Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Raiseii
I know the movie’s main target audience are the kids as Miyazaki himself states (10 year old girls according to him. Weirdly specific), but, that’s almost always the case with Miyazaki, so I was expecting something more well-written. The story is all over the place and doesn’t make a lot of sense. There are a lot of stereotypical tropes and I don’t think he gives them a new spin at all.
The world is vibrant and the usage of imagery against the backdrop of Japanese mythology and folklore is great, and the fluidity of the animation and the attention to detail is astounding; however, I don’t think they are enough to ignore the lackluster storytelling and consider this a satisfactory movie. Movies, in the end, are narrative forms and even if one creates a more sensual experience that relies o…
Read at the sourceHydre_Ito
This is film is about a little girl who gets temporarily “transported”, for a lack of a better word, into a supernatural, fantasy world. Which is supposed to be both fascinating and frightening, but fails to be either.
To be completely honest, it was quite boring and way longer than it should have been, perhaps it was trying too hard. It does a really bad job at making you care about anything or anyone in it. If anything, the characters’ sentiments and reactions all feel disingenuous. This “alternate world” is nothing more than obnoxious exaggeration. The so-called “deep themes” are only thrown in and never actually explored, which is why this film appeals to children as well, anyone can claim its deep and intellectual if they use their imagination hard enough. For some adults it simply a…
Read at the sourceItsMeFuse
This is one of the most overrated animes i have ever seen in my enitre life i would rather watch 5 centimeters per second again than watch this shit like i dont get why its so over hyped its a girl who is trying to survive in a sprirt bath house that is ruled by a fat ass witch because her fat ass parents wanted a little to eat and ate a whole fucking strore then got turned into a fucking pig then later on the 10 year old girl fell in love with a fucking river or a dragon or whattever the fuck haku was
Read at the sourceTuturuChan
Giving this a 10/10 is the equivalent of giving Dora The Explorer a 10/10.
Woah, woah easy don't kill me!!
Yes, yes it's a masterpiece I get it!
The only people I would recommend Ghibli films in this case: Spirited Away to are people who have a hard on for ambiguous themes and kids under 8.
Or casual movie goers who like them pretty colours. If you do not like pretty colours and ambiguous themes, this movie is and will be a huge disappointment for you.
Or maybe not since it's a Hayao Miyazaki film by Ghibli.
And you would consider it a masterpiece regardless of watching the movie or not.
*Review*
Here's my issue with Spirited Away.
It panders to everyone without a focus. Which is why everyone has a reason to give this show a 10/10.
On the one hand it's a Ghibli Family Mindless F…
Read at the sourceArtrill
[10/10]
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Years ago, I took my first steps into my college dormitory. It was beige, undecorated, and musty, one of the many dorms that stood side-by-side in the repurposed theatre building. I felt numb, barely recalling the goodbye I uttered to my parent’s moments ago. A nervous mother, a proud father, an anxious grandmother, each face ushering me into a new world, one without their support. I remembered my previous graduating class of seven students and how poorly my high school prepared me for my new class of hundreds. I remembered how familiar everything felt, and how comfortable I was just last night.
Chihiro is similar to me, to all of us, really. She’s uprooted from her past, her s…
Read at the sourcektulu007
I've discussed a lot of Studio Ghibli films in the past, and I'll probably touch on more in future. Surprisingly one of their best known films, Spirited Away, hasn't come up yet. It was written and directed by Miyazaki Hayao with production beginning in 2000 and the eventual release in 2001 breaking box office records and winning various awards. Of course, something being popular doesn't necessarily translate to it being good. Although it's a Miyazaki Hayao film so the probability of it being ungood is exceedingly low. Either way, let's take a look.
Story:
Our tale opens with a family driving to their new home. The father gets lost and goes down a side street, eventually coming across a worn down tunnel. They arrive at a strange deserted area and find large plates piled with food at an a…
Read at the sourceGamer_2k4
At the time of this writing, Spirited Away is ranked #2 among anime movies on this site. In my opinion, that is sorely inaccurate. Reading the reviews for it, there are a lot of remarks about the excellent animation and soundtrack (rightfully so) and the strong character design (understandably so), but beyond that, the praise begins to falter. People struggle to justify the disjointed nature of the film, sometimes going with "shows remarkable creativity" and sometimes just falling back on "makes me nostalgic." Viewers who liked it don't know why they liked it, and that doesn't surprise me.
In short, Spirited Away feels like a three hour recreation of someone's dream that was carelessly edited down to two hours for the sake of runtime. For starters, the movie has no true plot. Chihiro (the…
Read at the sourceSorrow
As I'm aging everyday, I felt the need to reminisce about my childhood past, and so recently I decided to re-watch a whole bunch of Disney movies as well as Miyazaki (Studio Ghibili) films. (By the way, did you guys hear that Studio Ghibili is no more? Depressing news for future generations). The movies brought me to tears, and I couldn't help but feel an urge to write a review on how significantly emotional and magnificent Miyazaki's films are. Spirited Away is definitely by far the most popular of all Miyazaki's films considering he won a countless number of awards for the movie and it made more profit than Titanic in Japan at the time. For parents I'd definitely recommend you watch this movie with your children, and children of all ages, if you haven't seen Spirited Away yet in your lif…
Read at the sourceGonzyChan
The very facet of childhood can be boiled down to the very definition of mysterious wonder and awe-inspiring imagination. We’ve all had those moments where we would go off into our little world of childlike imagination and try to experience an entirely new reality different from our own. Films have attempted to recapture the atmosphere that resembles this nostalgic feeling of going through the childhood journey that either succeeded or failed. It just takes a man like Miyazaki to do just that flawlessly.
Miyazaki isn’t a stranger to making movies about childhood and things similar to its nature; Totoro would be an obvious example of this fact. He certainly has an eye for making these kinds of stories that his movies could reflect everyday childhood experiences that we have since grown out…
Read at the sourceCbubbles
I'm sorry, with respect to what he's accomplished, Miyazaki can't tell a good story to save his life. As a test, ask someone who loves Spirited Away for a brief wiki-style synopsis and see if they can do it. Probably not, but it's not their fault; it's a plot based on coincidences and contrivances. The sentimentalism is manipulative & manufactured (aww, the old spider guy has developed a grandfatherly attachment to the protagonist for no reason! etc) and the usually great Joe Hisaishi is reduced to sappy Disney style orchestral "emotional scene #50" muzak. At a bloated two hours, I don't think good visuals are enough.
Read at the sourceanimelambie
Highest grossing film in Japanese history, winner of an American Academy award in 2002, and it's absolutely amazing.
At it's heart, Spirited Away is a familiar story. Again, our young heroine learns to find her inner strength and comes of age after “falling down the rabbit hole” and finds herself on a liminal journey through the realm of the spirits. Again it proves Miyazaki’s talent as a director, storyteller, and visionary-- elevating a traditional narrative by just executing it perfectly.
The lead character, Chihiro, excels as a heroine because her characterization is spot on. Miyazaki wanted to make a protagonist who would be able to speak to ten year old girls-- a demographic which is usually not represented in the medium, since ten year old girls are no longer adorable little chil…
Read at the sourcejal90
This is my first review in MyAnimeList, so I apologize in advance if you find the ideas I'll put forward here badly-written, explained or structured.
I am going to talk about Spirited Away (yeah, obvious). It's been quite a long time since I watched it for the last time, more than a year in fact; but I became a really fascinating and influential piece for me at that time, far enough to define my current love for Miyazaki's works, the Studio Ghibli and animation in general as an art and a strong way of expression. Today it's still one of my favorite animated features of any sort, and not because of its lack of flaws than its amazing blend of concepts.
The first thing that appeals the audience in this movie is its art and animation. I, as unexperienced and poor in technical knowledge about…
Read at the sourceAeterna
When I first saw the movie, I didn't see what the big deal was. All right, so a girl gets whisked away to a fantasy world? We've heard that story before. And, unlike many other movies, there's no dramatic love story or epic battles and action scenes to keep you at the edge of your seat. Consequently, I didn't think of it as being very exciting.
Still, I watched it again and, for some reason, I got it the second time around. Spirited Away isn't meant to be anything grand, with all the bells and whistles. It has a quiet, subdued way of telling a simple story about a simple girl in a very strange world. Instead of expecting something huge, just sit back, watch, and appreciate the world and story Miyazaki has finely crafted for us all to enjoy.
To get to the technical aspects...
The art is,…
Read at the sourcekiriska
As an Oscar-nominated animated feature by a world renowned director and studio, everyone had high expectations for this movie.
STORY - I rather liked the basic premise for this movie; it's very simple and reminiscent of a lot of traditional Asian children's stories, not to mention My Neighbor Totoro, with the whole moving away thing. In addition to Chihiro's task of saving her parents, the story very quickly expands to include an assortment of other strange characters, all with their issues and goals, and there are times when we are completely wrapped up in these secondary characters' problems. This makes it almost seem like Spirited Away should have been a short anime series rather than a full-length film. The randomness of some of the side stories really disconnected from the main plot,…
Read at the sourceslpless
In many ways this is a difficult review to write. This is because I’m clearly not the target audience, as Spirited Away is a film that is clearly targeted towards children. In the end, I simply decided to review the film as I normally do and leave a disclaimer about not being the target audience.
I first watched this film 5 years ago during my senior year in high school when a friend of mine was raving about it. Back then I found the film to be boring and feature a paper thin plot. Now 5 years later and a few hundred anime titles later I was compelled to review this. However, since it was 5 years since I viewed the film, I decided to re-watch Spirited Away in preparation for this review as my memory is a bit foggy. After watching it again, I discovered 2 things about Spirited Away.…
Read at the sourcePyrefly
Unfortunately, the movie that introduced 'mainstream' America to Miyazaki is not as good as it has been advertised.
Story: The story itself is rather underwhelming; a small spoiled brat is 'spirited away' to, well, the spirit world, her life as she knows it is suddenly in danger, and she has to overcome her selfishness in order to get back to her world, all the time helping and being helped by an attractive young male spirit who is actually a dragon...did you catch all the cliches in there?
Art: This is the movie's one saving grace. Miyazaki was always known for his fantastic animation, and Spirited Away is no exception. The scenery is breathtakingly realistic, and despite the two-dimensional characters, could almost be mistaken for live-action if one were to not be careful.
Sound: The…
Read at the sourceDarkRavie
Spirited Away
Spirited Away is about a 10-year-old girl named Chihiro who with her parents, enters an ominous looking tunnel that leads them to a mysterious town filled with restaurants.
Chihiro's parents are quick sit down and begin eating. Unable to get through to them that they should leave, Chihiro wanders off and comes across what she recognizes as a bathhouse where a young boy suddenly appears and warns her to leave before nightfall.
However, as the sun sets, the town begins to fill up with Spirits, and Chihiro returns to find that her parents have undergone a mysterious transformation.
Now alone Chihiro must fend for herself as she meets strange spirits and creatures, and without her parents she must find a way to save them from being served up for dinner. With help from frien…
Read at the sourcejaygold33
Spirited Away was one of my first anime. I remember my mom came home from the movie store with it one day. It was a pleasant surprise for me to find that such a film exists. After it ended I said to myself, this isn't like any other animated films I had ever seen before . . . and then I watched it a second time.
Visually, I believe this is Hayao Miyazaki's best film. Everything is a joy to look at. The soundtrack of Spirited Away is one of my favorite anime soundtracks. This is one of the many strengths of the film. I feel that this is the best of Joe Hisaishi's works as well.
When the soundtrack and visuals come together, it makes all the little things in the film so much more special. The scene where Chihiro is on the train with No Face is one of my favorite scenes in the film. Somethi…
Read at the sourcedataznmaverick
No matter how you approach a review for this movie, this will always be one of the greatest animes ever made. It has fluid artwork and strong characters. And it eschews from typical anime stereotypes. Most importantly, it has a strong moral point about growing up.
For some unknown reason, I have heard a lot of criticism about this anime, in that people think that it's no different from anything else that Studio Ghibli has released. Any other anime by Studio Ghibli has not won an "Academy Award For Best Animation". Nor has any other Ghibli work been ranked as the best animation title by IMDB.
Naysayers will cite Western narrow mindedness. I say nay. By now, anime has become such a phenomenon in the West. And more than enough smart people in the West know enough about what makes a good an…
Read at the sourceengelmetzger
By far my favorite Miyazaki film, Spirited Away transported me to a place that I never wanted to leave. The visuals of this film are simply astounding. The colorful landscapes and the ornate buildings really brought the films story to life. The music was also extremely excellent. The characters were the best part of the film. Each one had their own story to tell. Most people might write this film off as a childrens movie, but in my opinion this is a movie that everyone- adults included- can watch and enjoy.
Read at the source