Spirited Away

     One of my favorite animated movies ever made, Spirited Away, has made tremendous strides in the animation industry while captivating audience with a fantastic plot and characters. Personally, the most amazing thing about this film is the amount of creativity that flows throughout it and makes an everlasting impact on the audience. This film was directed Hayao Miyazaki, a man who has made many masterpieces and in my opinion, his best one to date. Spirited Away has won an Oscar as well as many other notable awards and has been recognized as a masterpiece of animated cinema.

     The story focuses on a young girl named Chihiro and her struggle to survive in a strange new world where creatures and witches live and where humans are turned into beasts. The movie begins with Chihiro and her family driving cross country to their new house in a new town. On the way, they stop near an abandoned park to explore the desolate, but beautiful landscape. Along the way, as the sun gets closer to setting, spirits start to appear and Chihiro's parents are transformed into pigs. Scared and alone in an unknown place, Chihiro runs away and encounters Haku, a mysterious boy who is willing to help her return home. Throughout the rest of the movie, Chihiro encounters strange creatures and circumstances that she must overcome to save her parents and return to the peaceful life she was once bored with. On top of the fantastic animation, the character development is amazing and you learn to sympathize with the protagonist in more ways than one.

Overall, Spirited Away is a must see film that can be enjoyed by any age and produces heartfelt moments that are the most memorable and gripping than any other film I've seen.

 

enliven

I remember sitting on our living room floor in Japan, drawing out Disney characters while the Little Mermaid was playing. At that time, that was my favorite movie. I never called a fork, fork. Instead, I would argue with waiters and anyone else who questioned me that it was simply called a dingle hopper. Animation movies and T.V shows were the things that I lived for. Growing up in Japan opened my eyes to all the anime cartoons and how magnificent the colors and artwork that came from these shows were. But there was one particular artist who was more than just an artist and a phenomenal storyteller who changed my life. His name is Hayao Miyazaki.

Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke

No one questions his abilities; he's proven time and time again that there's something about animation that takes us into another realm. The characters in his films all have this unique background, and they're characters that leave a lasting impression on almost anyone who sees the films. Growing up as a military child and moving so often, I never got the experience of having friends for more than two to three years. Miyazaki's films were like outlets for me to travel into another world with strange creatures, that it didn't really bother me (or I hardly noticed) that having friends was something I needed. Being so young at the time, re-drawing the characters from his films and running outside chasing after the Susuwatari was all that I really cared about.

Susuwatari

Although growing up will all his films impacted my younger life, Princess Mononoke is THE film that made me decide to pursue a career in the film industry. I honestly had no idea what I was going to do after high school. I loved to draw, but I never thought my skills qualified enough for college level. I sort of just started sinking into this dark void and felt like I was going to follow my father's footsteps and join the military as well. That, was my final decision. I plopped in a Miyazaki film trying to cheer myself up, and that's when my mind began to tell me something different. Now that I was older, I was able to understand his films. I watched Princess Mononoke and began to see the story line and feel emotions I didn't feel as a child watching the film before. I thought to myself, "I want to do that." I didn't really know what I meant by that, but I just knew I wanted to be doing something that could make people think. I wanted to create characters that people never even imagined before, but can relate to. I wanted people to wonder in their minds, what if the world was like that?

Never did I think growing up that a couple imaginary creatures could help me make a decision that would impact the rest of my life.

Kodama