 After years of pleading, begging, demanding, and encouraging, I finally watched not one, not two, but three Studio Ghibli films. And today I'm gonna talk about one of them. I might, I might go wild and keep doing this. We'll see how it, we'll see how it pans out. The first movie I watched was A Banger. Spirited Away. I'm gonna talk about it briefly now. If I had to describe Spirited Away to someone who hadn't seen it, I would say it's Japan Inside Out. Now, this is one of those movies that's very interpretive. There's a lot of ways to take the messaging. I read somewhere online, which makes it true that the script was being written as the movie was being animated. They were doing this on the fly, because the director felt that it was more inclusive to the rest of the staff. If they could add their two cents worth in, if they could provide their own visuals and ideas, concepts, blah, blah, blah. I liked it. I dug it. The film focuses on Chihiro and her family on their way to their new destination, a new home. She has her friends back where she came from. She doesn't know anyone here. Totally different foreign location. It's scary, especially for a young girl. She's scared, she's upset, and her parents are somewhat oblivious to it all. They're kind of crap, honestly. If I could be honest, they're her parents kind of suck. They find themselves driving on a dirt road off the beaten path and they get to a dead end. They come to an impressive building that at first glance looks like it has a lot of rich history behind it as it was built centuries ago, but in fact, no. It's just a relic of an old amusement park that was closed down. Her parents decide to investigate what's going on by walking forth down a creepy dark hallway and leaving their daughter behind until she inevitably catches up because her parents suck. I don't know why I'm breaking down the plot. I'm sure most people have seen this movie and just want to hear my thoughts on it without, you know, describing in detail everything that's going on beat by beat. To speed this up, Chihiro's family's very famished and they come upon a whole gluttony of food that they can eat, in which they do. After gorging themselves for quite a while, they end up turning into pigs, as one does when gorging themselves. Chihiro doesn't know this at the time as she starts to wander off, ends up at a bath house. This is a place of relaxation, of pampering, of spirits, of evil witches, of, yes, the last two things I said are real. There's a lot of crazy stuff going on here, including a faceless person that pops up here and there, very kind of disturbing for the family. We dug it. His name, or I guess more appropriately, its name is No Face and it will follow our little protagonist throughout the movie. Eventually Chihiro will work for this place, but friend of boy named Haku, who turns out as a dragon, which was the style at the time. But really what's going to happen here? She's going to learn to grow up really fast. How to communicate with people, how to make friends, how to hold a job and put a little elbow grease into your work. To say that spirited away is about one thing specific would be crazy. There are so many concepts and ideas going on here. I'm still trying to process it all and I can definitely see myself watching this multiple times over and taking different pieces away, different information. I guarantee you I only got a surface level of what's going on in this film. I think the most obvious thing is the coming of age tale with Chihiro as, you know, she's moving to a new location, she's scared and she's kind of working through her problems in the spirit world. She's learning how to grow up quickly. Now she is a klutz, this is a trope that's very played out and it can be a little annoying at times, but thankfully, you know, towards the second half she's kind of overcoming that obstacle more and so am I as a viewer. Mainly because she has so many little friends joining along with her that kind of pick up the stupidity slack that I was enjoying the main character more. We see lots of corporate greed here. We see how people will bend over backwards for those that have money. You have the money, you have the power. NoFace really showcases this when he gets invited into the bath house and becomes a total glutton himself. But this character also is layered to him too because he desperately just wants a friend. He wants to be loved and to do that he's going about it all wrong. Spirit Away takes the term ghosting quite literally as NoFace is really shunned from the community and it isn't until InnocentiaHero comes along and pays attention to him that he feels more empowered. The movie also really showcases the different points in a person's life. There's the baby obviously that's very selfish and stupid and then there's the elderly people, the witches, the sisters. All these different facets of the character really help her come to grips with what's going on in reality. And by the time the movie's over she has saved her parents and she's confident. She's stronger now. She's willing to stay the course and see what the future brings. Spirit Away is beautiful across the board. The journey is a crazy one. You don't know where this film's gonna end up going. It takes its time getting there too. Nothing feels rushed. Tons of movies today especially animated ones feel the need to bombard you with constant jokes or action scenes. I found the most exciting scenes to be the quietest ones where our protagonist is just sitting on a train going across the water or looking at the amusement park at the architecture around her. These quiet moments say a lot. The movie is beautiful too, wonderfully animated. I mean it came out in 2001 and really doesn't show its age. Writer and director Hayomi Izaki crafts a world like no other here and I would go on to watch further movies by the studio because of this one movie and well and because of all the recommendations. I apologize if I butchered his name. It's Japanese naming isn't my strong suit. Just really saying names in general isn't my strong suit but we press through it don't we? Alright I'd love to hear from you now. Comment below with your thoughts on the film. Like the video if you had a good time. Subscribe if you hadn't and hit that notification bell so you get these things right up in your feed. The next movie we watched was Princess Mononoke. It's got an 8.4 on IMDB. We didn't like it. Maybe I'll talk about it next. Thanks again for watching the video and if you're one of the people that recommended these Studio Ghibli films thank you very much. Special shout out. You know who you are. If you want to give suggestions please join me on Patreon at Patreon.com slash Adam Does Movies. You can give a dollar to a month. Show your support and throw me a comment on there. I tend to listen to those people a little bit more because they are saying you know what Adam? We're with you. We're on this ride. The same goes for YouTube join members. You can join right here for the same thing. You get access to additional content and you get to have your voices heard even a little louder. Thank you very much. Hopefully I'll see you next time.