The animated film Spirited away, produced by Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki, contains many sacred Shinto motives and folklore reflections. The film’s plot follows the story of a 10-year-old girl named Chihiro Ogino, who finds herself in a world inhabited by ghosts and spirits. Although Hayao Miyazaki, being a big admirer of inserting reflections of Shinto into his works, filled the majority of them with religious overtones, Shinto motives of purification and the search for morality have become key to the plot of Spirited away.
Shinto is a religion based on the animistic beliefs of the ancient Japanese. The reflections of Shinto are widely represented in Miyazaki’s works, influencing not only the course of the story but also the development of the characters. These include the concept of the kami and reverence for nature, ritual purification or harae, shrines, and a number of symbols such as shide, torii gates, camphor trees, and shimenawa (Rowland 42). Although Shinto has a fairly clear set of identifiers, it has merged with countless other religions to create an ever-changing, unified religion in Japan and Southeast Asia. Thus, due to the deep reverence of Japanese cultural traditions, Shinto often becomes a part of modern Japanese culture, and Spirited away is not an exception.
A summary of some aspects of the Shinto worldview in the film will provide a general basis for understanding its plot, references, and characters. Although kami is often translated as gods, kami is not equivalent to gods or the God of western religion (Bradley and Cheng 106). To feel the presence of kami in any of nature’s aspects requires an aesthetically pure heart and a deliberate mental state, which is not easy to achieve. In the course of the story, Chihiro goes from a capricious child to a mature girl whose motives come from her sincerity towards the people around her and the outside world. The viewers of other religions may see the main character’s changes as individualistic, but the Japanese cannot separate this from Shinto reflections. The importance of tradition is the center of attention for Miyazaki, reflecting even at the level of subtext.
Manifestations of Shinto traditions are already visible in the original title of the animated film, which has not found a place in the translation. The word “kamikakushi” in the title Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi refers to the viewer to the phenomena of the frontier world. The word itself describes the state when a person has been absent for a long time and begins to be called “hidden by kami” upon returning. The invisible world of the kami is a place many of the characters end up finding, and it is almost always restricted by some Shinto symbol (Rowland 46). The plot is built on the disappearance of Chihiro in the otherworld, which only continues to delve into Shinto realities.
One of the first symbols of Shinto in the animated film is the torii gates, leaning against an old tree and surrounded by small shrines. Usually, they stand on the way to the sanctuary and mark the beginning of the sacred territory, where changes in a person’s life begin. Torii gates often frame the entrance to Shinto shrine because its function of it is to delimit a sacred or purified space (Rowland 46). To benefit from the presence of kami living in such a place, the person needs to be sensitive to their presence. This can happen if one empirically moves from the mundane and everyday world to the border realm. The person must first abandon the old, go through the borderline phase and return to the human world. In the Japanese context, purification is also required since removing external and internal impurities prevents people from coming to a new state. Once on the other side, the girl begins her spiritual growth and approach to the Shinto kami.
The appearance of a bathhouse, contrary to the understanding of a person who is far from Shinto, is also a religious reflection. In Shinto’s knowledge, all life phenomena are polluted and need periodic cleaning. For this reason, Miyazaki immerses his kami in a bath, forcing them to get rid of excess garbage. The use of a bathhouse as the main setting is poignant to Japanese culture; bathing is key in preparing to enter shrines, and the act of cleansing itself allows for a pure heart, giving the individual greater access to Shinto ideals in their interactions with the world (Quirk 22). Being one of the common Shinto traditions, baths are difficult for non-Japanese to be seen as a symbol, so it is easy to lose sight of this reference and not realize the influence of religion on the plot.
The wandering souls of the dead who remain in the border world because of their tormenting regrets and worries also reflect Shinto. The key image becomes No Face, who has not found peace during his lifetime. He proceeds to gorge himself on whatever he can get his hands on, morphing into a grotesque being whose only motivation is to consume more and more, including food from the bathhouse kitchen and several of the people who work there (Rowland 49). No Face is the figure of a lonely, unhappy person, who is represented as an image of evil at the beginning of the film, but at the end also begins the path to correction. Once again, Shinto manifests itself in spiritual changes and genuine sincerity, having gained which one can gain the favor of kami and achieve inner harmony.
A similar moral duality is a major characteristic of other film characters, such as Yubaba and Zeniba. The interactions of the Shinto space of the bathhouse with modernity, embodied by Yubaba, begin to transform the latter, which can be read as a microcosm for Shinto in contemporary Japan, and moreover, a suggestion for the restoration of these traditions (Quirk 21). Contrary to the common understanding that these characters can be the personification of good and evil, they should be considered rather from the Shinto view. They are a mixture of negative and positive events experienced by Chihiro along the way. In other words, they can be seen as a symbol of the cleansing or polluting experience inherent in the Shinto understanding of ethics and morality.
Haku, who is also the main character of the story, is the complete embodiment of Japanese values and folklore. He wears traditional clothes and uses only polite speech, emphasizing the aristocracy and nobility of his character. Chihiro allows Haku to access his true name and return to his full identity as the spirit of the Kohaku River; this is not only a clear connection to nature but also to a renewed cohesion of mind, body, and spirit in the same way that Chihiro’s own heart is developed (Quirk 32). The image of Haku demonstrates to modern viewers the importance of observing ancient Japanese traditions. Weaving the character of Haku with the border world, where he harmoniously fits, the author highlights the positive aspects of religious rituals and practices, such as cleansing the soul and heart.
Thus, the reflections of the Shinto tradition in Spirited away are seen both in the subtexts of the animated film and in the full factual phenomena appearing on the screen. Throughout the story, the theme of purification and understanding one’s moral code is the main reflection of the Shinto tradition. Spirited away expounds these concepts in an easy-to-understand format that follows a familiar storyline to convey these ideas to the people of Japan and all around the world.
Works Cited
Bradley, Joff PN, and Catherine Ju-Yu Cheng, editor. Thinking with Animation. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2021.
Quirk, Monice Alice. “Stepping Into the Bathhouse: Physical Space and Shinto Revival in Miyazaki’s Spirited Away.” Intermountain West Journal of Religious Studies, vol. 11, no. 1, 2021, pp. 19-33.
Rowland, Grace. “Exploring Shinto Themes and their Contribution to Environmental Education in Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli.” LOGOS: A Journal of Undergraduate Research, vol. 13, 2020, pp. 41-57.