How Spirited Away Changed Animation Forever

One of Hayao Miyazaki’s most renowned movies, Spirited Away changed animation forever. The 2001 feature revolves around Chihiro, a young girl who finds herself in a world ruled by mysterious spirits and is forced to race against time to protect her parents from a terrifying fate. Animated movies are often designed to reach specific audiences, but Spirited Away takes a different approach, blending fantastical elements from Japanese folklore into a coming-of-age setup that resonates with anyone who experienced what transitioning to adolescence feels like. To understand the mutable world of spirits and find her place, Chihiro must acknowledge that her parents were once children too.

Spirited Away is one of Studio Ghibli’s best movies because it made the world perceive animation differently. The movie held the record of highest-grossing Japanese movie for 19 years (until Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train surpassed it) and gained a global recognition that no other animated feature has ever achieved: Spirited Away is the only foreign-language film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and it’s the only animated film to receive the prestigious Golden Bear, the most important award in the annual Berlin International Film Festival.

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Spirited Away Proved Hand-Drawn Animation Was Still Relevant

In a contemporary scenario swayed by computer-animated works, Spirited Away and most other Studio Ghibli films, including those not by Miyazaki stick to hand-drawn animation, a decision that goes beyond preserving an anime tradition. With the rise of CGI, animated movies began to win awards more because of how realistic their visuals looked than for how beautifully the animated components contributed to the narrative. But Spirited Away rose to the top and swept major awards, proving that animation isn’t a trend nor a genre, but rather an important storytelling technique, possibly inspiring new inventive animated movies such as Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish.

Spirited Away’s Character Psychology Influenced Animation

The psychological aspects of Spirited Away influenced important changes in animation: Chihiro isn’t brought to a world of wonder and beauty; she’s lost and afraid and has to deal with the darkness on her own. Spirited Away wasn’t the first animated film to offer a certain interest in understanding the mind of children; other animated coming-of-age movies portray the loss of innocence as something natural and important, but Spirited Away set the path for other animations to follow suit.

The film changed animation forever by inspiring audiences to think outside the box and embrace a children’s reality, which includes fear and insecurity. Spirited Away‘s psychological motif is what influenced animated movies the most. Successful movies such as Makoto Shinkai’s Your Name and Pixar’s Inside Out come from the batch of psychological themes presented in Spirited Away, adjusting the assumption that animation is a niche genre and reshaping the Japanese film market entirely.

More: 15 Best Spirited Away Quotes, Ranked