Hayao Miyazaki’s movies are entirely based on the Japanese visual culture while still connecting with the international community. First and foremost, we should keep in mind that this attraction and understanding of the Japanese culture from a foreign community is due to the popularity of Japanese animation (mostly called anime) and manga, for the last decade. The global influence the Japanese culture has had on the world since the 1950s (M. Luken, 2018), allowed many animators-illustrators (mangaka) to stay loyal to their cultural identity. And this is the reason why two of the most popular Miyazaki movies, “Princess Mononoke” (1997) and “Spirited Away” (2001), despite being filled with esoteric and encrypted Japanese references, were welcomed by the international community.
Spirited away was enjoyed by a wide audience mainly because of its mystical, magical elements that hid behind an already popular culture. It made the audience feel that they discovered a hidden side of Japanese folklore, with a touch of fantasy. What is also interesting is that the local community i.e., the Japanese audience, was also amazed at how their folklore is being revived with a touch of reverie. The movie included many traditional forgotten details that even the young Japanese audiences did not know of. In an NTV documentary covering the behind the scenes of the creation of “Spirited Away”, we can see how Hayao Miyazaki was explaining to the 13-year-old actress Hiiragi Rumi who was chosen to voice the movie protagonist, a scene where Chihiro crushes a little monster (curse) with her bare feet and then holds her index fingers together for Kamaji to unlock while screaming “cut the line!” (see fig. 1). The director explained to the young actress that if you ask someone to cut the line (separate the index fingers), the impurity falls off – “If you touch poo, or dog poo, you go cut the line! Cut the line!”. What is more interesting is that the director was surprised at how this little tradition is known all over Japan, but the young generation is totally oblivious to it. (NTV documentary. Spirited away – Special edition DVD). This explains that Spirited Away was not only a visual promotion for the Japanese culture to the international audience, but also a reminder for the young local community. And the only thing that holds both audiences together is the mutual relatability of the story.
Spirited Away is heavily inspired from Japanese and Greek mythology (M. Luken, 2018). Even though the movie is rooted in local Japanese symbolism, the international audience can still connect with the story. According to Joel Dubois, all the folktales and myths share the same characteristics that enable them to travel from one place to another. This happens in one of the three forms, or a combination of the three: the visible human world; a magical transformation of it; a real-world invisible to human senses. (J. Dubois, 2008). We clearly see a combination of the three forms in Spirited away:
– Chihiro travels with her parents to their new home – they decide to take a short cut – they find an abandoned theme park. (The visible human world).
– Chihiro’s parents turn into pigs – a spirit world shows up at night – she needs to eat food from that spiritual world in order to not disappear (a magical transformation of it).
– She works in a bathhouse for spirits, under a witch’s command (A real world invisible to human senses).
We see similar combination for many other popular tales such as: Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Sindibad (Sinbad in DreamWorks’ version) – Alaa Din (Aladdin in Disney’s version). Therefore, we realize that the international community understands Spirited Away’s story simply because they recall hearing or reading a similar structure in their culture. And what makes the local knowledge (the Japanese folklore symbols and traditions) digestible, is because people process any kind of information, even something completely foreign to them, if it is told in the form of a story. (M. Weinschenk, 2011).
Bibliography
– Luken M. (2018) Imitation and Creativity in Japanese Arts: From Kishida Ryūsei to Miyazaki Hayao. Monumenta Nipponica.v.73.
NHK World – JAPAN (2019) 10 Years with Hayao Miyazaki. Episode 1.
-Dubois J. (2008) Myths, Stories & Reality. (c) 2008. https://www.csus.edu/indiv/d/duboisj/wm/wm_msr.html
-Weinschenk M. (2011) 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People. New Riders 1249 Eighth Street Berkeley, CA 94710.
