Spirited Away (2001)

Rating: 90%
Well here's the next Miyazaki film to watch and review. This is probably the first time I've seen this movie since... 2003 or 4 or so. So here's my review for Spirited Away.

Plot: Chihiro and his parents are moving much to her displeasure where her father takes a wrong turn and finds themselves in an abandoned amusement park and they end up exploring it. Along the way, her parents smell food that they end up eating while Chihiro wanders around. But along the way, she find this boy wandering in an abandoned bathhouse telling her to leave the park before dark. But before she tries to leave, spirits start appearing in the park and her parents have been turned into pigs. She meets the boy whose name is Haku again, he tells her to go to the boiler-man in the bathhouse which is now occupied with spirits and ask for a job. This leads to her asking a job to a witch named Yubaba who gives her a job in exchange for stealing her name and giving her a new one; Sen.

Out of all the creative films that Miyazaki has come up with, this is his most creative if not THE most creative he's done (I'd say it is, but I gotta be sure after seeing the other films). I mean you have all these creatures and spirits all over the place that just messes with your head from the duck spirits (sort of), to that one-footed lamp, to...well the list just goes on and on. That aside it also gives us a unique story with some pretty fun and interesting characters. Plus you'll probably enjoy that fact that with the Disney version to this film, there's a lot of familiar voice actors like David Ogden Stiers, Susan Egan, Suzanne Pleshette, John Ratzenberger and Jason Mersden.

Characters:
Chihiro/Sen: For the most part she was a pretty good character. I think most people really enjoy how she grows over the movie from being so scared and all when all the bad stuff start happening to her, but then starts to hold her own and become pretty brave as the movie goes on. The one thing I don't entirely get is how she was able to know whether or not she could see her parents in the pack of pigs during the climax, I mean maybe there's a way, but maybe it's hard to tell since she only saw them when they first turned to pigs for only like, 10 second or so.

And that's my review for Spirited Away. It's a charming and creative animated film with some familiar voice actors and a story to enjoy.