It was a beautiful bright summer’s day in 2008. I was an 8, almost nine. It was a school day, and the end of the school year had come around again to welcome me once more, so cleaning up classrooms and watching films with your cohort was the scene of this story, as we were stuck inside the school at noon with a class party. The one thing keeping us going was the snacks and knowing that after we finished cleaning, we’d get the opportunity to watch a film. The teacher presses the play button, and as the Disney trailers played, I was wondering what movie we may view for the end of the school year, trusting it was one of the known motion pictures I loved. As the trailers finished, a title showed up on the school projector, “Spirited Away.”

(Spirited Away Gif image by: Giphy)

I was contemplating to myself, that this is just, one more trailer.., I am beyond any doubt… We’ll get to the actual motion picture soon. It wasn’t a trailer. My mistake was obvious. Why are we viewing a Japanese movie? I detest this. I thought to myself, and I needed to watch (something other than this!) But there I sat begrudgingly; if I’m going to stay here for two hours, I should remain focused. At this time of my eight-year-old life, the main anime’s I had seen was Dragon Ball Z and Pokemon, because my older siblings watched it non stop on cartoon network, which was pointed soundly at young boys with short attention spends. So, therefore, none of them spoke to me and this distorted my view of the anime world in general.

(Spirited Away Gif image by: Giphy)

Watching the film, the primary thing that hooked my little mind was the manner of how ravishing and colourful everything looked. The watercolour foundations and the characteristics of the drawing style made everything feel strange and fanciful. At that point the music was supporting every scene with the intent of invoking emotion towards me, this was new and fascinating to me. Soon, I ended up getting hooked in by the characters, every single one of them was entertaining, beguiling and adorable. Chihiro’s adventure felt like it was my adventure too. When she held her breath sinking in the river, I held my breath also; when her dauntlessness grew, and she requested employment at the bathhouse, I also suddenly felt brave with her, when she frantically hunted down her parents, you better hell know that I was hunting them down too. When the end credits rolled, my psyche had blown. I went in hoping to despise it. However, I turned out cherishing each second of that damn film. I was embarrassed at how judgmental I had been only two hours before.

(Spirited Away Gif image by: Giphy)

When I went home that day, I was contemplating about how cool Spirited Away was and how badly I wanted to watch it again and if there were any more films like it. Tragically I didn’t have my PC until the beginning of year 7. So forwarding to my first year of high school, when I was around 12 years old, after a long and hard day of school. I was board out of my mind and remembered that film when I was a kid. So I decided to spend numerous hours searching the web for that movie and if I could find more anime like it, then finally I eventually found what I was looking for, which was the entire Studio Ghibli films by my man “Hayao Miyazaki” the legend himself. I had a fixation for his movies. I was watching these films, every time I could find one. I even collected merchandise and discussed the topic of his films at my school. I was a little bit of a nerd, but what can I say I was impressed.

(Spirited Away Gif image by: Giphy)

This memory of my young self within this experience has allowed me to develop as a person, because if we move forward to 2018. I am 18, yet I am still that eight years old at heart. Presently I am a full-time anime enthusiasts, and I enjoy melting away my free time with watching anime and even reading manga nowadays as-well, I am kind of a geek in that retrospect, but my enjoyment for this medium was created by watching Studio Ghibli films as a kid.

Extra video Content:

• Spirited Away Trailer

• • Video about the Realism of Studio Ghibli films

References

Aaronchon0109, et al. 2018, Spirited Away, Wikipedia, weblog post, 29 March, viewed 3 April 2018, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirited_Away>.

InternetArchiveBot, et al. 2018, Pokémon (anime), Wikipedia, weblog post, 27 March, viewed 3 April 2018
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_(anime)>.

Isbrucker 2016, The Immersive Realism of Studio Ghibli, online video, 23 November, Asher Isbrucker, viewed 3 April 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6Q6y4-qKac>.

Madman 2014, Spirited Away – Official Trailer, online video, 16 September, Madman Entertainment, viewed 3 April 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByXuk9QqQkk>.

Rhain, et al. 2018, Hayao Miyazaki, Wikipedia, weblog post, 18 March, viewed 3 April 2018, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayao_Miyazaki>.

Swarm, et al. 2018, Dragon Ball Z, Wikipedia, weblog post, 31 March, viewed 3 April 2018, <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Ball_Z>.

Studio Ghibli 2018, Studio Ghibli, weblog, viewed 3 April 2018, <https://www.studioghibli.com.au>.