All the best, and few things can scare me except clowns, gremlins, Rumplestitskin, Brothers Grim fairy tales and everything related to elevators and needles. As you can see, the list is quite small, and anime is not included in it. It just so happened that no matter how much blood, death, tormented one-eyed boys and indifferent girls there are in the creations of Japanese animation, they don’t scare me, and sometimes they even make me laugh. There is only one exception to this 100%, just an unbreakable rule it happened to me to experience. It was called Spirited Away… And, if anyone doesn’t know, it’s one of those wonderful fairy tales by Hayao Miyazaki, in which there are cute frogs and chickens, almost no one dies, and the film is generally 13+. So how did Spirited Away do it??
As in many of Miyazaki’s works, in Spirited Away every character, every frame, every detail is thought out and worked out. The whole world of ghosts, where the main character Chihiro finds herself, is incredibly real, and especially its pearl, the Abura-ya Baths. This is a full-fledged bathhouse with its own complex device. There is an elaborate system for supplying water and potions, its own currency, staff who sometimes complain about work, and a lot of clients, each with their own design and even character. Well, how can we not mention the amazing cuisine of this establishment?. Everything here looks simply amazingly strange and incomprehensible, but at the same time incredibly tasty. I would have eaten it if it weren’t for these pork metamorphoses. Yes, they definitely ruin your appetite..
Each of Hayao’s creations, from the main ones to the secondary ones, is unique. For example, a dragon, it would seem, could be more hackneyed. We’ve seen these reptiles hundreds of times already, but that didn’t stop Miyazaki from making his monster unique. This is a snake-like creature without any wings, which does not prevent it from flying. His legs look like a chicken, and on his face there are horns and long mustaches, like a catfish. Looking at this dragon, don’t you think: “Oh, well, at least he’s not voiced by Cumberbatch.”!». Do you believe in this creation, because it is unlike any other.
And this uniqueness concerns not only the design, but also the way the characters move. Ghosts in anime crawl lazily, like clouds, leaving a barely noticeable foggy trail behind them. The frogs energetically jump and swim, and even the main character, seemingly an ordinary person, conveys her character through gestures and walking.
For example, there is a scene where Chihiro remembers to close the door behind her, and in another she hits her sneaker on the floor to make it sit better. In one episode, the heroine, walking along an old wooden staircase, carefully checks each step with her foot, which, however, does not help her.
And such attentiveness to all https://thebettercasinocasino.co.uk/games/ anime characters. In one scene, for example, the animators were concerned about picking up another anime character’s Hoku’s slippers as he entered the bathhouse. And in another, a little insect in the very background waves its paw.
This careful treatment isn’t limited to characters. Hayao also pays close attention to the materials of his world, its physics. The way gravity affects the characters, the way the windows reflect images with distortion, as if in the real world, the way paper airplanes bend, and the fur rises and flies away – all this draws you into the anime even more, makes it even more real. Steam, water, fire, and even the essence that makes up the ghosts in this anime look real, as if the entire anime world could exist in reality, and it doesn’t matter that there is magic, ghosts and dragons. You believe in him, you are imbued with him and you are truly afraid of him.
But creating a real world is not enough, you also need to fill it..
In many ways, the mood of the film is created by its amazing soundtrack. It never takes the viewer out of full involvement in the world of anime, but only immerses him even deeper. Even in dynamic moments, when other works would turn on the fanfare at full blast to build tension, Jo Hisaishi, the composer of Spirited Away, plays quietly and imperceptibly, as if his music does not exist at all – it is just a figment of your imagination, the mood of the scene expressed through musical instruments. And such delicacy does not prevent the soundtrack from giving you goosebumps. The title melody with its opening notes almost evokes tears every time it appears, and I can’t explain it in any way other than magic.
Just like the magic of the silent scenes of Spirited Away. Scenes where the plot doesn’t develop at all. The characters are simply sitting, driving or walking, contemplating the beautiful world around them. At such moments, the anime does not try to tell the viewer anything, to indicate what he needs to think or feel, leaving this choice to himself. You can explain to yourself what kind of girl stood on the ghostly pier in the scene where Chihiro is riding a train into the unknown, why this train is rushing through the water and where, in fact, it is rushing. You become a full-fledged anime hero, like Chihiro and Hoku.
Thanks to all this, the anime manages to create an incredibly viscous and mysterious atmosphere, which reeks of a fairy tale, in every sense of the word, because a fairy tale is not only a happy ending, but also a terrible middle. A wolf who ate Little Red Riding Hood, a giant who devours people, an orphan driven out into the cold, a child who is about to be eaten by a disgusting witch – all these terrible things are as full-fledged parts of fairy tales as princesses, gnomes and fairy godmothers. And Spirited Away is no exception. Anime is just full..
At the very beginning of the anime, Chihiro’s parents turn into pigs, and not into cute pigs, but into well-fed, dirty and downright shiny creatures that evoke disgust and fear with their entire appearance. Yubaba, it would seem, is the most ordinary, almost Disney villainess, thanks to her incredibly detailed face, on which every wrinkle is visible, and her grotesque build, due to which the sorceress’s head is larger than her entire body, and her nose sometimes takes up a third of the screen, causing goosebumps!
And every appearance of the Faceless Man makes me personally feel uneasy. Mysterious, incomprehensible, emitting only indistinct sounds, this amorphous creature in a mask awakens the fear of the unknown, of what you cannot explain and understand. It can take any form and speak with any voice. And I can’t say that I’m afraid of it now as much as I was afraid at the age of 6 when I first watched the anime, but at least it still causes anxiety in me.
And all this despite the fact that the anime does not strive to be scary – it is filled with joyful moments, it has a bright color palette and at times it is simply impossible not to be moved by it! And maybe that’s why it’s so scary. The viewer doesn’t expect this sweet coming-of-age story to be scary. And only he, not suspecting anything, plunges headlong into it, Miyazaki shows what his imagination is capable of..
To create horror you don’t need dismemberment, torture, or death at every turn – just a manic attention to detail, the ability to create an atmosphere and a pinch of madness are enough!
I’ll end with this, gentlemen. Thank you for what I hope is well-spent time. And don’t eat food found in the middle of an abandoned amusement park. Firstly, bacteria, secondly, it may contain gluten, and thirdly, you may turn into a fucking pig!