Spirited Away (2001)

directed by Hayao Miyazaki

Alexa Pellegrini

Most women (and everyone else with a uterus) cross the bridge from childhood into adolescence with blood on their hands. But there’s nothing fun or enviable about getting your first period, no matter what tender books by the likes of Judy Bloom try to convince you. (I begged God to take my period away; it never happened. I hate to break it to you, Margaret, but I don’t think anyone is listening.) What you’re wearing, what you ate for breakfast, the twist of sadness or the spark of joy that flashed across your parental figure’s face, and what you watched the day it happened—all of it will be impressed into the footnotes of memory.

I vividly remember curling up on the couch, 12 and a half years old but already aged by life’s ills and waves of pain radiating through my pelvis, and putting Spirited Away into my DVD player. I found solidarity in the movie’s pre-teen heroine, Chihiro, who abruptly falls into an adult role after falling into the spirit world. At the first gentle notes of the piano, I allowed myself to cry the same fat, shiny tears that would later slip down Chihiro’s face upon realizing that she had changed so much, she could no longer remember her name. Now, she was Sen—“one thousand,” the only character in her birth name not stolen away by Yubaba, a gluttonous witch who runs a bathhouse in the afterlife and turns Chihiro’s parents into pigs. Chihiro has no choice but to become an indentured servant to save them, even as she risks losing herself in the process.

Like Chihiro, there was never a moment when I was excited for adulthood or change. I was a budding queer person who knew that having children was never in the cards, that my body evolving served no purpose other than to give me more grief. My period added a layer of painful disorientation to my already chaotic life: family members tied together by tension and regret, an absent father, a stepfather who was better off absent, a mother whose private struggles and poor health I tended to—and at the center of it all, the eye of the storm swirled between my legs. Another responsibility.

The reason that Chihiro and her family end up sucked into the spirit world is because they take a detour while driving to their new home in a distant town. Petulant, unhappy, lonely, and longing for old friends—I was in Chihiro’s place not two years earlier, forced into a new school as the result of redistricting. After that, I never quite found my footing. Being bullied by middle schoolers for my weight made me more afraid of what nasty surprises my body had in store.

Miyazaki is no stranger to strong female protagonists—take Princess Mononoke (1999), which features San, a fearsome warrior whose status subverts common stereotypes in anime. But while Princess Mononoke looks at man’s relationship with nature through the adolescent female who resists being subjugated by her own femininity, Spirited Away’s epic fantasy mirrors the younger girl’s ‘crossing over’ into young adulthood—and the challenges of developing a fully formed sense of self in opposition to societal norms. I can’t recall any other anime from my childhood where the female characters had a role beyond reinforcing the superiority of its male heroes (I’m looking at you, Naruto).

For all the ways in which Spirited Away sympathizes with and encourages girls trying to navigate the discomfiting, liminal space between childhood and adulthood, I easily consider it Studio Ghibli’s best film not only for kids, but also for pre-teen girls on the cusp of evolution. There’s plenty of subtext about challenging gender norms by making the journey from girlhood to womanhood a challenging yet surmountable one. In Miyazaki’s world, being a woman is what makes you a hero. Embracing your body (in Chihiro’s case, being small is initially a detriment but later saves her life) and speaking your truth may bring disapproval, loneliness, and shame, but Chihiro’s journey insists that these barriers are surmountable. As an awkward kid who often felt conflicted about taking up too much space and speaking my mind, I loved seeing that. I needed to see that.

This essay wouldn’t be complete without examining Haku, a dragon spirit with a human form and arguably the most popular character. Like Chihiro, Haku is an adult-child. He’s lived on Yubaba’s side of the spirit world for a number of years, so he initially takes on the role of Chihiro’s protector. The differences between Chihiro and Haku and how they reflect a lack of gender parity in Japanese culture (and beyond) are also glaringly obvious. Chihiro is confined to cleaning the bath house, mopping up muck from stink spirits, and gets fed through handouts from older, wiser bathhouse assistants (all women).

In contrast, Haku comes and goes as he pleases. He gets to fly. He isn’t weighed down by earthly, womanly tasks. He, too, is an indentured servant to Yubaba, but he proves his loyalty by pulling off cool, underhanded deals. In one key scene, we learn that Haku stole a golden seal that belongs to Yubaba’s identical twin sister, Zeniba; in other scenes, we see him dexterously haggle with spirits to secure Chihiro’s safety. And in the same way that girls become women by taking on emotional labor, Haku is redeemed by Chihiro helping him reclaim his memories.

Spirited Away isn’t exploitative of societal expectations for girls vs. boys, however. Look closely, and watch how Miyazaki asserts that girls and women often have more strength than even they themselves know. Chihiro is never thrust into a situation that she can’t handle. Ultimately, she becomes the hero of the narrative by combining her childlike stubbornness with a surprisingly mature sense of responsibility that she discovers through the spirit world’s trials. Learning to bargain not just with Yubaba, with her own body and mind helps Chihiro cleanse a stink spirit, fend off Yubaba’s giant, fearsome baby, score a train ticket out of the bathhouse, and save her loved ones.

Chihiro’s greatest act of heroism is perhaps facing a friend turned foe named No-Face, a black, willowy spirit that wears a Noh mask (great pun!). You’ve probably seen at least one No-Face meme; he’s become something of a pop culture icon, recognizable even to people who refuse to watch anime. It’s because he represents something that always worried me as a pre-teen: getting older means selling out and settling into the grooves of capitalism.

Miyazaki isn’t subtle about No-Face and what they represent. But that’s entirely the point, not a symptom of poor storytelling. For the young viewer, a non-binary spirit that spits out gold from the mouth in its belly turns a tired, cautionary tale about greed into a deliciously creative, unforgettable climax. No-Face enters the narrative as a mostly mute spirit that panders for bath house tokens. Chihiro gives them a few tokens, and this sets off a chain of events that leads to No-Face bribing bathhouse workers with gold, and then swallowing them (not eating them) to grow limbs, hair, and a voice.

Chihiro confronts No-Face, narrowly escapes being devoured, and then tricks them into releasing the spirits and surrendering. Here comes the clincher, the moment where communal traits like empathy are reimagined into a superpower: instead of shunning No-Face, Chihiro takes them with her on her journey, and they become a key asset to her success. Maybe she sees something of her old self in their meek nature. After a lifetime of being surrounded by authority figures who informed my idea of adulthood as proudly bearing grudges and making enemies, it was refreshing to see a different take on the business of growing up. I would later come to realize that this empathetic resolution between No-Face and Chihiro is proof that those we cast as villains (including our changing bodies) are less intractable than we may think.

Though Spirited Away begins with Haku saving Chihiro from literally fading away, it ends with Chihiro solidifying her sense of self by altering the spirit world. Chihiro is changed, and unlike most young heroines, she has an equal impact on changing her environment. If you ask me, this couldn’t be more inspiring to every young girl learning how to find and wield her voice, no matter what anyone has to say about her body. Even helping Haku recover his birth name and in turn escape servitude is to Chihiro’s benefit—it gives her the strength of heart to face Yubaba and save her parents. Chihiro defeating Yubaba has a marked effect on the rest of the bathhouse, too. We first see the bathhouse cloaked in somber dusk, and we depart from it on a sunny day with a confetti-filled celebration for Chihiro’s success.

It was so emboldening to watch this young girl challenge uncouth adults and win at a time in my life that I became acutely aware of my paradoxical over-responsibility for my mother’s wellbeing and my own powerlessness. Spirited Away sent me a powerful message: when girls persist, they’re instrumental to not only changing their own destinies, but also reshaping the world around them for the better. What could I do if I pushed forward despite it all, if I were brave, if I didn’t fear my own impact and needs? I asked myself, in so many words. So many things—magical things. Maybe I wouldn’t ride an ivory-scaled dragon, but I could speak my truth and help other people in the process. (In retrospect, it’s no surprise that I ended up becoming a writer.)

Chihiro’s journey felt deeply meaningful during one of the most vulnerable and fearsome moments of my childhood, nothing short of a cataclysmic event that threatened to take what little I had left of my former self. Life’s greatest challenges, even those that we anticipate, can disorient us from our true selves. Yet they can also be our source of strength. If Chihiro could overcome a man-eating spirit, a witch, and her greatest enemy of all—her own self-doubt— I knew I had the grit to grow and evolve into my own person, even though I did not know her yet.

Alexa Pellegrini writes out of Philadelphia. Her fascination with films that range from ethereal to downright terrifying comes from her interest in psychology and examining how different genres interpret universal elements of our human experience. Alexa reports on tomorrow’s generation of filmmakers and film school news at FilmSchool.org. You can also keep up with her on Twitter and Instagram @theperegrinepen.