Forever spirited away

My first exposure to Studio Ghibli, Hayao Miyazaki’s and Isao Takahata’s creations were before I had even heard of the company and its founders.

I was in kindergarten. Maybe. I can’t remember the exact age. But I remember Heidi, Girl of the Alps (アルプスの少女ハイジ Arupusu no Shōjo Haij), a Japanese anime series based on the children’s classic Heidi, by Johanna Spyri.

It was made in 1974 but has been dubbed numerous times through the years (the one I watched was in Mandarin), released on tape and DVD, and is popular with children even today. One can see why. A little girl and her pet kid goat (or was it lamb) running barefoot in lush green fields of Switzerland, stringing daisies or lying on the grass, playing under the vast expanse of blue sky. Free and carefree. It was the stuff of dreams for kids growing up in cities (goatherd boyfriend and heiress best friend notwithstanding). It sure was for me. The best I could manage was sneaking out of my grandparents’ flat while my parents were at work to run around the block (and get a scolding later because little kids get kidnapped by drug gangs) or play in my grandmother’s rooftop orchid garden (and get scolded for nor wearing shoes because I would get “worms”).

I didn’t even know Heidi was by the people who would years later start Studio Ghibli — Isao Takahata (director), and Hayao Miyazaki (scene design and layout) — until two years ago when I visited the Ghibli Museum and there was a whole room dedicated to the series. Talk about reliving your childhood.

  

Much much later, still before I’d heard of Studio Ghibli, a colleague passed me a VHS tape (that’s how long ago it was) of Grave of the Fireflies (火垂るの墓 Hotaru no Haka) by Takahata. 

At the other end of the spectrum from the happy Heidi, this story is a poignant one of two orphaned children, Seita and his sister, Setsuko (it’s apparently based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Akiyuki Nosaka). Even today, it’s considered one of the most compelling anti-war movies ever made. I had always thought it was a sad tale of the children’s plight during WWII in Japan, a point of view from the Japanese side decades before Letters from Iwo Jima. Until a few years ago when another friend pointed out a deeper moral, blaming the boy’s prideful behaviour and how it led to their tragic ends. Interesting. Never saw it from that perspective before.

Anyway, whatever you take from it, it’s a profoundly human story, considering it’s a “cartoon” made in 1988. I’ve since lost my tin of fruit drops (a recurring item in the storyline) which I bought on my first trip to Japan, but I’ve got the movie on DVD. Powerful film.

Princess Mononoke (もののけ姫 Mononoke Hime) is probably the West’s first introduction to Miyazaki (outside of anime fans and arthouse moviegoers), with Miramax targetting the masses and releasing it in selected cinemas in 1997 (with translation and adaptation credit to Neil Gaiman).

It’s a tale that touches on some of my favourite themes: mythology/fantasy, magic, forest spirits, animal spirits, and humans and deforestation (a bit like an anime Elfquest, only it came too late to absolutely consume my teenage years). Many see this film as an environmental message told in the form of Japanese mythology. 

The tale is about an Emishi (it was once a real tribe in Honshu) prince Ashitaka who defends his village from a demon-possessed Boar God and in the process, gets cursed himself. To find the origin of that curse, and hopefully a cure so he won’t die, he journeys to the Forest of the West, a wood where spirits reside, including the Shishigami, Forest Spirit, a huge beast like a stag with many antlers, the face of a baboon and feet of birds, who at night takes the form of a giant Didarabocchi, a translucent supernatural creature that walks around the forest radiating a faint blue glow.

In the forest, Ashitaka meets San, a human girl brought up by the Wolf Goddess, Moro. (Moro attacked San’s parents who were found destroying the forest. As a sacrifice to save their own lives, San’s parents threw her to Moro, who raised her as one of her own together with her two young cubs.) As though rejecting her humanity, San is in battle with the humans from Irontown who are set on clearing the forest to mine more ore. Ashitaka finds himself trying to mediate between the forest spirits and the humans, yet the humans don’t intend to stop. In fact, they want the head of the Shishigami, which promises immortality. Look out for the kodama, the mesmerising, almost hypnotic, kind of cute tree spirits that sit on the branches in the forest.

(This being one of Disney’s first release of anime in USA, it’s interesting to see how they wanted to do things, and how fans reacted. Don’t underestimate the power of geeks.)

However, my favourite by far (a really really far) is Spirited Away (千と千尋の神隠し Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi), an Alice in Wonderland meets Brothers Grimm tale, Japanese mythology style. A rabbit hole that leads into strange bizarre world that’s not all peachy keen and safe, but really the opposite, fraught with spirits, wraiths, witches, monsters, dragons, magic spells and hexes.

It actually begins with a rabbit hole of sorts. Chihiro and her parents are en route to their new home in a new town when they chance upon a tunnel which leads them into an old amusement park filled with an abundant, tempting feast. As her parents gorge themselves, uninvited, on the food, they are transformed into pigs. Chihiro’s distress at her parents’ transformation turns to panic as the sun sets and the “amusement park” becomes a spirit world. Enter Haku, a boy who helps Chihiro. He takes her to his mistress, the witch Yubaba, as being under her employ would be the only way Chihiro can remain in the world long enough to find her parents and rescue them. Yubaba agrees to let Chihiro work for her, but takes possession of Chihiro’s name — the kanji of her name literally flies off the paper leaving only a partial character which reads as Sen (in many cultures, a name is probably one’s most significant, precious and personal possession; likewise folklore or beliefs across the world, knowing one’s name is considered as having a power over that someone).

In the rest of the adventure, Sen’s mettle, courage and character are tested as she encounters spirits and demons who visit the bathhouse where she works, as she searches for a way to rescue her parents from the spirit world, and save Haku (we learn he, too, is under Yubaba’s spell) who has been cursed by Yubaba’s twin sister, Zeniba, because he stole her sigil on Yubaba’s orders. Sen is aided on her quest by Yubaba’s son Bou, who’s been turned into a fat mouse, and his crow, who’s been turned into a hummingbird.

Besides the story of Sen’s evolution from self-centred child to a young girl who discovers her own inner strength, Miyazaki has also injected messages about the environment into the movie in the form of a Stink Spirit that visits the bathhouse where Sen works. No one wants to attend to him and he is cleansed only after Sen pulls out all the trash, junk and gunk that has been trapped in his disgusting, blobbish form, revealing a grateful River Spirit that rewards Sen with magical all-healing pills.

In Spirited Away, Miyazaki creates a strange, mystical, sometimes dangerous, world which defies reason and logic. He dreams up characters, so many of them, both good and bad. Supernatural yet possessing such fallible human traits like pride and greed we can almost see ourselves in them. And in the courage and will of the heroes, we also hope to see ourselves. They’re a colourful bunch: Sen and Haku, Yubaba and Zeniba. No Face, Bou (and his hummingbird) and Lin. Even Kamijii, a six-armed old man that works in the bathhouse’s boiler room, and the endearing susuwatari, the army of soot-balls that work for him.

  

Susuwatari (ススワタリ) translate literally to “travelling soot”, and first appear in Miyazaki’s earlier anime film My Neighbor Totoro. In Spirited Away, they work by carrying coal from the coal pile to the furnace. If they aren’t given a job to do, they turn back into soot. They get excited if you feed them Japanese candy kompeito.

  One of the susuwatari (although he’s not fuzzy any more) currently serves as my keychain (taking over from Ryoga Hibiki 響 良牙, the piglet from Ranma 1/2, who was also a keychain of a bad guy ninja in Speed Racer), and another larger one (purchased from Ghibli Museum) used to sit on my desk at work and occasionally got hurled at account executives. (It’s okay, it wasn’t hurt.) (The susuwatari, not the executive.)

Spirited Away was released in Japan in July 2001 where it became the highest-grossing film in Japanese history, surpassing Princess Mononoke for highest grossing animated film. It was the first movie to have earned $200 million at the worldwide box office before opening in the USA. By 2002, a sixth of the Japanese population had seen this movie. The film was dubbed into English by Walt Disney Pictures, under the supervision of Pixar’s John Lasseter. (By the way, Miyazaki has a no edit rule on his anime films; Disney has distribution rights to Studio Ghibli films outside Japan, declining only Grave of the Fireflies and Only Yesterday.)

Spirited Away is the first anime to win an Academy Award (in 2002).

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Tags: anime, grave of the fireflies, hayao miyazaki, heidi girl of the alps, princess mononoke, spirited away, studio ghibli