Spirits of Time Past

This article is about the 2001 Japanese animation Spirited Away by the amazing Hayao Miyazaki. Written by Susan Bye who is an educator here at ACMI, Melbourne.

Bye discusses Chihrio, the protagonists journey and how it relates to larger issues in contemporary Japanese society. I am currently reading more on Shinto and wabi sabi and trying to grasp a better understanding of their meaning. Chihiro learns and gains some traditonal Japanese virtues on her journey. The chracters in the film very much as Bye states draw on the animistic influence of Shintoism and also a Japanese term furusato which is likened to a nostalgia for the past. 

The film has many fantastical, spiritual characters that represent aspects from nature, emotional characteristics and Japanese stereotypes. 

Bye suggest that the Bathhouse represents the Shinto notion of purification. In the story many spiritual characters come to the Bathhouse to be cleansed on a physical and spiritual level. The film touches on environmental issues and a disengaged society.

Miyazaki’s yearning for Japan to relocate those aspects of its traditional heritage that will invigorate its future. pg 127

I see the term furusato as having similar qualities as wabi sabi. It literally means home town but with the nostalgia aspect, can relate to deterioration elements within wabi sabi.

I love this film and is my favorite by Miyazaki. Having started on the research, especially on animism in Shinto and wabi sabi I have reached an ever deeper admiration and perhaps understanding of the characters. 

Spirits of times past

Bye, Susan

Screen Education, Spring 2012, Issue 67, p.121-128 [Peer Reviewed Journal]

Millennial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination.

Written by Anne Allison 2006.
This is where the term Techno-animism was coined. Allison discusses Japanese toy production, especially after WW2. After the war Japan needed to rebuild itself as a nation and toys and technology were two areas of strength. Allison also discusses Japan's history of animism stemming from the spiritual belief in Shinto that all things possess a spirit or soul with the added influence from Zen Buddhism. Somewhat inherent in their culture, even new technology could hold spiritual powers. An example that she discussed in depth was the manga character Astro Boy ( “Mighty Atom”)manga created by Osamu Tezuka. He was half boy, half robot and a very popular character. Unlike the west where robots were depicted as untrustworthy and usually feared if portrayed in movies.

This is mecha animated by Shinto, Japan’s religion of animism in which everything is endowed with a spirit and spirituality imbues the whole universe from boulders to ants. Not particular to the main character, roboticization has seeped into the very fabric of life itself here, expressed as a universal principle where the fusing of the natural and mechanic is akin to a spiritual truth. Pg 63

Not only is boundary-crossing promiscuity rampant here, in the sense that there seems no limit to what can be conjoined and cross-pollinated with something else, but also technology (mecha) is a key component to the way life of all kinds is constituted—a priority the Japanese state placed on technology as well in its reconstruction efforts following the war. Taking account of the centrality of mecha in Japanese play goods throughout the postwar period to the present, I call this aesthetic techno-animism. Pg 13