friend in worker Lin (Susan Egan) and an uneasy contract relationship with the owner Yubaba (Suzanne Pleshette). After Chihiro starts working under the name Sen, she accidentally lets in a demon known as No-Face (Bob Bergen) who eventually terrorizes the bath house customers and staff. Chihiro eventually learns that Haku is a dragon that is being hunted by Yubaba's sister Zeniba (Pleshette) for stealing her golden seal. After Chihiro resolves to return the seal for Haku she confronts No-Face and succeeds in vacating him from the bath house. Chihiro boards a train bound for Zeniba's home and returns the seal and is delighted to see her friend Haku back and healthy again. While on their way from Zeniba's home to the bath house, Chihiro remembers a time when she was a young child and how she was saved from drowning in a river. When she recounts the story she mentions the name of the river being the Kohaku River and how Haku was the one that saved her. Haku thanks Chihiro dearly for remembering his name and returns her to the bath house so she may rescue her parents and leave the spirit world, never to look back and start her new life in her new town and home.
This movie is one of a coming of age story for the main character. She starts out as a rude, scared, and childish but grows to be much braver and kinder to the people around her as the movie goes on. Some scenes that focus on this include her willingness to help a dirty river spirit despite his stench and the difficulty of the task, her growing confidence when traveling the long stairway on the side of the building, and her resolve to help her friend Haku. This coming of age for young girls is common in Studio Ghibli films such as Keke's delivery service and Princess Mononoke.
The viewer can very much see the coming of age in the movie via long shots of Chihiro's demeanor when walking up and down the stairs on the building. She becomes more and more confident about traveling these seemingly dangerous stairs compared to her first reaction to running down them screaming in the early minutes. This coming of age reaches a climax when she bravely runs across a decrepit water pipe that crumbles as she runs across.
This movie shows how much even a child can adapt to their new environment when they meet friends along the way and how they can positively affect each other's behavior. Chihiro was scared and depressed about moving to a new town but becomes more confident about it at the end of the film thanks to her experiences in the spirit realm.