Trivia / Spirited Away

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• Acting for Two:
  • Naturally, both Yubaba and Zeniba are voiced by the same person.
  • In the stage play, the actors who portray Lin and Aniyaku also play Chihiro's mother and father.
• Better Export for You: The movie's first Japanese DVD release boasted a heavy red tint, which was toned down for the American DVD. (However, the 2014 remaster completely removed the red tint from both countries' Blu-ray Discs and re-released DVDs.) The sets also contain more bonus features in America than in Japan, including interviews with the English dub's cast and a Nippon Television documentary about the movie.
• Children Voicing Children:
  • In all versions, Chihiro is voiced by a child actress. Her Japanese VA, Rumi Hiiragi, was 13 years old when she first recorded the character. Meanwhile, Daveigh Chase was 12 years old when she voiced the character in the English dub.
  • Haku's Japanese voice actor Miyu Irino, was only 13 years old at the time of the film's release.
  • Boh's Japanese VA, Ryunosuke Kamiki, was only 8 years old when the film was released.
• Completely Different Title:
  • In Norway, the film was titled "Chihiro og heksene" ("Chihiro and the witches").
  • In Germany, the title was "Chihiros Reise ins Zauberland" ("Chihiro's journey into the magical land")
  • In Italy, the title was "La città incantata" ("The Enchanted City"), despite most of the film focusing on a single bathhouse.
  • In Latinamerica, the title was "El viaje de Chihiro" ("Chihiro's journey")
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • In the Taiwanese and Hong Kong dubs, Haku is voiced by Wang Shiwei and Can Ngonjing respectively.
  • In the English dub, Boh is voiced by Tara Strong.
• Dawson Casting: Chihiro and Haku are played by adults in the 2022 stage play. Chihiro in particular is supposed to be 10, while both of her stage actresses are in their 20's.
• Died During Production: Yasuyoshi Tokuma, the chief executive producer of Spirited Away and president of Tokuma Shoten, died during the early stages of production in September 2000.
• Dueling Dubs:
  • There are three Latin American Spanish dubs, both made simultaneously. One produced by Disney made in Mexico City-based Prime Dubb/SDI Media de México (broadcasted in HBO), another one produced by Primer Plano made in Buenos Aires-based Videorecord for their theatrical distribution in Argentina,^note Both dubs were made for cinemas, which are way more expensive than the average dub for TV, DVD/BD and streaming. This also makes the only case of a production recieving two neutral Latin American Spanish dub for cinemas. and another one done in Mexico by BTI for Netflix. When Disney bought Primer Plano's Argentine theatrical rights of Spirited Away, they decided to release it with the Argentine dub instead of their own dub. To this date, the Argentine dub it's the most distributed in the region, being the only one ever released on home video and broadcasted on air TV and Disney Latino has come to distribute it in streaming and TV broadcasts in Disney Channel and Jetix; the first Mexican dub, however...
  • The movie has three Chinese dubs, one in Mandarin from Taiwan and another in Cantonese from Hong Kong both released in late 2001. Then another Mandarin dub is made in Mainland China when the movie released there theatrically in 2019.
• Network to the Rescue:
  • After the lackluster box office showing for Princess Mononoke, Disney executives were hesitant to move forward with more of the Studio Ghibli films they'd bought the rights for. Castle in the Sky had been dubbed and shown up on the film festival circuit, but no proper release date was announced, and it seemed like the other Ghibli films would be lost in Development Hell. The happy ending? John Lasseter, then the head of Pixar, stuck his neck out to push for Spirited Away's production and release in America. Lasseter's championing of the film, and its eventual Oscar win, was the impetus for the eventual release of the rest of the Ghibli catalog on DVD, as well as the distribution of future Ghibli films.
  • On some editions of the DVD, Lasseter appears before the movie begins to gush about how wonderful Spirited Away is. There's even footage of him with his arm around Hayao Miyazaki!
    John: Miyazaki-san, the world; the world, Miyazaki-san.
    Miyazaki: [Pause] ...hi.
• Playing Their Own Twin: Mari Natsuki voices both Yubaba and her twin Zeniba. This is carried over to the foreign dubs, with the late Suzanne Pleshette voicing both roles in the English release.
• Pop-Culture Urban Legends: There are numerous rumors surrounding around an extended, alternative ending in which Chihiro sees Haku again in some fashion. There are no indications that such an ending exists in any form.
• Posthumous Credit: Yasuyoshi Tokuma is given a credit as chief executive producer, having been involved in the early stages of production before his September 2000 death.
• Production Posse:
  • Chief executive producer Yasuyoshi Tokuma served as an executive producer for all of Hayao Miyazaki's films.
  • Nippon Television chairman Seiichiro Ujiie was an executive producer for all of Studio Ghibli's films from Porco Rosso until The Wind Rises.
  • This is Tsunehiko Kamijo's third collaboration with Hayao Miyazaki. He previously voiced the Mamma Aiuto Gang's boss in Porco Rosso and Gonza in Princess Mononoke.
  • Composer Joe Hisaishi, color designer Michiyo Yasuda and editor Takeshi Seyama return to collaborate with Miyazaki once more.
  • Supervising animators Masashi Ando and Kitaro Kosaka previously worked with Miyazaki on Princess Mononoke.
• Promoted Fanboy: Takeshi Naito, the voice of Chihiro's father, is a longtime fan of Miyazaki's works.
• Role Reprise: Mari Natsuki, Yubaba's voice actress, would return to the role 21 years later for Toho's Screen-to-Stage Adaptation.
• Studio Hop: At first, the film was originally released in North America by Disney, before switching to GKIDS.
• Those Two Actors: In the English dub, Jason Marsden voices Haku, and his boss Yubaba is voiced by the late Suzanne Pleshette. The two previously voiced together in The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, with Marsden voicing Kovu, the subordinate son of Pleshette's Big Bad Zira.
• Throw It In!: While the rest of the English dub had to be a perfect syllable-for-syllable match-up, John Ratzenberger was allowed to improvise new lyrics to the assistant manager's little song. The line "Now that's an esophagus!" (said after No-Face spits him out) was also his idea.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Zeniba's design was originally planned to be much more distinct from Yubaba's, being taller and thinner, but there wasn't enough room to develop an entirely new character who didn't appear until late in the film. Then it was suggested that they could be distinguished by the number of rings they wore, but it was difficult to keep track of that, so Zeniba ended up looking exactly the same as Yubaba.
  • No-Face's design was originally much more humanoid and colorful looking in concept art.
  • The song "Always with You" was not originally composed for Spirited Away, but a film from Miyazaki titled Rin the Chimney Cleaner that would end up getting cancelled. Miyazaki ended up using the song in this film at the last minute due to realizing that the song's lyrics happened to fit perfectly with the film and its themes.
  • According to Miyazaki, his original draft would had made the film three hours long (the final film is two hours), which led to many scenes getting cut out in order to simplify the story and keep the film at a reasonable pace.
• Word of God: According to Hayao Miyazaki in a pamphlet that was released along with the film in Japan, Chihiro does not remember her experiences in the spirit world after she returns to her world. However, he states that even though she can't recall her time there, that doesn't mean she has forgotten them entirely and suggests they could come back to her at a later point in her life. The Disney dub would subtly go against this by adding a new line that implies Chihiro does remember some of it.

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