Hand drawn

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2016)

Sometimes I really wished that you could reply to other reviewers rather than have to write a full review yourself.
Being married to a Japanese person means that Miyazaki has God-like status in our household. I remember the first time I ever saw Princess Mononoke on TV in Japan and I was blown away by it... the detail in the animation was unbelievable and I just watched it and watched it again and again... I could not believe that anything would ever come close to beating that film as the greatest piece of animation ever created. I was wrong... Spirited Away blew it out of the water.
The first thing I want to address though... if like my family, you buy every Miyazaki film ever released from Japan with all the extras then you will know that Spirited Away may have been animated using computers but every scene was hand drawn first. The second disc in the full DVD package includes the entire film with soundtrack but using the hand drawn pages for the animation. This film is NOT some computer generated excuse for animation like one Tom and Jerry fan suggested. This was all hand drawn and to suggest otherwise is an insult to the animation genius that is Miyazaki.
SPOILER ALERT:
Secondly, story line. The overall plot might have similarities to Alice in Wonderland but it is nowhere near a direct copy of the book. To suggest that it is an Alice in Wonderland rip off is like me suggesting you pulled that reference straight off of Wikipedia. So she goes through a tunnel into another world... big wow... Alice is not the only adventure that goes through a tunnel into another world. If we are going to draw very loose references to stories then it is a rip off of Homer's Odyssey when the crew get turned into pigs for eating forbidden food on the island. I don't remember Alice's parents ever entering Wonderland or the plot of the story centering about Alice trying to restore her family to humans. Alice is essentially about the play of language... and the only similarity other than entering a tunnel to Spirited Away is the power of names.
The plot of Spirited Away is complex... there are several subplots surrounding a main plot. The main story is about Chihiro trying to rescue her parents while trying to survive in a hostile world full of prejudice. The main message of the film, however, is about the evils of greed. Each subplot in the film demonstrates the evil of greed. Just like Mononoke was about the environment. In Spirited Away there is an environmental message included as there is in almost all Miyazaki films - the river God being cleaned... but the main message is that greed leads to bad things happening. However, for me the most outstanding piece was the power of names. My only regret was that Miyazaki didn't take this further.
END OF SPOILER
So overall, the film is quite possibly the greatest piece of animation ever created. It has a story and it has a message if you bother to look for them beyond the bedazzlement of the art work and soundtrack. With Mononoke I watched the film several times and then started getting bored with it as the magic waned... I have yet to get bored of Spirited Away and have watched it almost twice as much as Mononoke.
It is scary for a child but no more so than a Disney film. My 4 year old will leave the room when Maleficent comes on screen in Sleeping Beauty, and she will cover her eyes when the evil Queen appears in Snow White. She covers her eyes at parts of Spirited Away too... but she watches the film to the end. It is definitely a film to be watched with adults though... it is not a film to put your child down and leave them with the TV as a babysitter... but who is to say that all animation is designed solely for children?