Spiriting Away to America

Published in

The Ends of Globalization

6 min readApr 4, 2022

Hayao Miyazaki’s renowned Spirited Away follows a pre-adolescent Japanese girl, Chihiro, as she navigates and escapes a fantastical spiritual realm. The film was released in 2001, during a time of cultural transformation in Japan. As a result of sudden economic prosperity in the 1980’s, many Japanese people began prioritizing wealth and material possessions over traditional Japanese values of spirituality, moderation, and self-sacrifice for the sake of community. Because these values are so deeply rooted in Shinto and Buddhism, the country’s two dominant religions, this new widespread deviation from such a fundamental Japanese lifestyle spurred controversy. While some praised Japan’s new affluence, others heavily critiqued the development of the Japanese character towards greed and acquisitiveness.

In contrast to traditional Japanese spirituality, American culture is infamous for its history of cut-throat capitalism. From the exploitative practices behind slavery to the modern underpayment of labor workers, Americans, along with the rest of the world, adopted the notion that to be capitalistic is to be an immoral person. In recent decades, Americans have grappled with and tried to disprove this narrative through the implementation of new business practices, such as producing from “ethical” sources and selling “cruelty free” versions of products. In this, Spirited Away’s demonstration of how a young girl balances values of moderation and human connection within an increasingly capitalistic world eases the internal conflict of being a moral person whilst participating in economic competition that is present in both Japanese and American societies.

Miyazaki foreshadows the film’s message surrounding the emergent greed culture in Japan by opening with Chihiro and her parents stumbling upon an abandoned amusement park. Within the park is a large clock tower with faded red paint and several deteriorated shacks. As Chihiro and her parents explore deeper into the park, they traverse along an empty street lined on both sides with run-down stores and restaurants, decorated with traditional red paper lanterns. The deteriorated state of the amusement park is a direct reference to the economic period in Japan in which a 1980’s economic boom led to the mass construction of leisure centers and — followed by a 1990’s crash — resulted in the abrupt abandonment of these centers. Similarly, the main street of the park alludes to Japan’s Meiji Era, a period in the 19th and 20th century in which Japanese social, economic, and political systems heavily reflected a newfound Westernization of the country. As a result of the nation’s growing affluence, “Japanese people of the time…ignored the country’s traditional, spiritual culture to sing the praises of economic prosperity” (Akira 2021).

Main street of amusement park, Spirited Away

Despite Chihiro’s verbalized suspicion of the eerie environment and her cries to leave, her parents are lured further into the park’s spiritual realm by the smell of fresh food. Upon pinpointing the source of the food, Chihiro’s parents relentlessly devour unattended chicken, sausages, and rolls, claiming they can simply “pay the bill when [the vendors] get back” with their “credit cards and cash” (Spirited Away 0:8:30–0:9:10). As Chihiro begs her parents to not eat the suspicious food and exit the park, they continue stuffing their mouths — and apparently, ears — until they literally become pigs. Because they refused to listen to their daughter’s reasonable suspicions and advice to not take what did not belong to them, Chihiro’s parents not only put their own lives at risk, but Chihiro’s life as well. Ignorance to moderation and surrender to indulgence is what transforms normal people into greedy capitalists. The transformation of Chihiro’s parents demonstrates the consequences of excess consumption, a quality that is often symbolized by pigs in both Japanese and American culture. This quality sharply contrasts with Shinto’s emphasized respect and honor for nature and its inherent balance. These sentiments resonate with many Americans as well, as similar morals are suggested in Christianity. Westerners often allude to the Biblical idea of “forbidden fruit” in which two religious figures, Adam and Eve, impulsively eat apples that they previously were warned not to. In this, Japanese and Americans alike are able to agree with Spirited Away’s criticism of such greed and indulgence as similar criticisms are embedded in each country’s respective religious backgrounds. However, despite these criticisms, capitalism is not going to go away. Instead, Miyazaki suggests listening to an inner voice of reason — in this case, Chihiro — to find moderation within a capitalist society. Without such moderation and balance, the consequences of capitalism only escalate.

To represent this balance within capitalism, Miyazaki created the antagonist Yubaba. In an attempt to un-pig her parents, Chihiro is told that she must get a job at the amusement park’s bathhouse. However, in order to do so, she must face the daunting proprietor of the bathhouse, Yubaba, an old blonde woman with a high nose bridge, large brown eyes, long painted nails, and bathed in jewelry. Upon Chihiro’s initial requests, Yubaba refuses her a job, and even threatens death unto the child. Before Chihiro is sent away, however, Yubaba’s baby son, Boh, throws a fit that forces Yubaba to abandon her quarrels with Chihiro and attend to motherly duties. After Yubaba is able to calm Boh, she finally capitulates to Chihiro’s request for a job. Although Yubaba plays the main antagonist of Spirited Away, she does not embody the solely negative qualities that are typical of villains in Western cinema. On the contrary, Yubaba’s care for and attentiveness to her son allows audiences to empathize with her and recognize her humanity. In other words, despite playing the villain, Yubaba is neither entirely wicked nor entirely noble, which is characteristic of all people in the real world. Yubaba’s duality attests to the achievable balance between capitalism and people; she shows how one can maintain being sensitive and caring for human connection whilst participating in a capitalist society.

Some may argue that Yubaba’s obviously Western appearance coupled with her antagonistic role would deter Americans from enjoying Spirited Away, as her character acts as a direct criticism of particularly Western capitalism. While these anti-Western sentiments could be offensive to Americans, Yubaba’s portrayal as a more realistic, multifaceted person, rather than a purely evil creature, evokes a sense of relatability from American audiences. In particular, Yubaba’s motherliness towards Boh especially resonates with Americans because motherhood is highly regarded and viewed as respectable in American culture. As a result, Spirited Away translates well from Japanese to Americans because its cultural values of balance within people ease Americans’ internal conflict of wanting to be a moral person whilst participating in economic competition.

Miyazaki uses the character NoFace to especially demonstrate how Chihiro creates balance and forms human connection amongst the chaotic, messed-up bathhouse. After Chihiro grants NoFace permission to enter the bathhouse, NoFace bribes the workers with gold to run him a bath and serve him endless amounts of food. With every additional dish NoFace consumes, he becomes increasingly monstrous, to the extent of swallowing two workers. When he encounters Chihiro again, he offers her gold, to which she refuses. From that point on, NoFace develops an affinity for Chihiro, timidly shadowing her on her journeys beyond the bathhouse. Despite the competition for NoFace’s attention driven by the greed for gold in the bathhouse, Chihiro was the only being that expressed empathy for NoFace, rather than simply desire for what he had to offer. NoFace’s affinity for Chihiro stems from her appreciation for human connection in an environment where there was none. Although she did not eradicate the capitalist sentiments that drive the bathhouse, Chihiro’s humanity was able to replace the monster within NoFace with a compassionate, gentle soul. In other words, capitalism and its consequences are here to stay, but the possibility of humanity and balance within such an unjust society is still possible.

America’s reception of Spirited Away in such a positive light is because the capitalistic values in it are not necessarily uniquely Japanese, but are instead a result of Westernization and the imposition of American values and economic practices on Japan during the postwar era. On the surface, Spirited Away’s popularity among Americans seems to project an American effort to become “globalized” and accepting of other cultures. In actuality, Spirit Away’s popularity among Americans is a result of its reflection and imitation of American values towards capitalism. In other words, Americans resonate with Spirited Away not because of its introduction to Japanese folklore and traditions, but because it caters to Western ideals. The fact that a country that is so culturally different from America, such as Japan, caters their art and media to the West in order to participate in Western capitalism attests to the globalization of economic systems and its ability to transcend cultural boundaries.

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Spiriting Away to America

Written by Lana Le