A jewel of animation with a grain of American salt

Rating: Null/10 (24 April 2003)

I've been a fan of anime since, oh, third grade (though you'll have to forgive me if I say my first exposure to anime was Sailor Moon ::Prepares to be glared at::) and the first time I saw a Miyazaki movie I was blown away. I've seen four of his movies previous to this, three of them dubbed in English, every time I was impressed.
This movie came to my attention when my anime-hating father suggested seeing it. That set off a dinger in my head alerting me that it must be good if my father wanted to see any animated product of Japan.
Anyway, I didn't see it until it came out on DVD. I watched it, then I watched it again, and immediately hightailed it to the Spirited Away fanfictions on fanfiction.net.
Then I saw the biggest of the few problems of creating a movie this great. The sickening magnitude of the 175 fanfictions were essentially the same plot "Chihiro is an older, prettier teenager who goes back and falls in love with Haku" that's the problem with many Miyazaki movies. His beautifully crafted stories rarely have direct romance, so the teeny-bopper writers insist on supplying it in a 30 page work of "Hi Haku I'm older!" "Wow, you're pretty!" *kiss*
So enjoy the movie and if you are a writer, for all that is good and green on this earth (and it ain't much) don't write that plot.