Spirited Away and Japanese Mythology

Copyright 2003 Newspaper Publishing PLC
Independent on Sunday (London)

September 14, 2003, Sunday
HEADLINE: THE LONDON EYE: THE GODS MUST BE HAZY
BYLINE: VERA RULE

We addicts of the inaustere folk aspects of Japan, of gaudy nights with rowdy badgers, are off to see Hayao Miyazaki's animated movie Spirited Away again and again. I'm particularly homesick for its bathhouse location - Miyazaki as a child thought entrances to city bathhouses were exciting, all steamy mystery (he meant private luxury establishments,). He also adored onsen, the hot springs destinations for minibreaks, with their alleys of bars under paper lamps that glow at sunset.

So for his world-out-of-this-world he imagined a remote onsen resort with a palatial bathhouse strictly for kami and rei - Shinto's earthly division of minor deities and spirits, venerated but not worshipped; as he said, it must be tough being a Japanese god today, they need somewhere to sip sake and soak away the tiredness. (The film's heroine, Chihiro, and her parents should have known they were trespassing on this supernatural territory when their car almost crashed into the stone monkey marker of the god of the highways).

Then Miyazaki imagined how kami would look now: they need a form to go out in when not minding the shrine. He staffed the bathhouse with plebby not-of-this-worlds familiar in Japan as clay toys - frogs, sullen girls who are the spirits of slugs and a low comedy duo as middle managers. He gave shape to venerable spirits: some traditional, like the radish- god of the home, shown as the standard white root veg but bigger and more baleful than a sumo wrestler; others with divine names like the Otori, bird spirits, whom Miyazaki sees as cartoon cheepers splashing in their bath. He's borrowed imagery from folk customs - the horned rampagers in shaggy seaweed coats are namahage demons from the coast of the Sea of Japan, far out where the wild things are; and from rustic theatre - a haunting troupe of immortals impassive behind abstract masks worn for the firelit dances at their shrine. He's updated my favourite spirit, the kitsune, or fox, messenger of the heavens, into an "older-sister" onsen attendent, Rin. She's a white fox, the luck-bringing vulpine who guards the shrines of the god of the fields.

Miyazaki has super-good guys - the Great River God so defiled by pollution the bathhouse calls him "a spirit of rottenness", who after spewing out garbage reveals his true mask with its Noh bristled eyebrows of benignity. And there's the hero, a dragon soul of a built-over stream. But no total villains, since even divinities in Japan have a divided nature, both brutal and benevolent.

Miyazaki has created new kami for modern Japan. In My Neighbour Toto he animated dust bunnies - mischievous in a nation devoted to purity: in this film they become susuwatari, "mobile soot", sprite stokers of the hot water furnace slaving for a spider soul who brews medicinal tea. The greedy crone owner of the resort, Yu Baba, and her twin the beneficent witch of the forest at the end of the line (Chihiro reaches it by commuter train - more contemporary magic) draw on Japanese shamans with human head and bird body, and even more on bird-women of Siberian legend: Yu Baba's suite is decorated in the florid Victoriana of the high Meiji style adopted from the West after the opening-up of Japan in 1853.

The film's most wonderful kami, though, has no obvious source: its name is No Face - literally "there isn't a face" - a deficiency it hides behind a mask of pathos. It could be a Buddhist hungry ghost, anguished with unappeasable want, but Miyazaki calls it a lonely heart, even a stalker, who swallows the desires of others consuming others in the process). Because Miyazaki believes in the virtue of makoto - a sincere heart - he grants it redemption, busy with crafts in the good witch's cottage. Bliss.

Has anyone noticed a resemblance between 'Spirited Away' and 'The Wicker Man'? Both are reconstructions of 'the old religion', of the enchanted times of animism. (In Japan that layer of mythology lies much closer to the surface than it does in Britain, since Buddhism was a lot more respectful of shinto than Christianity was of our own druidical animistic religions.)

has anyone noticed the resemblance between Spirited Away and Totoro? opening is very similar. mysterious spirits in the middle. both end with a reunion...

um, looked at http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/films/#film_g_m for a filmography and he's definately going downhill. i blame disney 8) (although it was nice to see john lasseter get a mention on credits of SA)

i also thought the witch's name was a nod to Baba Yaga. at least other people made the same mistake:
http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/25764

andy

This is the most insane statement I have ever read on ILE.

has anyone noticed the resemblance between Spirited Away and Totoro?

They both had the same "soot balls" (the little black furry creatures) too, though I guess evryone noticed that.

nicolars:
>This is the most insane statement I have ever read on ILE.

sorry 8)

if asked to pick 4 favourites from that list it would be the first four, Nausicaa Of The Valley Of Wind being top. if asked to pick two that i thought were muddled it would be the last two (haven't seen the tv bits or the 'Music Film'). purely my opinion of course. maybe i just have something about flying (he does flying so well). that said, i'm lukewarm about Porco Rosso which is all about the flying. will have to watch it again if i can find my tape.

andy

Am I making this up?

I was thinking after I last posted how much No-Face-style mythology there exists in different cultures. The most obvious one is the Grim Reaper, but I also think clowns could possibly come from the same originative image.