My Love Letter to Spirited Away

“Once you’ve met someone, you never really forget them.

It just takes a while for your memories to return.”

(Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away)

The first time I watched Spirited Away, I was only a child. It was probably summer ’03, and I’m certain I didn’t understand anything that was happening in the movie. However, contrary to what most people say when talking about this work of art, I didn’t feel scared. I wasn’t afraid at all. Not of the spirits, the blood, or the sense of being lost that the movie puts you through.

But I felt everything. I felt it in my chest, in my breath, and in the silence between the scenes as I watched them in wonder, captivated by the characters, the colours, and literally every detail. The best way that I can describe the sensation is that it felt like dreaming. A beautiful, enchanting dream.

It still does feel that way.

As the years passed, I rewatched it again and again until I knew all the lines by heart, and I finally realised that Spirited Away wasn’t just a movie for me. It was the movie.

The movie of my childhood and probably of my life.

This article is my love letter to Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 masterpiece, a film that transcends genre, language, and age, becoming more relevant the older I get. It is about memory, identity, love, greed, and transformation. But more than anything, I think that Spirited Away is about never forgetting who you are.

To understand this movie, we must understand the spirit and soul behind Studio Ghibli. Therefore, let’s talk about it.

Founded in 1985 by Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, Studio Ghibli is an incredible animation studio, recognised all over the world for its stories, beauty, and art.

Miyazaki is a true artist. He draws by hand. He dreams in pencil. He dares. And he makes women the most intriguing and strongest of his characters. He is a true artist.

In 2001, he gave us his most beloved and internationally acclaimed work: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away).

And I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

To say that I love Spirited Away feels too simple. What I feel is reverence.

From the moment we meet Chihiro, clutching a bouquet and sulking in the back seat of her parents’ car, we are gently pulled into a world that balances the mundane and the mystical. What begins as an ordinary trip to a new home quickly spirals into the surreal: an abandoned theme park, parents turned to pigs, and a mysterious boy named Haku warning her to leave before nightfall. But by then, it’s already too late, and the spirit world has awakened.

The otherworld Miyazaki constructs is vibrant and strange, yet grounded in emotional truths. The bathhouse, where spirits come to rest and cleanse, teems with creatures of every shape and nature. Some of them are terrifying, some hilarious, like the cute radish spirit, but all are memorable. Every detail is painted with care, from the soot sprites that scurry beneath the floors to the majestic train that glides across a flooded landscape.

But the beating heart of Spirited Away is its heroine.

Chihiro begins the story afraid and quite grumbly, like a teenager and child would do. She is afraid of change, of responsibility, and of growing up. So much so that at the beginning of the movie she even says, “I finally get a bouquet, and it’s a goodbye present. That’s depressing.”

Which is something I definitely would have said at her age. But, slowly, courage blooms in her. Her journey is not just physical. It’s emotional and, of course, spiritual. She learns to work hard, to be kind even when afraid, and to find herself in the midst of chaos. Her arc is not a grand destiny. However, you could say that she shows a type of ordinary bravery that we rarely see in books, movies, and any form of media.

A type of courage that, even among the bravest, only a few have.

Then there’s Haku. Mysterious, powerful, and tragic. The bond between him and Chihiro is one of deep affection and something that only the two of them can understand. Their connection speaks of memory, identity, and a sense of belonging that transcends time.

“You helped me before. Now I want to help you,” says Chihiro to him in the movie, and it’s one of the most touching truths of the film. Kindness can take you a long way, and it ripples outward. Love is for the bravest, and, even when unspoken, it transforms.

But it’s not only through them that we can find a deeper meaning.

All the spirits of Spirited Away are metaphors of consumption, pollution, greed, loss, and even healing. The entire film is a quiet meditation on identity, environmentalism, capitalism, and Shinto spirituality, and they are all delicately intertwined. The spirits that populate the bathhouse are drawn from Japanese folklore, where every rock, river, and creature may house a kami (a god or spirit). The bathhouse itself becomes a place of ritual cleansing and transformation, both literal and spiritual. Greed, too, like I’ve already said, is a prevailing theme. From the pig-like indulgence of Chihiro’s parents to the insatiable hunger of (my favourite) No-Face, we see how the loss of self can come from overconsumption.

No-Face, with his eerie silence and monstrous appetite, reflects how easily emptiness can become dangerous when fed by the desire to be wanted. The River Spirit, disguised as a ‘stink spirit’, turns out to be a divine being burdened by the pollution of the human world. And like I already wrote, they are all mirrors. All mirrors, and mirrors, and mirrors of our brutal reality.

The messages of the film are clear. Remember your name, respect the natural world, be kind to others, and work with humility.

People around the world may interpret the movie differently and not agree with me, and that’s alright. Some may see it as a commentary on post-industrial Japan, others as a coming-of-age allegory, and so on.

But I think we can all agree that Spirited Away is profoundly human.

Making this movie even more incredible is, of course, the music. Joe Hisaishi’s score definitely deserves its own article and love letter. Every note is steeped in emotion, and the soft piano of One Summer’s Day is like a memory and summer bottled together, and just the first note is enough to bring me right back to 2003. I found out that Miyazaki writes lyrics for each of the songs of his movies, even if they are supposed to be voiceless, just to build a story for and through each of them. I could argue that every Studio Ghibli song is absolutely amazing, but there’s just something about the Spirited Away soundtrack that lingers in my heart.

Perhaps it’s my childhood. Perhaps it’s the memories.

But let’s move on.

The animation in this film is nothing short of breathtaking. Studio Ghibli’s commitment to traditional animation infuses every scene with warmth, texture, and soul. Every motion is intentional, like the way Chihiro stumbles awkwardly, her clumsy movements, the graceful drift of Haku in his dragon form, the water, and the food.

Oh, the food!

The food in Spirited Away is absolutely legendary.

I remember staring wide-eyed at those plump dumplings, the meat, the rice cakes, and all those dishes I didn’t have names for. But I wanted them. I wanted them with all my heart. The animation of the food is almost too real and way too delicious. It made me want to reach through the screen and taste it, aaargh!

Watching Spirited Away truly feels like being transported into another world. Studio Ghibli’s drawings and animation are art. There’s no other way I could describe them.

And this movie is truly a masterpiece.

Now, before we finish my love letter to Spirited Away, I’d like to give you, dear reader, some of my favourite details of the movie.

The first one is the usage of the Japanese language and characters in such a delicate manner that only a native could understand. The title itself is a quiet clue to one of the film’s deepest themes: the loss and reclaiming of identity. In Japanese, the original title is Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, which roughly translates to ‘Sen and Chihiro’s Spiriting Away’.

‘Kamikakushi’ refers to a traditional Japanese concept of being taken by spirits and disappearing from the human world, often without a trace. And that’s exactly what happens to Chihiro. Then, when she enters the spirit world, Yubaba, the terrifying witch and owner of the bathhouse, steals her name and renames her ‘Sen’, a single character pulled from her full name. It’s a chilling moment, deceptively simple, for, once you lose your name, you start to forget who you are. This, however, is even more impactful to anyone who speaks and understands Japanese, because as the name Chihiro means ‘a thousand questions’, the moment Yubaba steals it, it becomes just ‘a thousand’. Meaning that she becomes just a number.

The act of remembering her true name becomes Chihiro’s compass home. It’s a powerful reminder. Names matter because they carry meaning, memory, and selfhood. So when Chihiro says, “I’m not Sen. My real name is Chihiro”, it is more than defiance. It’s a reclamation of identity, and it’s how she saves herself.

Another detail I adore is the soot sprites—tiny, charcoal puffballs that haul colourful star-shaped candies. How much I wanted to eat those candies…

They’re silly, sweet, and absolutely unforgettable. No-face, too, with his mask and lonely presence; I deeply love him. Then, the train station with the number thirteen instead of twelve, which could be a nod at both George Orwell’s 1984 book and at ‘the spirit hour’, foreshadowing what was going to happen. Or the fact that when Chihiro is on the train, we see the other people as just shadows, perhaps because they are spirits themselves or souls of the dead.

Or the Kit Kat in the very first scene, a delicious chocolate bar that is widely adored all throughout Japan because the brand name sounds very similar to the phrase “Kitto Katsu”, which means “You will surely win”.

It could have been a gift from a friend, who knows?

Or—how could I ever forget—the way the characters’ hair moves and shifts whenever they are disgusted, afraid, or shocked. I love it. I deeply, deeply love it.

But this detail you can find in almost all of Studio Ghibli’s movies.

What makes this specific film more amazing and eternal for me is how it speaks to both children and adults. For children, it’s a tale of adventure and discovery. For adults, it’s about nostalgia, letting go, and remembering who we are.

I truly love Spirited Away. I seriously think that I could spend years writing and talking about it and never stop. It reminds me of summer, of my childhood, of when I was little and I watched it with my twin, and of how my mum would always prepare Nutella sandwiches for us to eat while we watched it.

It was a magical moment.

I was Chihiro, and she was me.

And if you could look at some pictures of me when I was ten years old, you would definitely think that we looked alike.

It was the first time that I saw a heroine who looked and acted just like me. Scared, timid, and kind.

In the end, Spirited Away is way more than a film for me. It’s a story that lives inside me and probably forever will.

Every time I return to it, I find something new, like a detail or something that I only noticed now that I’m grown.

My body may change, and I may not look like Chihiro anymore, but my heart has stayed the same.

Like Hayao Miyazaki once said, “I would like to make a film to tell children ‘it’s good to be alive’.”

And, believe me when I tell you this, he did.

He really did.

Up, Spirited Away Illustration by my amazing twin Soul

Sources:

Spirited Away Analysis – In Depth Scene By Scene

Spirited Away Revealed: The Real Mythology & Folklore Explained!

My No-Face plush on my bed

My Spirited Away DVD from 2003