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Two decades later, the story of Chihiro continues to reach new audiences, including through new formats: a stage adaptation of Spirited Away directed by John Caird ( Les Misérables) and produced by the Japanese entertainment company Toho, which originally distributed the Miyazaki film in Japan, is set to premiere in 2022.įor its 20th anniversary, TIME looks back at Spirited Away’s historic path from Japanese blockbuster to Oscar winner, its U.S. when the platform launched with a Studio Ghibli collection.

In 2020, it became available to even more audiences when it entered Netflix’s catalog in dozens of countries and joined HBO Max’s catalog in the U.S. In the years following Spirited Away’s premiere, the film traveled widely as it was screened at international film festivals and released theatrically around the world. (It was eclipsed soon after by Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Movie: Mugen Train in December.). Spirited Away went on to become Japan’s highest-grossing film of all-time, and held the record for 19 years, surpassing $300 million at the local box office last year after the movie was re-released. It beat previous numbers set by another one of Miyazaki’s films, 1997’s Princess Mononoke. Immediately upon release, the film broke the opening weekend record in Japan by earning $13.1 million over three days. Spirited Away would go on to resonate far beyond its target demographic. “I wondered if I could make a movie in which they could be heroines.” We have not made a film for 10-year-old girls, who are in the first stage of their adolescence,” he said, as translated by Ryoko Toyama. “We have made Totoro, which was for small children, Laputa, in which a boy sets out on a journey, and Kiki’s Delivery Service, in which a teenager has to live with herself.

In a 2001 interview with Animage, Miyazaki said he had an intended audience in mind for the film. The story is also a tale of resilience and persistence, as Chihiro gradually draws on her inner strength to endure this land where humans are designed to perish. Many of the deities are based on figures in Japanese folklore, and part of the Japanese title itself, kamikakushi, refers to the concept of disappearance from being taken away by gods. Imaginative and inspired, Spirited Away immerses the viewer in a fantastical world that at once astounds and alarms. After an overeating incident leads her parents to turn into literal pigs, Chihiro must work in a bathhouse that serves otherworldly customers in order to survive and find a way to return home. The story follows an ordinary 10-year-old girl, Chihiro, as she arrives at a deserted theme park that turns out to be a realm of gods and spirits.