TheRetroCritic

Watching Spirited Away at the cinema upon its release was something of a personal event for several reasons. For one thing, it was the first anime feature I'd ever seen on the big screen but it was also my first Hayao Miyazaki film and it was, on top of that, really bloody good. Coming at a time when 2D animated films looked like they were on their way out with Disney focusing its attention on CGI animation, the anime was a breath of fresh air and proved once and for all that this kind of animated feature more than deserved to stay. The film follows a young girl called Chihiro who is about to move into a new house with her parents. She's reluctant to leave her old life behind and start a new one. Her father drives towards what he believes to be a shortcut but instead finds an abandoned old fair accessible through a creepy tunnel (as all the best fairs are). They wander aimlessly until Chihiro's parents decide to stuff their faces with random food they find lying arou