Alexis Atwater 

Professor Lundgren 

ENG 160 

20 October 2022 

Annotated Bibliography; Spirited Away 

Moon, Kat. “Spirited Away Changed Animation Forever. Here’s How.” Time, Time, 20 July 2021, https://time.com/6081937/spirited-away-changed-animation-studio-ghibli/. 

This article in the New York Times provides information on the film Spirited Away about how it changed animation and the impact it had on audiences around the world. Major points in this article are the lasting impact it had on Japanese animation due to its high popularity, breaking opening week records, and becoming the highest-grossing film of all time, while also being the first non-English animated film to receive an Oscar for Best Animated Feature. All winners of this Oscar have been computer animated, but this film was uniquely hand-drawn. The film impacted many audiences of all ages around the world aesthetically and psychologically. A flaw of this source is that the author only gives her perspective on the film. The author only really gives her critique of the film and its impact but doesn’t include many other perspectives. This problem could be solved by including another person’s opinion or perspective of the film and either countering or supporting the view. This article is a useful source because it comes from a very credible and popular magazine that does not choose articles lightly. The author of this article, Kat Moon, is qualified to be writing such an article due to her membership of the Television Critics Association and her experience in critiquing films and shows. This source can support someone’s credibility in a research paper because it gives statistical values of box office records, profits, and records it broke. This source also gives quotes from the director that can be helpful in a research paper about this film. 

 

Reider, Noriko T. “‘Spirited Away’: Film of the Fantastic and Evolving Japanese Folk  

Symbols.” Film Criticism, vol. 29, no. 3, 2005, pp. 4–27. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44019178. Accessed 16 Oct. 2022. 

This academic journal aims to show the audience how the film Spirited Away displays symbols of Japanese folklore and its reflection of Japanese society and culture, and how the film is fantastic. Fantastic is defined, in this case, as imaginative and remote from society. The author explains how the director of the film created a supernatural, spirit world, that makes the audience feel as though it is familiar and forms a sense of uncertainty, whether it is real or not. This academic journal is an exceptionally useful source because the author uses many resources that make his journal very factual and provides enough evidence to prove his claims. The author references different Japanese fairy tales and folklore and relates it to the film, while also often quoting the director of the film to show his intentions when making the film. This source could help support a person’s credibility in a research paper because it is an academic journal on a very credible academic database that publishes reliable, credible work of journalists. There is a lot of information in this journal that is factual, evidence based, and trusted due to the journal being peer reviewed by scholars.  

 

Muir, Chris. “Strangers in the Night Spirited Away.” Screen Education.74 (2014): 26-37. ProQuest. Web. 21 Nov. 2022.  

This academic article found in the Gale Academic One File, shows how the film Spirited Away demonstrates coming of age and the steps in a hero’s journey. The article explains how the main character in the film, Chihiro, goes through a transition from a child to an adult through learning from those around her in a new world. The article touches on all the obstacles and challenges she must go through at the incredibly young age she is. Chihiro must take on the role of an adult in the absence of her parents so she can leave the spirit world and reunite with her parents. Another main point in the article is that the film is a great representation of a hero’s journey. Chihiro has a call to adventure when her parents turn into pigs and must overcome challenges with the help from a supporting character to get her parents back. At the end, she has a symbolic rebirth of a newly defined and mature self that represents her “coming of age.” Chihiro’s motivation to get her parents back creates the path for a coming-of-age story and a hero’s journey. This is a particularly reliable source because it explains how Chihiro’s journey in the spirit world reflects the coming of age and the steps of a hero’s journey. It also relates the story to a well-known film, The Wizard of Oz, to show audiences who have not seen the film how the main characters both go through an unknown world with difficult challenges. I would recommend this article to students researching the film Spirited Away, coming of age, or a hero’s journey because it is found on Gale Academic One File which is a very credible and well respected, peer-reviewed resource for research papers.  

 

Syiemlieh, Evelyn. “What Does the Black Spirit ‘No Face’ Represent in Spirited Away?” Sports News, Sportskeeda, 2 July 2022, https://www.sportskeeda.com/anime/what-black-spirit-no-face-represent-spirited-away. 

In this article, the author aims to show the audience what the spirit No Face, from the film Spirited Away represents loneliness, and the desire to be noticed by those around him. When Chihiro bows to him and shows him kindness by letting him into the bathhouse, he finally feels noticed and craves more. He goes through extensive lengths to get her attention, leading to him destroying the bathhouse and becoming monstrous. Chihiro feeds him special food that removes the ugly from him and lures him out of the bathhouse. She explains to her mentor that No Face would be fine with her, and that the bathhouse was making him crazy. He then returns to his normal, gentle self and follows her on the train. The author believes that these fluctuations in No Face’s character represent human tendencies to change behavior due to the environment around them. A flaw of this article would be that it is opinion based and is the author’s own interpretation of No Face. This creates bias because it is based off her opinion of the character and not others. I think that this article would be a good starting point for someone to gain a better understanding of the character No Face, but not to be implemented into a research paper. However, this is not a credible source because the author has bias and the website it is on is not well respected. The author is also not credible because she has no credentials and has only written 14 articles that express her own personal thoughts and views on animated characters.