Best animated film-ever.

Rating: 10/10 (11 December 2006)

Up until the time I viewed this film, I equated the phrase "Japanese animation" with phrases like "Pokemon," "Digimon," and other "mon's," that made me want to vomit. Hayao Miyazaki has really opened my eyes and made me realize just how wrong I really was.
The story opens with our hero, Chihiro, an apathetic, whiny little brat voiced brilliantly by Daveigh Chase, as she's moving to a new house. Her parents (Lauren Holly, Michael Chiklis) make a classic, horror-movie boo-boo by taking an alternate path. This lands them an abandoned amusement park. Chihiro wanders off. She then finds that what seems to be an amusement park is, in actuality, a bathhouse for the gods, and her parents, having helped themselves to the local buffet, have been turned into pigs. Left to her own devices, she has to give herself a personality overhaul in order to survive. Along the way, she meets colorful characters, such as Yubaba (voiced by Suzanne Pleschette,) her good-natured lackey Haku (James Marsden)and one of the cleaning girls (Susan Egan.) Miyazaki, who gave us films like Princess Mononoke and Porco Rosso, has given us what could very possibly be the greatest animated film, ever. Complete with rich, well-rounded characters and breath-taking animation, this could aptly be described as a modern day Alice in Wonderland.