Effects of Spirited Away?

Does anyone know how the young girls in Japan received this movie? Did Miyazaki achieve the effect he wanted and intended to have on the young girls of Japan?

Miyazaki on Spirited Away

The excellent Hiyao Miyazaki fan site Nausicaa.net includes "The Purpose of the Film," a Miyazaki essay on Spirited Away, and an interview with Miyazaki about Spirited Away.

Among other very interesting points, Miyazaki describes the bathhouse as a place for the old Japanese gods to refresh and renew themselves. "It's tough being a Japanese god today," Miyazaki says in the interview. (As we have seen, it's no cakewalk for the American gods, either!)

My favorite quote from the essay: "Chihiro is a heroine, because of her power not to let herself be eaten up. She is a heroine, (but) not because she is beautiful or because she has a matchless heart. This is the merit of this film, and this is why it is a film for 10 year old girls."

Cross-dressing?

Disclaimer: Ok, so I know that the title of this post is probably more interesting than the content, I just didn't know what else to call it.

Has anyone else seen the previews for that new Amanda Bines movie? For those who haven't, it's about her pretending to be a boy and going to high school, but not in a Boys Don't Cry kind of way. I mean really, it's Amanda Bines. She might always be stuck in the typecast of an eccentric, immature teenage girl.

However, I just wanted to say that I thought it was timely that a movie such as this would enter the scenes just after we had all discussed the lack of comedies in the female transgender vein. It seems to actually be THAT movie that we couldn't think of, the typical humorous escapades of a character forced to conceal her identity by dressing as the opposite sex.

More of an FYI than anything, sorry to disappoint!

Chihiro

Just wanted to post this, since it seems so important in all of our works (and this movie is no exception).

Chi and Sen both use the same Japanese Kanji, meaning 1000. The name 'Sen' is a play on the name 'Chihiro'

The names of many of the characters are written with kanji that provide clues to their identities. For example: Yubaba - "hot-water crone"
Zeniba - "money crone"
Kaonashi - "no face"
Boh - "young boy/child"
Kamajii - "kettle/boiler-pot old-man"
Chihiro - "thousand fathoms"
or "thousand searches"
Sen - "thousand" - This name that Yubaba gives to Chihiro is the Japanese pronunciation (AKA "on" reading) of first kanji in her name (chi). Since kanji is a system of ideograms as well as phonograms (like the Chinese "Hanzi" system of writing), removing the second half of her name requires the first half of her name to be pronounced "Sen" and not "Chi", although the meaning of "thousand" remains. By having her original name removed, her identity is also removed, and her new name is essentially a number.

Found this on imdb.com. I just thought it was pretty interesting that Chihiro was told how important it was to remember your name in order to maintain an identity. At the same time, the name given to her actually literally reduces her to a number. Pretty cool.