Spirited Away

Last week, Mr Joe let us watch a movie named as Spirited Away. This movie was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaiki, a Japanese but soon it has been adapted in to English version and released by Walt Disney Studios. The Spirited Away that we watched was English version, some of my coursemates who already watch the movie; they said that the English doubt is very weird compare to Japanese language.

This movie, Spirited Away is quite interesting because it has a lot of hidden messages on it to let the audience to find through. Before I interpret my own perception toward to the movie, I found it interesting as what the Director reflects the reality into the movie is actually about prostitution events in Japan. The bathhouse is actually like a prostitution places and those workers in the bathhouse are reflect as prostitutes. The way the Yubaba took their names in the movie is just likes the way of how those prostitute sign agreement with their mama-san to work for their prostitution house. So the movie shows a very good connection towards how someone got into a prostitution industry. As when Chihiro’s parents transformed into pigs after eating on those food that are not theirs, this reflects the debt owned by the Chihiro and forced her to return the debt by working the bathhouse. Is like how usually the prostitution issues happen in Japan is related to their family or own debt that forced him to do something to repay it.

Next, few others things I have interpreted throughout the whole movie such as an environment issues. When the stink spirit went to the bathhouse, no one thought he is a river god. Everyone started to stay away from him because he is so stinky and smelly. But who knows the stink spirit is actually a river god of a polluted river. And this incident reflects how people usually act when the river polluted in such way. When we see a dirty or stinky river, we all blame or complain how dirty is it and how smelly is it. But the main reason for causing the river pollution is because of human irresponsible behavior and action. When human faces the problem is just like what happen when the stink spirit reaches the bathhouse, everyone is just avoiding and complaining about the problem.

The greediness behavior also can be found in the movie as reflecting how reality world usually happen too. We started to get controlled by money. People started to do whatever things they been asked for as long they able get theirs money. This is what society becomes and also shown in the movies. Especially the part when No-Face was in the bath-tub and the frog spirit wanted to kick him out, until the No-Face started to give him the gold then the frog spirit get attracted by the gold and fulfill anything No-Face want in order to get more gold. So this shows that whoever is rich in the society, they able to control the lower class of people who desperately need money. This is a how cruel a society becomes when comes to money.

Lastly, I perceive love as the most powerful emotion that allows people to motive their actions in order to achieve their goals. The Sen’s love toward Haku has made Sen wanted to sacrifice the chance of saving her parents by giving the dumpling to cure Haku. She even willing to fix Haku’s mistake by visiting Zeniba for apologize, even she knows this will be a one way trip as she needs to walk back to the bathhouse after the visitation. But I also perceive the family love in Chihiro where she is willing to work in the bathhouse in order to save their parents.

In short, this movie do change people perspective on anime because it has giving us not just an adventurous movie, but also educational teaching movie.