Type: Movie
Rating: Any Age
Runtime: 125 min
Directed By Miyazaki Hayao
Produced By Studio Ghibli
Year Produced: 2001
The To Aru Kagaku no Home Theater Miyazaki Marathon... and then some... continues, despite public protest!
This is a "festival" where I sit down at spend about a week and a half watching all of the Miyazaki movies that I want to. I didn't mention this last time, but I don't have any particular interest in Ponyo.
What's still to come are:
Tuesday - Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
I've already reviewed Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa, Laputa: Castle in the Sky, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, Whisper of the Heart, and Princess Mononoke, so if you're interested in that, then check it out... back there.
Chihiro is moving. Or more accurately, she's being forced to move. Her parents have bundled her and all of her stuff into their car and set out for their new home. The only thing that she has a reminder of her old life is a bouquet of flowers and a farewell card.
On the way to their new house, Chihiro's father takes a wrong turn, but, being a man (We big and strong. Don't need directions or manuals, just meat and salt), he follows the path that he's taken... until he almost rams into a tunnel.
Chihiro's parents get out of the car and investigate the tunnel, finding that it is made of plaster. They decide to delve further into the area, but Chihiro isn't as enthralled with the idea, and tries to get them to get back in the car and go, but they decide to explore anyway. Chihiro, with her only company being the creepy statuette, decides that anythings better than staying in the car alone, and follows them.
On the other side, Chihiro's dad points out that the area probably used to be an amusement park, one of the many that were built all around Japan during the early 90's but all of which eventually went under. With that being said, the parents continue on, with Chihiro still trying to get them to go back, but eventually following.
Chihiro's dad, who's got a nose like a hound, smells something delicious on the air and eventually leads the family to an outdoor restaurant that's loaded with food convieniantly laid out in huge bowls. The parents dig in, the dad saying one of my all-time favorite lines;
"Don't worry, you've got Daddy here! He's got credit cards and cash!"
I like the English version of this line better, though.
Chihiro goes exploring around the area, and eventually finds a mammoth Bath House that also seems to be running.
Note the chimney.
Underneath her, Chihiro hears the sound of a train, and watches as it comes out of a tunnel. She runs over to the other side of a bridge to see where it's going, but notices somethings different about her surroundings.
Uh, hello?
The young man freaks out, telling Chihiro to leave immediatly, and when lamps suddenly start to turn on randomly, he pushes her away, shouting at her to go right now.
You can probably find this image just about anywhere, so I decided to conform. It's also an awesome picture, just a little overused.
As Chihiro is running, a bunch of... weird shadow sludge things start to open the doors of the shops and come out of the cracks, intent on buying things.
Sure now that thing's aren't exactly going great, Chihiro searches for and finds her parents. Or...
Oink?
Two pigs wearing human clothes.
Chihiro runs back towards the stairs that she and her parents had come from, but when she gets to the bottom, she ends up waist-deep in water. Chihiro clambers back to shore and looks out over the instant ocean.
I'm pretty sure that's where she came from.
Convinced that she's experiencing some kind of dream, Chihiro tries to wake herself up, but to no avail. Actually, it works to her detriment, and she starts to fade away.
Chihiro dashes away from a boat-full (literally) of spirits and runs to hide in a quiet place.
After a while, the young man who helped her back on the bridge comes and finds her, telling Chihiro that she needs to eat something from this world in order to remain in it, so he gives her a mint or a jellybean or something, and Chihiro gets better.
With no other choice but to stay in this new world until she can find her parents and arrange a way for them all to get out, Chihiro asks the young man what she needs to do.
In this film, Miyazaki's more whimsical. As far as I can tell, this movie wasn't made so the viewers would have psychologically taxing questions about the planet or human nature, but rather for them to just enjoy. It is pretty surreal, and my dad's only recollection of it was that it was creepy, but that's okay because I liked it.
Oh, and do you remember the soot gremlins from My Neighbor Totoro?
Well they've found a new home. Kamaji says that they're from the soot in his "office", but I'm not fooled.
Leaving...
In search of their new home.
... and then they have a party.
... and unless you've watched the movie already, you're totally lost right now. "Kamaji?"
The music was kind of like Princess Mononoke, though I didn't find myself humming it later. It was nice and kind of catchy, and it flowed well. Actually, if you were looking (and if I had mentioned it earlier), you might notice that Miyazaki's been working with the same guy on music for... ever. Hisaishi Joe and Miyazaki have worked together on every movie that I've reviewed, and even on Howl's Moving Castle, which is tomorrow.
I also listened to this anime in English first. I watched the Japanese versions, and I wasn't totally won over by it.
A general rule of thumb is that the Japanese is good, and the English version is lucky to reach the quality of Japanese voice acting. What I'm talking about here isn't so much the quality of the acting, both sides did well, but more my own preferences, which would have made for a strange mixture.
I liked the Japanese Chihiro way better than the English one (Daveigh Chase), but I liked most of the other English actors (especially the father as I already stated).
The weirdest thing about it was that I think that the English dialog/script was better (although Haku's spell sounded kind of corny. It didn't sound corny in the Japanese version because... I don't speak Japanese too well, so I can't compare it).
With more physical gags than his other works, Spirited Away is still considered one of the best movies today... I know, right? It's aways gratifying to see a relatively lesser-known form of art gain such recognition.
Think of it...
Citizen Kane
Gone with the Wind
A Streetcar Named Desire
Princess Mononoke
and...
Spirited Away
Bitchin.
Coming up next (and last)!
Day 9: Howl's Moving Castle!
Alert!
If you don't like spoilers, or still want to watch the show now, you'd better stop reading!The young man, named Haku, takes Chihiro with him to the bath house. While crossing the bridge, Haku casts a spell on Chihiro so that she will be invisible during the crossing, because if the other spirits figure out that she's there (she being a human), they'll... kill her. Unfortunately, Chihiro breaks the spell when a frog leaps up in their face, and Haku is forced to flee with Chihiro.
Once they're in a safe spot, Haku tells Chihiro to go to the boiler room and ask Kamaji, the guy who works there for a job. He warns her that Kamaji will try and trick her, and not to be fooled by anything that he says, just keep asking for work.
Chihiro manages to find and get to the boiler room, and finds Kamaji. He's not exactly how Chihiro pictured him.
When she asks Kamaji for the job, he says... no, and then tells her to get out. Chihiro insists, but Kamaji wont' be swayed... until food arrives, carried by Lin, one of the workers in the bath house.
When Lin freaks out about Chihiro being there, Kamaji sticks up for her. Chihiro gets promoted from "Human" to "Kamaji's Granddaughter"... quite an image shift.
Kamaji convinces/bribes Lin into taking Chihiro to see the owner of the bath house; Yubaba, a witch. So Lin escorts Chihiro to the elevator, and then distracts the others while Chihiro goes to the top... with the Radish Spirit.
The Elevator Nightmare.
When Chihiro gets to the top, she meets Yubaba, a cranky, greedy... proportionally-challanged witch. When Chihiro asks for a job, this is what happens.
But all that yelling made Yubaba's baby wake up. I don't quite know if it's hers, or her daughter's, or what, and I don't care, I just added this in because I always wonder it when I watch... so maybe I do care...
Unable to deal with Chihiro and the baby, Yubaba caves to Chihiro's request, giving her a contract to sign. Turns out that Yubaba took some kind of oath to give work to anyone who asks, so she kind of had no choice.
Chihiro signs to contract, and when Yubaba checks it, she peels off some of the characters, leaving only the one that is read "Sen" behind. Yubaba tells Chihiro that her name is now Sen.
Yubaba summons her apprentice... Haku, to take Chih... Sen to her new job.
On the elevator down, Sen tries to talk to Haku, but he tells her not to, and to address him as Master Haku, because he's got a Sadist thing going on suddenly.
Sen is turned over to Lin as a helper, who complains about it in public, but was secretly worried about her while she was meeting with Yubaba. Lin takes Sen to their room and gives her her new clothes. Sen experiences a wave of homesickness and starts to cry.
The next morning, unable to sleep for fear and... cold I guess, Sen is lying on her futon when the door opens, she pretends to be asleep. Haku walks to her side and tells her that he'll take her to see her parents.
Sen goes to the bridge where Haku is waiting. As promised, Haku takes her to a pig pen, telling her that she needs to remember herself which ones her parents are, or else she'll never free them.
Sen and Haku have some breakfast, and Haku gives Sen her old clothes, in which is her farewell card with her original name; Chihiro on it. Sen suddenly realizes that she had forgotten her name, and Haku tells her that that is how Yubaba controls people. He also tells her that Yubaba has his name, and as such, he can no longer remember it, but for some reason, he was able to remember Chihiro's name from long ago.
After their meeting, Sen turns back and sees a Chinese dragon flying away.
That day, Lin and Sen start working. Sen is on the clumsy human skill level, while everybody around her is not only a supernatural spirit, but also experienced at what they do, so they laugh at her.
In the course of working, Sen lets in what she assumes is a guest named No Face. Well, that's what the translators and other English-speakers say, but I personally like the idea of him being named Noh Face (as in those ancient and very traditional plays performed since the dawn of time in Japan).
No Face, Noh Face, either way, that's what it looks like.
Lin and Sen are assigned to the "big tub", a massively filthy bathtub that is only reserved for the most dirty of patrons.
Would you?
Quickly annoyed with the sludge, Lin tells Sen to get an herbal soak token from the foreman... but the foreman doesn't give Sen one right offhand. After begging him for a while, Sen notices that No Face has appeared next to the counter. No Face disappears, and a token floats out and into Sen's hands. Sen dashes off before she can be stopped.
The foreman takes a call from Yubaba, who's sensed something coming towards the bath house... something strange.
Sen returns with the token and gives it to Lin who shows her how things work. They start to fill up the bath and Lin leaves to get some food.
While Sen is waiting for the tub to fill up, she notices No Face in the corner, holding another handful of tokens. When Sen tries to say she doesn't need them, No Face disappears, leaving the tokens behind.
Sen is called to the front desk to greet the newest guest... a Stink Spirit.
Sen greets the spirit and escorts it to the large bath (now totally full). When it gets in, the spirit is apparently disappointed in the results, looking at it's... tendrils disappointedly. Sen goes and gets the next round of water ready, pouring it onto the spirit's head, but falling into the tank at the same time.
When she's pulled back up, she feels something in the spirit's side.
She tells Lin (who's come to help) about it, and Yubaba hears this, telling her right hand frog to assemble the staff downstairs, then dropping down to Sen's side. Yubaba tells Sen that it's not a Stink Spirit, and then produces a rope, telling Sen to tie it around the thorn.
When the rope is secure, they start to pull, and they manage to pull out...
Which in turn is attached to a whole bunch of other stuff. When Sen pulls out the last thing, the spirit deflates while ejecting what I hope isn't puss (although this was an infection, and it's the only logical answer).
The Stink Spirit is actually a River God (of the same shape as the dragon Sen saw flying away after her meeting with Haku), and it blasts out of the bath house laughing manically and leaving behind a pile of gold and a special present for Sen, it's savior.
That night, the same frog that freaked Chihiro out back on the bridge is skulking around the big bath, looking for any gold that Yubaba might have missed (not likely). Waiting for him is No Face, who has discovered a neat little trick.
Enticing the frog in closer, No Face snatches and eats him.
When the foreman arrives downstairs to figure out what's going on, No Face gives him gold too, telling him to start up the kitchen and the bath.
Sen wakes up from a nightmare of not being able to tell her parents apart from all the other pigs. She realizes that Kamaji's started the boiler already, even though it's too early for such a thing.
Sen runs into Lin who tells her the story of the rich customer, and when she invites Sen to come along, Sen replies that she's going to look for Haku.
Sen returns to her room and looks out over the ocean and then spots a dragon flying in towards the bath house, being pursued and getting owned by what look like birds. She calls out to the dragon, opening the door for him, and the dragon barrels through the door and into a wall, probably giving himself a concussion.
What's chasing the dragon are actually pieces of paper, and they try to follow him in, but Chihiro manages to keep them out (or most of them). When the paper fails to catch the dragon again, it de-animates.
Sen turns to the dragon, telling it to calm down, but the dragon rips out of the room again, heading for Yubaba's tower, so Sen decides to follow him. As she is clambering up the stairs, one of the pieces of paper reanimates and plasters itself to Sen's back.
Sen runs through the crowd of people waiting to beg for tips from No Face as he commutes, and then passes No Face, thanking it for it's help earlier. When No Face tries to offer her gold, Sen politely refuses, running away towards Yubaba's tower again.
As the foreman tries to apologize for Sen, No Face gets angry and...
Eats the foreman and an unlucky bystander.
Sen arrives at Yubaba's tower, but hides in a pile of cushions when she hears Yubaba coming down towards her. Little does she know that the baby that was making such a racket when she first got there is hiding in the cushions as well.
When Sen tries to get out, the baby grabs onto her arm, holding her back and threatening to break her arm if she doesn't play with him.
Sen uses the dragon's blood on her hand to scare the baby into letting to.
In Yubaba's room, the heads are trying to shove the dragon down a chute, and when Sen grabs onto the dragon, Yubaba's hench-crow attacks her.
Everybody stops when the baby comes out of his room and threatens Sen again, but the piece of paper gets fed up with this and turns into a... kinda hologram of Yubaba, only it's not, it's Zeniba, Yubaba's twin sister, also a witch.
Zeniba turns the baby into a mouse.
From this...
To this.
She also turns the hench-crow into a fly, and then stacks the moi heads and turns them into the baby.
Zeniba's been chasing Haku since he stole her magic seal, and she wants it back. The seal has a curse on it that will kill whoever steals it, and that's Haku. Sen tries to protest, but Zeniba wants her seal, and is willing to take it by force.
Or at least she was, until the new baby started smashing around. Haku is woken up by the vibration and lashes out, smashing the paper-projector thing, and Zeniba disappears.
Then Haku falls down the chute, with Sen and the new mouse/old baby clinging onto him.
Haku manages to wake up in time to pull them out of the nose-dive, and then speeds down a series of tunnels before smashing into the fan that ventilates Kamaji's boiler room.
Haku's having a hard time as the dust settles, and eventually passes out. Sen, not knowing what else to to tries to feed him half of the... thing that the River Spirit gave to her.
Gag. On so many levels.
Haku starts to convulse and eventually spits up a black wad of sludge.
You can't control the barf reflex.
I noticed that this movie was a lot... thicker than most of Miyazaki's other works. What with the Stink Spirit, this, and something that's about to come up.
Either way, Haku's coughed up Zeniba's seal, and with it, some kind of weird slug thing. Sen grabs the seal, and finally manages to smash the worm them. Gross.
Real location of this clip.
After they lay Haku to rest, Sen decides to take the seal to Zeniba and apologize for him. Kamaji agrees, and manages to find some train tickets that he's been saving for many years. The main problem being that the train only runs in one direction, but Sen still decides to do it.
Lin comes down to the room, and when she finds Sen, she tells her about what's been going on with No Face. Sen decides to do something about that first, and so goes off to find No Face.
When Sen meets No Face again, he tries to... bribe her again, I suppose, but Sen refuses the money, trying to get No Face to leave the bath house peacefully, but when he refuses, Sen gives him the other half of the medicine, and No Face... throws up... a lot.
Infururiated, No Face chases after Sen, through the halls of the bath house until he meets with Yubaba.
Yubabamehameha!
This does nothing more than make No Face throw up more (this is the other part that I was talking about earlier).
Sen manages to lead No Face out of the bath house (through the kitchen), No Face spitting up all of the food he's eaten as well as the three... spirits.
Lin is waiting for Sen at the edge of the bath house, and rows her to the train station, depositing her there. No Face is still following Sen, and when the train comes, Sen agrees to bring No Face with her as well.
Back at the bath house, Yubaba's furious. Sure, No Face left behind a pile of gold, but what with all the damage he caused, they're actually in debt. Yubaba believes that Sen's fled from the bath house, and decides to have her parents butchererd, but Haku stops her, claiming that Yubaba doesn't notice that she's lost something precious.
When Yubaba checks the gold... it's fine. But that's okay because Haku's talking about the baby, which Yubaba figures out when she breaks the spell on the moi heads.
Oh shit.
I love how she checked the gold first. Awesome.
Yubaba freaks out, ripping the baby's bedroom apart looking for him, but to no avail. Then she turns to Haku.
Haku tells her that he can get her baby back, but in exchange, Yubaba'll have to free Sen and her parents. Yubaba agrees, but only on the condition that she'll get to give Sen one last test.
When the train reaches Swamp Bottom, Sen and the others get off. They walk down the path until a hopping lamp shows them the rest of the way to Zeniba's house.
Turns out that Zeniba's much nicer than her sister Yubaba, accepting the seal and the apology. Zeniba invites Sen and the others to stay the night, but halfway through it, Sen starts to have a panic attack.
There is a rattling at the doors and the shutters, and Sen opens the door and sees Haku (dragon form) waiting for her.
Haku picks up Sen and the mouse, but No Face decides to stay back with Zeniba.
On the way back to the bath house, Sen has another flashback, remembering a time that she fell into the Kohaku River while chasing her shoe, and was eventually swept to shore while having the memory and sensation of riding on the back of a dragon.
When Sen tells Haku this, he remembers his full name; Nighiayami Kohaku Nushi, and is thus freed from Yubaba's control. I don't know, nor do I particularly want to research what it means, but Sen likens it to a god's name (which he is in the English version).
Haku delivers Sen and the others to the bath house, where Yubaba and the others are waiting with Sen's final test.
The mouse turns back into the baby, and tells Yubaba that if she makes Sen cry, that he won't like her any more.
The final test is to pick which one of 12 pigs are her parents.
Sen thinks about if for a while, then says that none of them are, and when she holds firm to her statement, her contract with Yubaba explodes, and Chihiro is free.
Haku escorts Chihiro to the stairs where the water was, and tells her to go on. Haku tells Chibiro that he's going back to end his aprenticeship with Yubaba and promises that they'll see each other again.
Chihiro runs out onto the field and meets up with her parents (normally) again, and they leave the area together.
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