Spirited Away: Encyclopedia II - Spirited Away - Story

Spirited Away - Story

In the movie, Chihiro Ogino is a little girl who is moving to a new town with her parents, Akio and Yuko (Yūko). She is clearly unhappy about the move and appears rather petulant. They lose their way and come across a tunnel, and out of curiosity enter it, unaware that it actually provides access into a spirit world—specifically, to a spirit bathhouse, where the spirits and gods (drawn from the Shinto religious tradition) go to rest and relax. The family enters what is apparently an abandoned theme park populated with restaurants, and Chihiro's parents, finding a place to eat, immediately help themselves to a meal. Chihiro is uneasy, and hesitates outside, watching her parents eat like pigs; soon they actually transform into large pigs (as happened to Odysseus' crew in Homer's Odyssey).

When Chihiro's distress at losing her parents is compounded by discovering that she's turning transparent, a mysterious boy or young man named Haku comforts her and gives her something to eat which turns her solid again. He then escorts her into the spirit world palace of Yubaba (Yubaaba) and admonishes her that the only way she can remain safely for long enough to rescue her parents is to find work in the spirits' bathhouse.

Chihiro follows Haku's advice, descending a long outdoor staircase to the boiler room where she asks the human-looking, six-armed boilerman, Kamaji, for work. He rebuffs her, until one of the coal-carrying sprites (reminiscent of My Neighbor Totoro's soot sprites) collapses under an extra-heavy lump. Chihiro takes the sprite's place and feeds the boiler. Kamaji warms towards the girl, and assists her getting a job in the bathhouse.

A young woman named Lin (Rin) helps Chihiro find her way through the labyrinthine palace undetected, diverting a fellow servant by tantalizing him with food while Chihiro squeezes into an elevator behind a gross but benign radish spirit (daikon kami).

While at work Sen has a difficult time adjusting to the work regime, but wins respect by dealing with a difficult customer, a slimy "stink spirit" whom she discovers is actually a heavily polluted yet powerful river god. Sen succeeds only with the help of a somewhat monstrous spirit called No-Face, who is attracted to her because she was kind to him, unwittingly allowing him to enter the bath house against policy. The bath house seems to bring out the the worst in No-face. Able to produce gold out of thin air, he feeds off of the greed of the bath house's employees and goes out of control and begins eating everything in sight including three staff members. While No-face is keeping everyone busy, Haku returns to the bathhouse in the form of a dragon, but he is in touble as he is being pursued and attacked by a large flock of enchanted origami birds. Badly injured, he makes his way to Yubaba's quarters. Sen goes to find him but is secretely followed by one of the paper birds.

While looking for Haku, Sen encounters Yubaba's giant baby boy who wants to play with her. She manages to get away from him and finds Haku, who is on the verge of dying. The paper object that followed Sen transforms into Zeniba, Yubaba's twin sister, who was chasing Haku because he had stolen her gold seal. Zeniba transforms the baby into a little hamster-like creature because he makes too much noise, and Yubaba's hawk-like lieutenant into a tiny bird-creature. Haku cuts Zeniba's paper puppet into two with his tail, causing Zeniba's image to split and disappear. He then tumbles down a shaft, taking Sen with him, but they land safely in Kamaji's room.

Sen manages to treat Haku and makes him spit out the seal that he stole from Zeniba. She decides to return it and travels with the reformed No-Face--who is cured of his pathological gluttony by Sen--and the little baby creature, who is carried by the bird creature. When Yubaba finds out that her baby is missing she is furious. Haku manages to make a deal: he will get the baby back and in return Yubaba must set free Sen and her parents. (The plots of the Japanese- and English-language versions differ slightly here: in the original, Yubaba and Haku talk about what's necessary to break the spell on her parents.)

Haku (again a dragon) finds Sen at Zeniba's cottage. The two of them fly back to the bathhouse. On the way, Chihiro (who had remembered her name some time before) remembers where she had met Haku before: he is actually a river spirit, specifically the spirit of the Kohaku River, near which Chihrio used to live (and once fell into) but that was drained up and built upon. Upon remembering Chihiro tells him that his name is 'Kohaku River'. This frees Haku from the control of Yubaba. At the bathhouse Chihiro has to perform one last task to free her parents: she has to pick them out from a group of pigs. She correctly answers that none of the pigs are her parents. As a result she and her parents are set free and return to the human world with Chihiro much stronger for her experiences.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Story", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki