I have been studying story structure recently, primarily using the writings and YouTube interviews of John Truby and Christopher Vogler as guides. Having fine tuned my story structure awareness I sat down to watch one of our family favourites; Spirited Away. My kids love Spirited Away, an animation from Studio Ghibli. If you haven’t watched it yet, you may prefer to fix that before you read on as there will be spoilers.
Here is my very rough breakdown of the story through the Hero’s Journey structure:
The Normal World:
They are travelling to a new home, new city, new school. Chihiro is scared – nobody mentions fear specifically until the end of the movie, but we see at the end it’s all been about Chihiro’s fear. She is cranky in the back seat of the car. They pass some shrines etc. Hints that there is another world (of spirits) beyond their reach. Dad drives recklessly fast, scaring everyone! They stop abruptly at the point of transition into the magical world. A squat stone statue guards the threshold.
Chihiro refuses the call:
Several times she says NO, she won’t go in there. She doesn’t want her parents to go either. She’s scared. The parent’s go anyway and she is forced to follow – being alone is even more frightening than following them.
The Magical World:
There is a wonderfully creepy transition, into the spirit world. Everything seems normal, but a strange wind seems to draw them in from the normal world and push them out the other side. There is a long grassy climb until they reach the derelict theme park buildings.
The REAL transition between worlds happens when the parents eat the spirits’ food. They’ve eaten the food and become part of the magic; they turn into pigs sooon – but first Chihiro, who has refused their invitation to eat, prefers to explore while they eat. It’s a benign place until she meets Haku (Mentor, ally?), who delivers a frightening warning; she has to leave NOW before sun sets…. which instantly happens and the movie takes on a more creepy tone. The sky darkens, lights and sounds emerge from the derelict buildings. Returnign to her parents, Chihiro sees the half visible shades of spirits emerging for the night. Her parents have turned to pigs and she can’t get back because the spirit river has closed over the real-world’s grassy plain. She’s trapped. As the spirit world gains substance, she loses it. Her hands and arms become transparent – she is vanishing as she is not yet part of this world. Haku finds her and makes her eat a berry from the spirit world to help her regain solidity. He tells her she must work in the spirit world if she wants to stay and save her parents. He gives her instructions.
Testing Allies and Enemies, Exploring the world:
Chihiro meets the spider guy, Kamachi, who seems scary, but she shows her pluck with the soot sprites. She doesn’t understand the spirit world system yet, but Kamachi is impressed by her attempts. He thinks she has the courage to make it in spirit world. So when Linn arrives Chihiro gets his recommendation. We the audience have witnessed her fear to get to him, witnessed her overcome her fear to help try working with the soot sprites and hear Kamachi’s recommendation to Linn. She’s set up to challenge more fears in this creepy spirit world, but her new ally Kamachi hands her over to Linn, who seems hostile.
Chihiro follows Linn up the lift. Linn covers for her (becoming an ally) and then takes the rest of the journey alone to meet Yubaba to ask for a job.
Yubaba is REALLY scary, but Chihiro keeps her nerve, and gets a job. She signs away her name, and becomes Sen.
Haku arrives and seems hostile to Sen. Has he become an enemy?
The challenges:
Here’s where Chihiro Sen begins 3 major challenges.
Challenge 1: A location specific challenge – working in the bathhouse. Sen gains Yubaba and everyone else’s respect when she bathes a difficult customer. Linn further reinforces her status as an ally, by helping.
– Sen earns respect AND the customer gives her a gift. A special boon! A magical tool that will become useful later – it’s a medicine ball.
– She nibbles some of it later on – it’s gross. It isn’t specified, but perhaps the medicine helps to weaken Yubaba’s magical grip on her (as it will do later for Haku). Power upgrade!
At this point the parent-pig story is expanded. Haku in boy form takes her to see her parents and warns her not to forget what they look like if she wants to save them. She’s scared and shouty. Haku gives her some magic rice to help her feel better. She eats and cries out the last of her fears. Haku is an ally again. He gives her back her real-world clothes; she will need them to get out of the magical world. In her pocket she finds her name; Chihiro. She has regained the power of her identity, and has shed the last of her weepies. That’s a courage and power double-upgrade!
Callenge 2: A challenge caused by her own error – Sen lets a Noface into the bathhouse, thinking he’s a customer. The Noface causes havoc. It absorbs the greed endemic to the bathhouse and becomes greedy. Only one person resists his gifts; Chihiro. Chihiro takes only what she needs, and declines the offer of more, so Noface can’t gain control over her through greed. He doesn’t know any other way to get people to notice him. He is lonely. Instinctively he only really wants Chihiro, the person who doesn’t make his greed worse.
– Sen cannot solve this problem yet. It must develop, while she is distracted by Challenge 3:
Challenge 3: While the Noface problem grows, distracting the bathhouse staff, an attack is made on dragon-form Haku. He is savaged by magic paper ‘birds’. Chihiro rescues him, but he falls beyond her reach. Yubaba’s giant baby tries to stop her from going to his aid. One paper bird sticks to Chihiro’s back and, secretly, helps her find a way into Yubaba’s chamber though a high window. Is the paper bird an enemy or an ally?
There is a confrontation between Giant Baby, Yubaba’s twin sister, Zaniba (projected by the paper bird). She seems hostile. She transforms Yubaba’s baby into a mouse. Haku destroys the paper bird with his tail and falls into a ventilation shaft with Chihiro clinging to him. They land in the spider guy’s room.
Chihiro gives Haku half of the medicine, and he coughs up Zaniba’s magic seal, plus a little curse in the form of a slug, which Chihiro squishes, thus breaking Yubaba’s spell that controls Haku – Haku is free of one bond, but another remains; he still does not know his real name. She decides to return Zaniba’s seal, which means taking a long journey. Her parent-pigs will have to wait for her to return to be changed back into human form. Thanks to her courage upgrades, she can now handle walking away from her pig-parents. But she can’t leave yet; she still needs to deal with Challenge 3. Spider guy (Kamachi) gives her a train ticket (another boon!!)
Linn arrives to say that Yubaba needs Chihiro to fix the Noface problem. Chihiro courageously goes to face the results of her mistake (Challenge 2).
Back to Challenge 2: Noface is huge, sick and insane. He wants Chihiro. He says he’s lonely. He tries to give her gold, but she doesn’t need it. She needs to go – he can’t control her and so he gets angry. He wants to eat her. Chihiro gives him the last of the medicine, which she had been saving for her parents: That’s very brave and selfless, given that the pig-parent situation has been her primary concern for much of the story. The Noface thinks Chihiro poisoned him and makes chase. Chihiro runs through the bathhouse. Noface barfs up black gunk and people until he regains his normal size. Chihiro leads him out of the bathhouse and meets Linn who is rowing a curricle. She takes Chihiro to the railway platform. The giant-baby-now-mouse accompanies Chihiro on her journey. The Noface follows her. He is safe again, outside the bathhouse and Chihiro lets him go on the train ride with her too.
– There is a long journey through the mysterious magical world, on the spooky shadow train to get to Zaniba’s house in Swamp Bottom. Zaniba is expecting them, and seems nice; no longer hostile. She welcomes them in, feeds them and teaches them to spin. She becomes an ally / mentor, and advises Chihiro to try to remember when she met Haku in the past, as this will help him. Chihiro despairs – she can’t remember, so she won’t be able to save Haku or her parents.
– Haku arrives. Zaniba gives Chihiro a gift (a protective magical hairband woven by her friends). Chihiro and Giant-Baby-Mouse fly home. On the way Chihiro remembers a similar feeling, when she fell into a river as a child. She realises that Haku is the spirit of that river. She gives him back his name and they fall to earth together. Haku knows who he is and remembers why he can’t go home – his river was filled in long ago. But now he is truly free.
Return:
She has succeeded in every challenge except one: She must save her parents.
Back at Yubaba’s bath house, a test awaits her. Chihiro must choose which of the pigs are her parents. She looks at them. She says that none of the pigs are her parents. She is correct! Yubaba’s contract crumbles magically to dust.
Haku tells her that when the spell broke her parents woke up on the real world side of the theme park. She must hurry. She must not look back until she’s through the tunnel. At the gatehouse she almosts looks back, but she presses on instead, and…
…finds her parents waiting for her. They chastise her for wandering off, and have no recollection of the adventure.
They pass through the tunnel together and find that plants have grown up around their parked car. Parents think it’s a trick, but Chihiro knows better. She lingers, looking back towards the tunnel and her dad teases her “you’re not scared are you?” and her mum reassures her “Don’t worry, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” etc. Chihiro gets into the car. Dad says “Moving to a new home, a new school – it’s pretty scary when you think about it.” Chihiro says “I think I can handle it.”
The end.
ibewriting 