is a 2001 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It was produced by Toshio Suzuki, animated by Studio Ghibli, and distributed by Toho."Sen To Chihiro No Kamikakushi ". http://www.bcdb.com , 13 May 2012 The film stars Rumi Hiiragi, alongside Miyu Irino, Mari Natsuki, Takashi Naito, Yasuko Sawaguchi, Tsunehiko Kamijō, Takehiko Ono, and Bunta Sugawara. It follows a young girl named Chihiro "Sen" Ogino, who moves to a new neighborhood and inadvertently enters the world of kami (spirits of Japanese Shinto folklore).Boyd, James W. and Tetsuya Nishimura. 2016. "Shinto Perspectives in Miyazaki's Anime Film 'Spirited Away' (PDF) ." Journal of Religion & Film 8 (3):Article 4. After her parents are turned into pigs by the witch Yubaba, Chihiro takes a job working in Yubaba's bathhouse to find a way to free herself and her parents and return to the human world.
Miyazaki wrote the screenplay after he decided the film would be based on the ten-year-old daughter of his friend Seiji Okuda, the film's associate producer, who came to visit his house each summer. Interview with Toshio Suzuki At the time, Miyazaki was developing two personal projects, but they were rejected. With a budget of US$19 million, production of Spirited Away began in 2000. Pixar animator John Lasseter, a fan and friend of Miyazaki, convinced Walt Disney Studios to buy the film's North American distribution rights, and served as executive producer of its English-dubbed version. Lasseter then hired Kirk Wise as director and Donald W. Ernst as producer, while screenwriters Cindy and Donald Hewitt wrote the English-language dialogue to match the characters' original Japanese-language lip movements.
Released in Japan on 20 July 2001, Spirited Away was universally acclaimed and commercially successful, grossing at the worldwide box office. It became the highest-grossing film in Japanese history with a total of . It held the record for 19 years until it was surpassed by Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train in 2020.
Spirited Away was a co-recipient of the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival and became the first hand-drawn, non-English-language animated film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards. The film is frequently regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, placing #75 on Sight and Sounds "100 Greatest Films of All Time" poll in 2022."Spirited Away (2001)". British Film Institute. Published December 1, 2022. Accessed August 26, 2026.
Plot
Ten-year-old Chihiro Ogino and her parents are traveling to their new home in the countryside. They drive down an unexpected road and arrive in front of a tunnel leading to what appears to be an abandoned resort town, which her parents insist on exploring over Chihiro's protests. Upon finding a seemingly empty restaurant stocked with food, Chihiro's parents begin to eat. While exploring further, Chihiro finds an enormous bathhouse and meets a boy named Haku, who warns her to return across the riverbed before sunset. Spirits begin to appear, and Chihiro discovers that her parents have been transformed into pigs and that she cannot cross the now-flooded river.
Haku finds Chihiro and tells her to ask for a job from the bathhouse's boiler-man, Kamaji, a yōkai spirit. Kamaji instead asks a worker named Lin to bring Chihiro to Kamaji's master Yubaba, the witch who runs the bathhouse and who transformed Chihiro's parents. Yubaba tries to frighten Chihiro away but eventually gives her a work contract. As Chihiro signs the contract with her name (), Yubaba takes away the second kanji in her name, renaming her . Chihiro soon forgets her real name, and Haku explains that Yubaba controls people by taking their names; if Chihiro completely forgets her name like Haku did, she will never be able to leave the spirit world.
Workers in the bathhouse mock Chihiro. While working, she invites a silent creature named No-Face inside, believing him to be a customer. The spirit of a polluted river arrives as Chihiro's first customer. After she cleans him, he gives her a magic emetic dumpling as a token of gratitude. Meanwhile, No-Face demands food from the bathhouse workers, giving them gold in exchange. When Chihiro declines the gold and leaves to find Haku, No-Face angrily swallows some workers.
Chihiro sees paper shikigami spirits attacking a dragon and recognizes the dragon as a metamorphosed Haku. When the seriously injured Haku crashes into Yubaba's penthouse, Chihiro follows him upstairs. A shikigami that stowed away on her back shapeshifts into Yubaba's twin sister Zeniba, who turns Yubaba's son, Boh, into a mouse and creates a false copy of him. Zeniba tells Chihiro that Haku has stolen a magic golden seal from her that carries a deadly curse. Haku strikes the shikigami, causing Zeniba to vanish. Chihiro and Haku fall into the boiler room, where she feeds him part of the emetic dumpling, causing him to vomit up the seal and a slug, which Chihiro kills.
Chihiro resolves to return the seal and apologize to Zeniba. She confronts an engorged No-Face and feeds him the rest of the dumpling, forcing him to regurgitate the workers. No-Face follows Chihiro out of the bathhouse, and Lin helps them leave. Chihiro, No-Face, and Boh travel to see Zeniba using train tickets from Kamaji. Meanwhile, Yubaba nearly orders Chihiro's parents slaughtered, but Haku reveals Boh is missing and offers to retrieve him if Yubaba releases Chihiro and her parents. Yubaba agrees, but only if Chihiro can pass a final test.
Zeniba reveals to Chihiro that Yubaba used the slug to control Haku. Zeniba tells Chihiro that she cannot help her parents, but she makes her a magical protective hairband. Using his dragon form, Haku flies Chihiro and Boh back, while No-Face decides to stay with Zeniba. Mid-flight, Chihiro recalls falling into the Kohaku River years earlier and being washed safely ashore. She correctly guesses Haku's true identity as the spirit of the Kohaku River, which restores his memory.
When they arrive at the bathhouse, Yubaba tests Chihiro, asking her to identify her parents among a group of pigs. After she answers correctly that none of the pigs are her parents, her contract disappears and she is given back her real name. Haku takes her to the now-dry riverbed and vows to meet her again. Chihiro crosses the riverbed to her restored parents. Shortly before leaving for her new home, Chihiro looks back at the tunnel, still wearing her hairband from Zeniba.
Voice cast
Character name Voice actorEnglishJapanese JapaneseEnglish Chihiro Ogino / SenOgino Chihiro () / Sen ()Rumi HiiragiDaveigh Chase Haku / Spirit of the Kohaku RiverHaku () / Nigihayami Kohakunushi ()Miyu IrinoJason Marsden YubabaYubāba ()Mari NatsukiSuzanne Pleshette ZenibaZeniiba () LinRin ()Yoomi TamaiSusan Egan KamajiKamajii ()Bunta SugawaraDavid Ogden Stiers Boh (baby)Bō ()Ryunosuke KamikiTara Strong Aniyaku (assistant manager)Aniyaku ()John Ratzenberger Akio Ogino (Chihiro's father)Ogino Akio ()Michael Chiklis Yūko Ogino (Chihiro's mother)Ogino Yūko ()Yasuko SawaguchiLauren Holly No-FaceKaonashi ()Bob Bergen AogaeruAogaeru () ChichiyakuChichiyaku ()Tsunehiko KamijōPaul Eiding Bandai-gaeru (foreman)Bandai-gaeru ()Yō ŌizumiRodger Bumpass River SpiritKawa no Kami ()Jim Ward Radish SpiritOshira-sama ()Ken YasudaJack Angel
Production Development and inspiration
During summers, Hayao Miyazaki spent his vacation at a mountain cabin with his family and five girls who were friends of the family. The idea for Spirited Away came about when he wanted to make a film for these friends. Miyazaki had previously directed films for small children and teenagers such as My Neighbor Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service, but he had not created a film for ten-year-old girls. For inspiration, he read the shōjo manga magazines (like Nakayoshi and Ribon) that the girls had left at the cabin, but felt they only offered subjects on "crushes" and romance. Miyazaki felt this was not what these young friends "held dear in their hearts", and resolved to make the film about a young heroine whom they could look up to.
Miyazaki had wanted to produce a new film for years, but his two previous proposalsone based on the Japanese book The Village Beyond the Mist by Sachiko Kashiwaba, and another about a teenage heroinewere rejected. His third proposal, which ended up becoming Spirited Away, was more successful. The three stories revolved around a bathhouse that was inspired by one in Miyazaki's hometown. He thought the bathhouse was a mysterious place, and there was a small door next to one of the bathtubs in the bath house. Miyazaki was always curious about what was behind it, and he made up several stories about it, one of which inspired the bathhouse setting of Spirited Away.
Production of Spirited Away commenced in February 2000 on a budget of (US$15 million). The film was produced in association with Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Buena Vista Home Entertainment, Tohokushinsha Film, and Mitsubishi. Disney's 10% investment allowed for the right of first refusal for North American distribution. As with Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki and the Studio Ghibli staff experimented with computer animation. With the use of more computers and programs such as Softimage 3D, the staff learned the software, but used the technology carefully so that it enhanced the story, instead of "stealing the show". Each character was mostly hand-drawn.The Making of Hayao Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" – Part 1 . Jimhillmedia.com. The biggest difficulty in making the film was to reduce its length. When production began, Miyazaki realized it would be more than three hours long if he made it according to his plot. He had to delete many scenes from the story, and tried to reduce the "eye candy" in the film because he wanted it to be simple. Miyazaki did not want to make the hero a "pretty girl". At the beginning, he was frustrated at how she looked "dull" and thought, "She isn't cute. Isn't there something we can do?" As the film neared the end, however, he was relieved to feel "she will be a charming woman."
During production, Miyazaki often sought inspiration by visiting the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum in Koganei, Tokyo. He based some of the buildings in the spirit world on the Pseudo-Western style buildings from the Meiji period that were available there. The museum made Miyazaki feel nostalgic, "especially when I stand here alone in the evening, near closing time, and the sun is setting – tears well up in my eyes." Another major inspiration was the , a traditional Japanese inn located in Yamagata Prefecture, famous for its exquisite architecture and ornamental features. While some guidebooks and articles claim that the old gold town of Jiufen in Taiwan served as an inspirational model for the film, Miyazaki has denied this. The was also an inspiration for the film's bathhouse.
Toshio Suzuki, the producer of the film, also cites European inspirations and influences in the production of Spirited Away. He specifically invokes the structure of the film as European-inspired due to Miyazaki's own influences by European films such as The Snow Queen and The Shepherdess and the Chimney Sweep.
Music
The film score of Spirited Away was composed and conducted by Miyazaki's regular collaborator Joe Hisaishi, and performed by the New Japan Philharmonic. The soundtrack received awards at the 56th Mainichi Film Competition Award for Best Music, the Tokyo International Anime Fair 2001 Best Music Award in the Theater Movie category, and the 17th Japan Gold Disk Award for Animation Album of the Year. Later, Hisaishi added lyrics to "One Summer's Day" and named the new version of the song which was performed by Ayaka Hirahara.