Spiritualized

No, this won't be a review of The Spirit. It's about Miyazaki's masterpiece Spirited Away. It's the animated story of Chihiro, a 10-year old girl who is moving with her parents to a new town, and isn't too happy about it. Her father takes a shortcut and winds up at what he thinks in an abandoned amusement park. But it turns out to be part of the spirit world, and her parents are turned into pigs when they chow down on the spirit food. It's up to Chihiro to save them.

She winds up at the baroque spa where spirits go to be rejuvenated. It is run by a nasty witch, but her henchman is a nice young man who helps Chihiro out. In fact, most of the people (spirits) she meets are rather nasty and rather nice, in various measures. She starts out afraid, but tries to be polite, open-minded and fair, and -- SPOILER -- everything works out OK for her.

The story actually has some holes in it, I felt. The menace was sometimes missing, the villains too cuddly. That henchman who helps Chihiro, I think we are supposed to be suspicious of him, but he akways seems sincere. That may have been intentional, but I think a liitle more ambiguity would have worked better.

But the character design and artwork was fantastic (literally and figuratively), with monsters that were both fresh and traditional feeling - both to Japanese mainstream and anime traditions. It all had a lovely flavor of old-time Japan, where old times are from medieval times to the 1970s. There is a scene on a train - just a quiet train ride on an old train through a flooded country. I've been on those trains, going from nowhere special to someplace quaint. It's very nostalgic, even if it isn't that old, and not part of your history anyway.

I don't know if people who've never been to Japan react the same way. But I thought it was sweet.