About Spirited Away
Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, literally 'Sen and Chihiro's Spiriting Away') is Studio Ghibli's 2001 feature film, written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, produced by Toshio Suzuki and scored by Joe Hisaishi. Miyazaki had made films for small children and for teenagers but never one for ten-year-old girls, and he set out to make one for five young girls, friends of the family who spent summer holidays with them at a mountain cabin; he based his heroine on the ten-year-old daughter of his friend Seiji Okuda, the film's associate producer. Toho released it in Japan on 20 July 2001, and it runs about two hours.
Ten-year-old Chihiro Ogino is on her way to a new home in the countryside when her father takes an unfamiliar road and the family walks through a tunnel into what looks like an abandoned resort town. Her parents help themselves at an empty restaurant and are turned into pigs, spirits appear as night falls, and a boy named Haku tells her that the only way to stay and save them is to get a job at the bathhouse run by the witch Yubaba. Yubaba takes most of her name and calls her Sen, and Chihiro has to work, make friends among the spirits and hold on to who she is if she and her parents are ever to go home.
The film draws on Japanese Shinto and Buddhist folklore: its bathhouse is where kami, the spirits of rivers, plants and animals, come to bathe. It also carries Miyazaki's worries about greed and consumerism and about what people do to nature, from a river spirit choked with rubbish to a river buried under apartments. It became the highest-grossing film in Japanese history, a record it held for 19 years, shared the Golden Bear at the 2002 Berlin International Film Festival and became the first hand-drawn, non-English-language animated film to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. In 2022 it placed 75th in Sight and Sound's poll of the greatest films of all time.
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What the Spirited Away Quiz Tests
Our Spirited Away quiz covers Studio Ghibli's 2001 film and nothing else. Easy questions cover the premise and the cast: the pigs, the bathhouse, Chihiro's new name, Haku's dragon form, and who's who among Yubaba, Zeniba, Kamaji, Lin, Boh and No-Face. Medium questions follow the story in order, from the river spirit's gift and Zeniba's stolen seal to the train ride, the hairband and Yubaba's final test, along with the Japanese voice cast, Joe Hisaishi's score, the Oscar and the Golden Bear. The hard questions go to the details: what the characters' Japanese names mean, the real people and places behind the film, who produced the English version, the box-office record it held until 2020 and the instrument played by Youmi Kimura, who sings the closing song. A few quote questions use the lines of Disney's English dub, and say so.
Key Characters
Chihiro Ogino is an ordinary ten-year-old, sulky and easily frightened when the film begins, and Miyazaki has said that was the point: she does not become a heroine by being special, but by finding the strength she already had. Renamed Sen at the bathhouse, she works, apologises, stands her ground and never quite forgets who she is. Haku, the boy who helps her, is cold in front of others and gentle with her; he serves Yubaba because he has forgotten his own name, and he turns out to be the spirit of a river Chihiro once fell into. Yubaba runs the bathhouse with an iron hand and an eye on the gold, dotes on her giant baby, Boh, and keeps her workers by taking their names, while her identical twin, Zeniba, first appears as a furious witch and then as the kindest grandmother in the film. Among the staff, the sharp-tongued Lin looks after Chihiro and the gruff, six-armed boiler-man Kamaji helps her more than he admits. No-Face, a silent masked spirit with no self of his own, follows Chihiro everywhere, copies the greed around him until he becomes a monster, and finds a gentler home with Zeniba.
Available Quizzes
Spirited Away Trivia
50 hand-crafted questions across 5 categories. 10 levels of increasing difficulty.
Which Spirited Away Character Are You?
Answer 10 questions to discover which Spirited Away character matches your personality!
Random Mix
Questions from all 75 anime including Spirited Away. The ultimate challenge.
Characters
Chihiro Ogino
Haku
Lin
Kamaji
Zeniba
Spirited Away Fun Facts
- Spirited Away was Miyazaki's third proposal. The two before it, one based on Sachiko Kashiwaba's book The Village Beyond the Mist and one about a teenage heroine, were turned down. All three were built around a bathhouse inspired by one in his home town, where a small door next to one of the tubs always made him wonder what was behind it.
- When production began, Miyazaki realised that the film would run more than three hours if he made it as plotted, so he cut many scenes and tried to keep the visual spectacle down because he wanted it to be simple.
- Miyazaki often visited the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum in Koganei, Tokyo, while making the film, and based some of the spirit world's buildings on its Meiji-era Western-style houses; Dōgo Onsen was also an inspiration for the bathhouse. Guidebooks often name the Taiwanese town of Jiufen as the model, but Miyazaki has denied it.
- The closing song, 'Always With Me', was composed and sung by Youmi Kimura, a lyre player from Osaka, with lyrics by her friend Wakako Kaku. It was written for Rin the Chimney Painter, a Miyazaki film that was never released, and Miyazaki has said the song was what inspired him to make Spirited Away.
- Pixar's John Lasseter, a friend and fan of Miyazaki, persuaded Disney to buy the North American rights and was executive producer of the English version, with Kirk Wise directing; the writers Cindy Davis Hewitt and Donald H. Hewitt wrote the English lines to match the characters' Japanese lip movements. The hopping lamp in the film is often seen as a nod to Lasseter's own Luxo Jr.
- The film lives on in other forms: John Caird's stage version, made by Toho with Studio Ghibli's blessing, opened in Tokyo in 2022 and reached the London Coliseum in 2024, with Mari Natsuki, the film's Yubaba and Zeniba, sharing those roles on stage, and in 2024 Billie Eilish released a song named 'Chihiro' after the heroine.
Spirited Away Quiz — Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Spirited Away have?
None, because Spirited Away is a single feature film, not a TV series. It runs about two hours (Wikipedia gives 124 minutes, Studio Ghibli about 125). It opened in Japan on 20 July 2001, and Disney's English dub reached US cinemas on 20 September 2002.
Is Spirited Away finished?
Yes. It is a complete, self-contained story told in one film. It has since been adapted for the stage by John Caird, in a production that premiered in Tokyo in 2022 and played the London Coliseum in 2024, but the film itself needs nothing else to make sense.
What order should I watch Spirited Away in?
There is just the one film, and you do not need to have seen any other Studio Ghibli film first. You can watch it in Japanese with subtitles or in Disney's English dub, which adds a few lines of explanation here and there. Some home-video editions add extras, such as the documentary The Art of Spirited Away, narrated by Jason Marsden, who voices Haku in the dub.
Where can I watch Spirited Away?
Availability differs by country and changes over time, so check your local services. Since 2020 Studio Ghibli's films have streamed on HBO Max in the United States and on Netflix in most countries outside the United States and Japan, and in North America GKIDS publishes the film on Blu-ray and DVD.
Did Spirited Away win an Oscar?
Yes. It won Best Animated Feature at the 75th Academy Awards in 2003, the first hand-drawn, non-English-language animated film to win that award. A year earlier it had shared the Golden Bear, the top prize of the Berlin International Film Festival, with Bloody Sunday.
What is Spirited Away about?
Ten-year-old Chihiro and her parents stumble into a town of spirits while moving house. When her parents are turned into pigs, Chihiro takes a job in the witch Yubaba's bathhouse, where gods and spirits come to bathe, and is given a new name, Sen. With help from a mysterious boy named Haku and a few unlikely friends, she has to work hard, keep hold of her real name and find a way to free her parents and get home.
