Hayao Miyazaki in his studio. © André Mazzone.

Editor's Note: At present Hayao Miyazaki's film, Spirited Away or Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi, does not have a U.S. distributor and the Japanese rights holders would not give AWN permission to run images and clips with this story. For images and clips you can visit the official Studio Ghibli site at http://www.ntv.co.jp/ghibli/ and the film's official site at http://www.toho.co.jp/sentochihiro/welcome-j.html. Another excellent, but unofficial site, is Nausicaa.Net, which is in English and located at http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/sen/

It is hard to put the Japanese word 'Kamikakushi' into English. When I referred to a Japanese-English dictionary, I found it was translated as 'spirited away.' Yet I think it does not convey the exact meaning because the phrase 'Kamikakushi' has a more spiritual meaning.

So let me explain what 'Kamikakushi' truly means using the famous Anime feature Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro) as an example. Recall the sequence where the little girl Mei was lost and everything got very confused in the village? While men were searching for her body in the pond, an old woman, who loves little Mei as if she were her true granddaughter, prays desperately for her safety sitting on her heels on the footpath by the pond.

If you were there and asked her in Japanese: "Obarchan, ittai nani ga attan desu ka." (What's happened, Ma'am?), she would reply to you harshly: "Mei-chan ga KAMIKAKUSHI ni attan dayo!" (My little Mei has got involved in Kamikakushi!) If you take the word as 'missing' or 'lost,' you will miss her true feeling. She means that some spirits have carried off Mei.

Japan has many legends and tales about children who strayed into the spirits' world, although in Totoro, spirits help, not kidnap, Mei. Her older sister Satsuki finds missing Mei on a path outside of the village before sunset, assisted by the giant and kind spirit Totoro, living in the forest by her house, and his friend, the Cheshire Cat-like spirit Neko Basu ("Cat Bus"). The story ends with a happy scene where the old woman holds Mei with wild joy.

The Totoro story is set around 1955, ten years after Japan was defeated in World War II. Now it is 2001. With Japan's miracle economic growth since the '60s, many forests have been chopped down in order to make living quarters. Villages like the one in Totoro have disappeared in much of Japan. I believe forest spirits like Totoro would hate such places now because they must have loved the old, natural forests. To make a Kamikakushi tale in this age was the new ambition of Hayao Miyazaki, Anime master and best known as the creator of Totoro and Studio Ghibli (pronounced "Jibuli"). A ten-year old girl of today strays into the world of spirits, goes through many experiences there and finally returns to the human world. This is the story of his latest film Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (its official English title is Spirited Away), which is his first movie in four years since Princess Mononoke and broke box office records when it opened on July 20, 2001 in Japan.

Chihiro in Wonderland
If you saw Totoro, you will feel some deja vu while watching the prologue of Kamikakushi. The movie starts with 3 family members riding in a car. They seem to be moving house like Satsuki, Mei and their father in Totoro, although, while Mei's family brought all their belongings on their light truck, there is much less being carried in the smart Toyota four-wheel vehicle. It appears that housemovers will be bringing Chihiro's family's remaining belongings.

There is another difference between protagonists. While Satsuki and Mei in Totoro were watching the sights curiously with their bodies thrust forward out of the truck, Chihiro, the protagonist in Kamikakushi, seems to have no interest and does nothing but lie on the backseat spiritlessly. The place where they are living looks like newly developed housing on a hill.

Their car strays onto a mountain path and encounters a strange big gate. When they get out of the car and pass through the gate, they find they are in a large hill plain. They wonder if it is the debris of a theme park's construction, now suspended. In the middle of a street right out of a Western ghost town, they find an open public restaurant. There are no other patrons and no employees in sight. Chihiro's parents find plates of fried chicken available on the counter and begin eating without hesitation.

After that, the story proceeds as you saw in the trailer available on the Net. As the sun sets, the town grows lit and ghosts appear on the streets. In a state of shock, Chihiro shouts to her parents, still hungry for food: "I want to go home!" They turn their faces toward her and, my God, she discovers they have been turned into pigs!