Spirited Away

A global media content that I absolutely adore is the movie Spirited Away. When I was a little girl, my sisters and I would beg our mom to take us to Blockbuster video so that we could rent Studio Ghibli movies. My little sisters were obsessed with Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, and Castle in the Sky. These movies were so enthralling to us because they were so unlike anything that we had ever watched before. These movies were completely unlike the Barbie movies that we were used to watching. The different kind of animation with the people with large eyes, pale skin, and small mouths was completely foreign to us. This was my first exposure to Japanese culture, and I've been intrigued by it ever since. I studied abroad in Japan for a summer during high school, and now when I watch the movie, I see things much differently that I did before I had traveled to Japan. The Japanese ideal beauty has large eyes and a small nose and mouth, and anime characters all have those features. In the movie, Chihiro takes her shoes off before entering the bathhouse. In Japan, they have special foyers with a special ledge to place their shoes under, and one must never touch the floor of that special shoe area in the foyer. My experience in Japan made everything in the movie make more sense. Now when I watch it, most everything makes sense. Now I even watch Japanese movies or animes with the English subtitles on so that I can listen to the Japanese words and listen for familiar ones. Spirited Away is a great representation of Japanese culture, and honestly helped me prepare for life in Japan before I went there.