'Spirited Away' - My Old Me Away

4 December 2020

One of the movies I want to suggest you should see which effect my thought is 'Spirited Away'. This is one of Ghibli Studio's movies that attracted a great number of audiences and received a huge amount of positive feedback.

The first time I saw 'Spirited Away' was 10 years ago and at that time, I did not really understand what the message the film wanted to deliver. A few years later, I saw it again and understood the movie clearly. The film was about Chihiro - a ten-year-old girl lost in the spiritual world. There, she had to find a way to rescue her parents from turning into a pig as well as herself from being a slave out of evil witch Yubaba at her sauna.

Figure 1: Chihiro came back with her parents - by Rosario, R 2019

'Spirited Away' gives me another look at how people could grow up in a different environment or culture like Chihiro living in the human world and the spiritual world. The girl had to learn and try to adapt to new surroundings; therefore, I felt a similarity between me and Chihiro when I entered the high school. At first, it took me a surprise of how things working in the school because I was moving from a private school to a state school so everything for me was so strange. At that time, I had to learn how other students behaved, the school's rules and map, or how to avoid being bullied. Besides, the movie provide Japanese cultures such as women wearing kimonos, public paths, the architect of the hot bath, and so on which I found really outstanding.

Figure 2: I colored the Spirited Away characters

From 'Spirited Away', I also learned how to appreciate the value of family because they are ones who always encourage and support me in my path. Then, from the experience in high school, I knew how to get on well with new things and new friends more easily when entering university.

Sybil Khanh Nguyen