Review of Spirited Away (2001) by 21Dahoagie12 — 04 Feb 2013

I try not to give all the films I "like" a 10/10 because two films I like, per se, might not be on the same level; not all films I like are 10/10 movies.. Therefore I try to give films an honest rating, there are only a few of my favorite movies that are 10/10 movies, those being, for example, the lord of the rings films, the green mile, and a few others, Spirited Away is one of them as well.

I think I was maybe 10 or 11 years old when Spirited Away popped up on cartoon network, I caught maybe the second half of it but I was enthralled so (get this, so old fashioned) I grabbed the newspaper and looked through the TV schedule to find the next viewing.

I ended up watching it every time it was on TV until they stopped showing after like two weeks, my dad thought it was unhealthy for me and encouraged me to go outside anyway. I ended up forgetting about the movie for a long time, and I mean a long time.

As a grew up I kinda picked up bird watching as a hobby and am actually now turning it into a profession, but I remember doing some research on barn owls and watching a video where the top rated comment was "barn owls always remind me of no-face from spirited away" holy crap, I've heard of that movie, yeah, it was that one on TV years ago, gosh I need to watch that again.

I got my hands on the movie and as I sat down to watch it, for the first time in like 9 years, I thought to myself, "hmmmm... I hope this movie still appeals to me now that I'm almost 20" two hours later, there's me wiping tears from my eyes, grabbing my computer and looking up every other ghibli film out there.

It was like I was immediately addicted, I needed my fix of ghibli films so I, eventually, over a year or so, got my hands on all of them; honesty, most of them are quite fantastic as well, especially mononoke and totoro.

But back to this movie; as someone who watched dragon ball z and digimon and pokemon and anime like that and eventually grew out of it, I was completely astounded at how 'real' this film felt. No, obviously, the things that happened in the film took place in a fantasy world that was expertly crafted and just stretched the imagination beyond belief, but the characters felt real, they were tangible and believable, I connected with them and I cared about them because their emotions were earnest and connected with me so vividly.

The character development was fantastic and that was one of the things that made it such a joy to watch. And some people might say that the story is haphazard and confusing; I didn't think so, I think the things that were unexplained in the films or ambiguous were meant to be that way, it adds to the mystery of it, and that's another that I loved so much; being able to make those decisions for yourself as to what you believe the writers implied.

Not only that, but the animation itself was absolutely fantastic! The most visually breathtaking drawings and scenes I've ever seen are from this movie. And, as a musician and student of music, I'd like to say that Joe Hisaishi absolutely perfected this film with his impeccable score! Since I first re-watched it almost a year ago, I've probably watched it 5 or 6 times since and I just cant get enough of it.

I listen to the soundtrack all the time and it's just beyond beautiful, as I mentioned before. This film is an absolute gem of a film, many people write off animated films before they give them a chance, but this is a film that could easily be translated into a live action film with real actors and it would work just as well; the medium with which a film is presented doesn't always dictate the quality or style of the film.

I never thought that an anime film would be one of my favorite films of all time but indeed it is, I will watch Spirited Away a hundred more times, and when I have kids, I'll make sure it's one of the first films they watch as well.