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Tuesday, 16 December 2014

Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away

Spirited Away is a motion picture by the Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki.

 Spirited Away wast most successful film in Japanese history, grossing about $330 million in the box office. The film was based on a friend of Hayao Miyazaki's daughter. Miyazaki himself has said that it has darker undertones. If you have watched it before and don't know about the dark undertones you would just think it was a wacky coming of age/romance film. But if you listen to the Japanese dub 10 year old Chihiro Ogino (also known as Sen) if referred to as a Yuna and Yuna in the Japanese edo period was used in reference to prostitutes and bath houses in eco period offered brothel like services.

Chihiro was given the name Sen by Yubaba who is the madam of the bath house, Sen is Japanese for Thousand and was also a common name for prostitutes in the edo period. 

Haku is the love interest who ends up rebelling against Yubaba, if we look at him in context he would be a pimp who draws the line at child prostitution. This would explain why he is so stern and cold while he is working and he is friendly and supportive when him and Chihiro are alone. It also explains why the female staff seem to dislike him and seem to think it is odd for Chihiro to be so fond of him.

When the spell that is keeping Haku obedient breaks, the first thing he does is to try and release Chihiro from her contract with Yubaba. Another character called No Face takes a liking to Chihiro for letting him into the bath house, No Face is actually a lonely man with a lot of wealth who takes a liking to Chihiro and want to keep her all to himself. No Face makes money out of dirty which is probably a metaphor for the money being corrupt.

It is very interesting to look at Spirited Away from this perspective.

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