History Anime / SpiritedAway

** All the bathhouse workers are animal spirits. The frog spirits are particularly common, and easy to identify by their upturned lips and wide, wide-set eyes. The Yuna, (hot water women) are the spirits of slugs and snakes, hence their long faces.

** Miyazaki also loves his environmental messages, and this film has two big, though subtle, examples. The first is when [[spoiler:Chihiro cleanses the river kami after their river was heavily polluted and filled with garbage.]] The second is when [[spoiler: Chihirio remembers Haku's full name, which reminds them both that he is the kami of the Kohaku River, which had been built over years ago.]]

* BadBlackBarf: [[spoiler:No-Face]] starts coughing up and drooling black barf (among other things) after [[spoiler:Chihiro gives him half the river god's medicine.]]
* BaitAndSwitch: The deserted town that the Ogino family encounters after coming out the other side of the tunnel is initially given a not insignificant amount of focus. (Mrs. Ogino explains that it was probably made before the Japanese recession and thus quite old, but Chihiro isn't impressed because the whole place is giving her bad vibes.) However, once the plot really kicks off, the bathhouse that Chihiro stumbles upon serves as the sole focal point for most of the adventure.

* BellyMouth: No-Face is revealed to have one [[spoiler: when he swallows a bathhouse worker whole.]]

** Both of Chihiro's parents, (her dad in particular) develop ravenous appetites when they discover the food laid out in the abandoned town.
** Boh, [[spoiler:or rather the three heads transformed to look like him,]] wolfs down copious chocolates.
** No-Face, who devours a ludicrous amount of food at the bathhouse and [[spoiler: [[ExtremeOmnivore swallows several people whole.]]]] When Chihiro finally faces him, it's in a room filled to the brim with mountains of food.

-->'''Lin:''' Don't worry... stay right where you are, I'm coming to get you! You're gonna be fine, I won't let [the Stink Spirit] hurt you.\\\

** Chihiro [[spoiler:restores her parents to human form and returns to the real world, but it's implied that she loses her memories of the spirit world afterward.]]
** The English dub hints that [[spoiler:Chihiro ''does'' or ''will'' remember some of her adventure; when her father remarks starting life in a new home and school can be scary, Chihiro replies, "I think I can handle it," suggesting that she maintains her memories (or at least the confidence she gained) from her trip to the spirit world.]]
** In either case, it's implied that [[spoiler:Chihiro won't be able to go back to see Haku or any of the other friends she made on her adventure until her own life comes to an end.]]
* BloodFromTheMouth: [[spoiler:Haku, due to the effects of Zeniba's curse. This makes sense given he swallows her seal;]] Kamaji observes he is bleeding from the ''inside''.

* BoyMeetsGhoul: Chihiro, a normal everyday human girl, and Haku, a person of the spirit world [[spoiler:(who turns out to be a river spirit).]]
* ButtMonkey: The little green frog man, Aogaeru. He is magicked by Haku, he faints when the Stink Spirit gets too close, and then he is [[spoiler: eaten by No-Face.]]

* CaptainObvious: Chihiro says a few obvious things in the Japanese version. The English dub adds several more examples, albeit some ("It's a bathhouse," for example) for the sake of clarity for a non-Japanese audience (as a Japanese audience, even if they didn't recognize what the bathhouse was by its appearance, would be able to read the sign above its entrance identifying what it was).
* CatharticCrying: When [[spoiler:Haku reunites Chihiro with her parents after their transformation, reminds her of her real name and offers her something to eat away from the bathhouse,]] she eats and bawls her heart out, finally getting to decompress after her trauma. Notably, she is mentally in a much healthier place afterwards and has even regained some hope.

** The changes that come with growing up. Chihiro is introduced dealing with moving away from her old friends and into a new house in a new city, a dilemma ''dwarfed'' by everything that she experiences in the spirit world.
** The importance of names. Chihiro's name is turned to Sen when she's "hired" by Yubaba, and Haku forgot his name [[spoiler:(the Kohaku River) when said river was built over.]] Neither character can leave Yubaba's service without recovering their "names", i.e. true lives and identities.
* CharacterDevelopment: Chihiro inspires this in near everyone she interacts with. Kamaji is initially brusque with her, but becomes much warmer when she proves herself to him. Lin first sees her as a burden at best, but eventually becomes very protective of her. [[spoiler:Chihiro leaves No-Face in a better place than she found him, and inspires Boh to become more independent, which plants the seeds for his and Yubaba's relationship with each other to improve. In hindsight, she even seems to have this effect on Haku. When she asks Lin about him, she describes him as cold and untrustworthy; one can infer that he ''was'' like that, but meeting Chihiro inspires him to be more open.]]

* ChekhovsGun: Chihiro's farewell card helps her remember her full name after Yubaba takes it.

* ComeWithMeIfYouWantToLive: When Haku finds Chihiro again, he keeps her from disappearing and leads her to the bathhouse so she can procure a job and avoid a terrible fate.

* ComingOfAgeStory: Chihiro's experiences in the spirit world build her confidence and let her best qualities rise to the surface in service of her [[spoiler:saving her parents and making it back home.]]

* CounterfeitCash: Once he's inside, No-Face uses illusory gold to pay for services in the bathhouse, having witnessed the workers scrambling over the [[spoiler:River Kami's]] gold. After Chihiro successfully [[spoiler: manages to get No-Face out of the bathhouse]], all of the gold No-Face gave out crumbles to dirt.

** Haku is a male example: he presents as a [[Bishonen young boy]] about Chihiro's age. [[spoiler:In his true form, he's a dragon.]]

* DisproportionateRetribution: Chihiro's parents eat food that's left out in the open in unattended booths (that look just like food service stalls) and are fully willing to pay for it when the owner returns. So naturally they [[spoiler:deserve to be turned into pigs. (Of course, Humans might consider it Disproportionate Retribution, but seeing as this is a common theme in stories among [[TheFairFolk fairies and spirits]], such beings [[BlueAndOrangeMorality usually do not.]] If it wasn't a [[FoodChains trap]] in the first place.)]]
* TheDissenterIsAlwaysRight: Chihiro and her parents come across an abandoned town. In that town, there's a spread of freshly made food that smells so delicious that her parents start digging in. Chihiro protests that they shouldn't because they might get in trouble, but they don't pay her any mind and continue eating. [[KarmicTransformation This winds up turning them into pigs]] because the food wasn't meant for humans.

* DontLookBack: Chihiro is instructed not to look back [[spoiler:when she leaves the spirit. She ''nearly'' turns when she's almost out, but she resists the temptation.]]
* DownTheRabbitHole: The long, dark tunnel Chihiro's family traverses in order to reach the empty city [[spoiler: and return home.]]
* DragonRider: Chihiro briefly gets to take a ride on [[spoiler:the dragon Haku.]]

* EarnYourHappyEnding: Chihiro has to go through some significant hardship in order to stay alive and save her loved ones. [[spoiler:Seeing her parents [[ForcedTransformation transformed]] working in the bathhouse, dealing with No-Face, freeing Haku and rescuing her parents shapes her into a more confident person along the way. The English dub even ends with her reassuring her father that she can handle her new school.]]
* EatenAlive: [[spoiler:No-Face swallows three of the bathhouse employees once he succumbs to the its influence. Fortunately, Chihiro's medicine makes him cough them up. (Along with everything else he's eaten.)]]

* EmotionEater: WordOfGod has stated that the reason [[spoiler: No-Face goes on a rampage is that he feeds on the emotions of those around him. In the bathhouse's case, {{Greed}}.]] Good thing it isn't permanent.

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: After Haku gives Chihiro the berry to stop her from disappearing and to prove that it worked, they gently touch hands. It's a blink-and-you-miss moment, but [[TheStoic Haku's]] tender expression makes Haku's true nature clear to the audience.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Yubaba genuinely cares about her infant son. She spoils him rotten and [[spoiler:absolutely ''loses it'' when she discovers he's missing.]]
* EverybodyHasStandards: Yubaba spitefully claims she's going to punish Chihiro the state she left the bathhouse in [[spoiler: even though part of that was due to her luring No-Face away) by having her [[{{Pun}} piggish]] parents slaughtered and made into food. Her employees, upon hearing this, appear distraught and rather disturbed at the idea. Thankfully for Chihirio, Haku has a bargaining chip.]]
* EverybodyHelpsOutDenouement: Although they are initially content to sit back and watch her suffer, the denizens of the bathhouse band together to help Chihiro with the stink monster. Kamaji gives her the train ticket she needs to undo a curse. Later, a group of characters who were all originally hostile to Chihiro work together to make her a protective charm.
* EvilTwin: Played with in the case of [[spoiler:Yubaba and Zeniba. Zeniba claims that the two of them are opposites in every way. Zeniba ''did'' lay a curse on the seal Haku stole and threatens Chihiro in order to keep her quiet, but she is ultimately a kind old woman, especially compared to her much more abrasive and greedy twin.]]

** Yubaba shares more than few similarities with the Duchess from "Literature/AliceInWonderland". Both are older ladies who have grotesquely gigantic heads, both are mean and bad tempered, both care immensely (and unhealthily) for a huge, spoiled baby who is actually happier to be transformed into a simpler creature, and both can turn people into pigs. The Duchess, when first met, is grumpy and grouchy, but the second time, in the Queen of Hearts' party, she is almost uncomfortably friendly to Alice. [[spoiler:Yubaba and Zeniba may not be the same person, but they do look the same and are exact opposites in terms of personality.]]

* FeudalJapan: Though the time period of the "human world" is the modern day, the spirit world has this aesthetic to it, from the clothing of its people to the architecture of the buildings.

* FoodChains: Chihiro's [[GenreBlindness parents]] wind up making a big mistake by eating food that isn't for them. Chihiro, contrarywise, must eat a morsel of the spirit world's food in order to avoid fading away.
* FoodPorn: Typical for films directed by Miyazaki; this one ''begins'' with a suspiciously delicious looking banquet waiting in the empty town, and it's designed to make viewers' mouths water.

** [[spoiler: The cleansed river kami moves through the air in a sinuous, looping motion reminiscent of flowing water. Haku's dragon form emulates this style of movement in flight; he is revealed to be a river spirit as well.]]
*** [[spoiler:When the Stink Spirit first appears, Yubaba finds its behavior familiar and suspects there is more too it than its appearance would suggest. She's proven correct when its MuckMonster body is revealed to be an outer-shell for a dragon-like river kami. This makes sense in hindsight, as she'd encountered a very similar spirit at least once before: Haku.]]

** [[spoiler: Chihiro's parents and presumably other humans are turned into pigs. They show no sign of being anything more than mud-rolling animals after.]]
** [[spoiler:Zeniba turns Boh (Yubaba's son and Zeniba's nephew) into a mouse and Yubaba's servant into a tiny bird.]] When Chihiro later asks her to change them back, she says that the spell has worn off in the interim, and they can change back any time they want.
* ForgottenFirstMeeting: [[spoiler:Haku, a river spirit, saved Chihiro when she fell into his river as a child. Chihiro remembers this as they're [[FlightOfRomance flying back to the bathhouse together near the end of the film]], recovering Haku's full, true name.]]

* FunnyBackgroundEvent: Lin is a little annoyed that Yubaba doesn't compliment ''her'' after they help the stink spirit.
* {{Geas}}: Yubaba swore an oath that binds her to employ anyone who asks her for a job. She doesn't like it. And, as detailed in LoopholeAbuse below, she tries to weasel her way out of hiring humans. However, she eventually concedes when Chihiro insists.
* GenericCuteness: Chihiro was specifically designed to ''avoid'' this trope, as Hayao Miyazaki has complained about how a plain or unattractive male character can still be the star, but female characters all have to be cute to be the protagonist.
* GentleGiant: The Great Radish Spirit is gigantic, but comes across as gentle and supportive, even without saying a word.
* GettingEatenIsHarmless: [[spoiler:No-Face, after Chihiro feeds him the river kami's medicine, throws up everything and everyone he ate.]] They are all none the worse for the experience.
* GhostTown: At first. By day, the bathhouse and the surrounding village appear to be parts of an abandoned town. Then night falls.

** [[spoiler:Haku and the purified river kami]] are huge, serpentine dragons that can fly through the air the way fish swim through water. [[spoiler: In this form, Haku flies Chihiro back to the bathhouse towards the end of the film.]]

* GiantSpider: Kamaji's eight limbs bring to mind a spider, or opiliones, also known as harvestmen or daddy longlegs.

* GoldFever: All of the employees at the bathhouse go crazy trying to scoop up all the gold that No-Face drops. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be enough to cover the resulting damages, even if it hadn't all been made of dirt.]]

** Yubaba, her baby, and [[spoiler:her sister.]] There are two scenes with Yubaba nose-to-nose with more properly proportioned characters, and her head is taller than Haku's head and torso combined.
** The Great Radish Spirit. He has stubby little root-fingers, a face like conjoined elephant twins, and... [[BrainBleach radish nipples]].
* GoodSmokingEvilSmoking: Yubaba smokes a cigarette and exhales billowing clouds of smoke right into [[SecondFaceSmoke Chihiro's face]]. [[spoiler:Her nicer sister Zeniba is not seen smoking.]]

* GrayAndGrayMorality: One of the main themes of this movie is the blurred line between good and evil. Even Yubaba, the closest thing the film has to a villain, can act fairly and dearly loves her son, Boh.
* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: After [[spoiler: Chihiro's parents are turned back into humans, they have absolutely no recollection of what happened and thus have no idea what their daughter went through in order to save them. Even if Chihiro keeps her memories and is the only member of her family who knows the truth, we may safely assume that nobody would believe her.]]
* {{Greed}}: The greed for gold that the bathhouse employees exhibited [[spoiler:influences No-Face to conjure up gold and go on a monstrous binge that includes three bathhouse workers.]]

** This movie has an unusually subtle one for Miyazaki: a "stink spirit" comes to visit the bathhouse, and the bathhouse workers try to turn him away because he is so rank. [[spoiler:The "stink spirit" is actually the spirit of a polluted river. After Chihiro gives him a bath and de-pollutes him with the others' help, he rewards Chihiro with the medicine that later helps both Haku and No-Face.]]
** The spirit of the Kohaku River ([[spoiler:Haku]]) was enslaved and forgot his identity after that river was filled in by humans.

** The Radish Spirit is a big, floppy, vaguely obscene-looking example of this trope -- as well as TheSpeechless and a GentleGiant. On the other hand, he doesn't suffer the social ostracism usually associated with TheGrotesque.

* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: A non-lethal example; [[spoiler:when Dragon Haku destroys Zeniba's enchanted shikigami, her projection cartoonishly splits in half before fading away.]]

* HandsLookingWrong: After Chihiro has been in the spirit world too long, she notices that her hands are becoming translucent, and more and more she's vanishing. Naturally, she starts to panic about this before Haku arrives and gives her some spirit food to insure that she won't disappear.
* HeadbuttOfLove: Chihiro and Haku touch forehead while [[FreeFallRomance free-falling]] through the sky.
* HeroicBystander: Believe it or not, the Soot Spirits get to be this! When [[spoiler:Zeniba's]] cursed slug tries to escape, the little balls of soot team up to block their tunnels, keeping the creature from getting away and allowing Chihiro to kill it.
* HighPressureBlood: A small amount spouts out of the [[spoiler:river kami]] after Chihiro pulls the last of the junk out of him.
* HoldingHands: Chihiro and Haku do a lot of this, complete with IntertwinedFingers. It's most appropriate considering their young age.
* HumansAreSmelly: Most everyone in the bathhouse remarks on the "human stink" on Chihiro, some suggesting it's bad for business.
* {{Hypocrite}}: Maybe unintentional, but when Chihiro first goes to Yubaba asking for a job, she initially refuses, saying that Chihiro is, "A spoiled, lazy crybaby and you have no manners!" and shortly after this is interrupted by her baby, who fits her description of Chihiro pretty much perfectly. Furthermore, she criticizes her employees for being greedy and attracting the wrong type of customer, when greed is pretty much her sole defining characteristic.
* IGaveMyWord: This actually happens ''twice'' in the span of ten minutes at the climax of the story. First, [[spoiler:Boh tries to convince Yubaba to release Chihiro and her parents without testing Chihiro, and she almost considers it; however, Chihiro insists that she be tested, saying that a deal is a deal (even though she is not the one who actually made the deal). Second, Chihiro ends up passing the test, despite the fact that Yubaba made it extra tricky (she has to identify her parents in a large group of pigs and correctly guesses that it's ''none'' of them) and Yubaba keeps her end of the bargain by voiding her contract.]]
* IKnowYourTrueName: Yubaba binds people to her by stealing important parts of their names from their memory. Unless they have a way of preserving the original name prior to the deal (the way Chihiro's was written down on her goodbye card) or some other way to remember the full name, they can never leave her service. [[spoiler: This is why she sends Haku to steal the gold seal with her sister's name on it.]]

* IndirectKiss: Chihiro [[spoiler:bites the medicine ball in half before feeding it to Haku. Possibly because she is trying to show Haku that it is safe to eat, or because she simply doesn't have the strength to break a very hard piece of medicine with her hands fast enough.]]
* InterspeciesRomance: Chihiro and Haku. She's a human girl and he's a [[spoiler:river spirit whose true form is a dragon.]]

* ItsAllAboutMe: After Chihiro pries a job out of Yubaba, after she's nothing but relentless and vicious in her attempt to intimidate her out of asking, Yubaba laments her promise to employ anyone who asks for a job, as it makes her have to be so nice all the time and she really hates that.
* IWantMyMommy: PlayedForDrama. [[spoiler:As it gets dark, he lights start coming on in the supposedly abandoned town and spirits begin to appear, Chihiro runs to find her parents so they can escape. But going back to the food stall all she finds are two large pigs wearing their clothes. On her own in a ''very'' strange place, she's unable to process what's happened, and she starts running through the stalls, calling for her parents, becoming more and more panicked the longer she can't find them. The English version takes it further by having her break down and scream, "MOMMY!" It doesn't help that her actress is actually a kid, Creator/DaveighChase.

** Haku tries to warn Chihiro away from the spirit world before night falls, ensures that she doesn't fade and disappear when she doesn't get away in time, sets her up with Lin and Kamaji who, despite their rough edges, come to care about and root for her, rescues her clothes and name, and supports her at every turn. [[spoiler:Chihiro gives him half the medicine she earned while he's suffering under Zeniba's curse, allowing him to recover and follow after her. When they meet again at the climax and are flying back to the bathhouse, she remembers that they've met once before, and is able to give him back his real, full name, freeing him from Yubaba's service]].

* KarmicTransformation: [[spoiler:Chihiro's parents are transformed into pigs.]]

* LoopholeAbuse: As noted above, Yubaba is magically bound to hire anyone who repeatedly asks her for a job. However, she's free to distract, insult, or even physically assault any potential employee in order to dissuade them from their request; anyone seeking work must remain completely steadfast and bear all her abuse, refusing to be turned away until she relents.
* LossOfIdentity: Yubaba steals parts of the names of anyone who works for her, thus taking their memories of their past and their real name. Even Chihiro, who was in the spirit world for only a day, nearly forgets her name until she is reminded. In fact, Haku is trying to free himself from Yubaba's contract by remembering who he is as well. But for [[ThePowerOfLove some reason]], [[spoiler:he was only able to recall that he's previously met Chihiro.]]

** One of the most notable examples is the very end of the film, where in the English dub we hear Chihiro commenting on how a new school doesn't seem that scary anymore. The Japanese original simply has the family drive off in silence, leaving us to wonder how much of her time in the spirit world Chihiro has retained - a much more subtle and ineffable ending.
* MacGuffin: Averted with [[with Zeniba's seal. It is stolen specifically because it has Zeniba's name on it, which can give Yubaba power over her. It also curses anyone who tries to steal it, so in order to help Haku, Chihiro has to return it.]]
* MagicalLand: The bathhouse borders two worlds--the human world (which can be reached by going across the dry riverbed by day), and the world of the ''kami'' (which can be reached by taking a ferry across the still-flowing river by night). The latter is a Magical Land.

** Chihiro can be translated as "a thousand fathoms" or "ask a thousand questions". Several characters of Chihiro's name are taken by Yubaba, so that all that's left is the generic name Sen, which means only "a thousand." Essentially, Chihiro's name have been replaced with a number when she enters Yubaba's service, and she can only hope to break free if she can keep herself from forgetting her full name. The movie's original Japanese title itself highlights this idea: ''Sen to Chihiro'', or "Sen and Chihiro"-- two names, two different people.

** When her parents start eating the food, Chihiro takes the time to admire the beauty of the bathhouse and, noticing the train tracks, tries to see if she can spot the train. Then, in this previously completely abandoned town, a boy abruptly appears, has ''[[OhCrap very surprised]]'' reaction to her presence, and curtly tells her to run across the river before it's too late. When Chihiro goes to find her parents, [[spoiler: she finds they've been turned into pigs,]] the lanterns are lighting one by one, strange spirits are arriving from everywhere, and the dry riverbed her family crossed is now an impassable river. The poor girl goes from exploring an abandoned city with her family to being trapped in a strange and dangerous magical world in the span of ''minutes.''

* MuckMonster: The bathhouse is visited by an incredibly stinky spirit that resembles an enormous pile of sludge. [[spoiler:It turns out that the visitor is actually the spirit of a river that has been badly polluted by garbage.]]

* MyBelovedSmother: Yubaba, who keeps her baby sheltered in a room where she relentlessly indulges him, producing a SpoiledBrat.
* MysteriousProtector: Haku for most of the film. He's the only friendly face Chihiro initially has in the spirit world and is a significant pillar of support, but he goes long periods without appearing and is tight-lipped about his motivations.
* NameAmnesia: Yubaba controls her workers by taking away pieces of their names. Haku warns Chihiro that if she forgets her full name like he did, she won't be able to escape and will have to serve Yubaba forever. [[spoiler:Just as he reminds her of her name with her goodbye card, Chihiro reminds Haku of his full name when she remembers they've met years before.]]

* NatureSpirit: Most of the creatures in the spirit world qualify, with the notable example [[spoiler: of the river kami that Chihiro assists.]]

** If Chihiro's parents insist on exploring the abandoned city and become tempted by the strange food; this directly leads to them stranding themselves and their daughter in the spirit world.
** Chihiro notices No-Face out in the rain and let's him into the bathhouse. He proceeds to prey on the workers' greed, [[spoiler: swallow one of them whole]] and, after Chihiro rejects the pile of gold that he offers her, go on a volatile and frightening rampage.
** Played with. Chihiro already knows the power of names and how they can break spells. [[spoiler: She reveals Haku's true name to him while they're at cruising altitude, and the dragon reverts to human form. Luckily, he can fly in that form, too.]]

* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: PlayedWith. When Haku tells Chihiro to leave before it gets dark, she goes back for her parents. When she sees [[spoiler:they're turned into pigs,]] she's unwilling to believe it. She runs through the road for a while calling for her parents, before trying to cross the river alone. Haku then tells her she has to save her parents by getting a job with Kamaji, and Yubaba.
* NoOSHACompliance: The bathhouse has a steep, rickety wooden stair case along the outside of the building, that has no railing, and overlooks a deep trench. Chihiro's lucky she slid straight down... into a wall.
* NoMouth: The Radish Spirit has no mouth and doesn't appear able to talk. [[SilentSnarker Not that he needs to.]]

* NotAllowedToGrowUp: A supernatural reason for this one. It's implied that Yubaba's coddling of her son Boh is why he's literally a big baby.

* OddJobGods: There are various kinds of spirits in this world, including a Radish Spirit and a Stench Spirit. [[spoiler: In the latter's case, this is somewhat subverted in that he isn't an actual stench spirit -- he's actually a powerful river kami, whose river had been polluted. Still, the fact that he was initially mistaken for one does suggest that Stench Spirits ''do'' exist.]]

** Yubaba gets a good one after [[spoiler:No-Face {{No Sell}}s her fireball and just before [[CoveredInGunge she's engulfed in a wave of vomit]]]].
** Yubaba gets another one when she's told that [[spoiler:Boh is with her sister Zeniba.]]

* OneWingedAngel: Yubaba takes on a terrifying transformation when she's angry.

* ParentsInDistress: Chihiro's parents are cursed at the beginning of the movie. Most of the plot revolves around her finding a way to free them, and in the process getting acquainted with the Spirit World.

* PolarOppositeTwins: [[spoiler:Yubaba and Zeniba. Though the two of them ''look''' exactly alike, Yubaba is a manipulative, callous overseer who lives in opulence and whose only concern (besides her son) is making as much money as possible. Zeniba, meanwhile, lives a solitary, humble life in the forest and after an initial bad impression is nothing but friendly and forgiving of Chihiro and her friends.]]
* ThePowerOfFriendship: When Chihiro leaves [[spoiler:Zeniba's house]] she is given a ribbon to protect her that "was woven from threads made by your friends".
* ThePowerOfLove: [[spoiler:In the English dub, Zeniba reveals that Haku could only have been saved from her spell by Chihiro's love for him.]]

* ProperlyParanoid: Chihiro is agitated and nervous about exploring the abandoned village and refuses to eat the food that her family finds because the place gives her the creeps, but her parents are too entranced by the food and sure of themselves to listen. Chihiro's instincts are proven completely correct when the sun goes down, the town comes to life, and her parents fall under a terrible spell.
* PunchClockVillain: Yubaba is a very unpleasant old lady, but curses Chihiro not necessarily malice but primarily out of practicality.
* PuppyLove: Chihiro and Haku share a young and innocent affection that sees them through their ordeals and their ultimate rescuing of each other.

** Kamaji. Haku tells Chihiro to seek a job from him for this reason. Although Kamaji doesn't need Chihiro's help himself, he does see her pluck and spirit, so he bribes Lin into taking Chihiro to get a job directly from Yubaba. Later on, he helps her [[spoiler:when she and Haku fall into the boiler room and Haku is suffering from heavy external and internal bleeding.]]
** Despite being a significantly unsympathetic antagonist, Yubaba turns out to be somewhat reasonable as well. Even though she very obviously doesn't want to, she keeps to her word and gives Chihiro a job when she refuses to be dissuaded. Later, when the stink spirit's stench visibly affects her just as much as the other workers, she snaps at Chihiro to keep her hands away from her nose (as Yubaba is) so as not to be rude. And when Chihiro discovers [[spoiler:that something is wrong with the guest, Yubaba orders all the bathhouse employees to help Chihiro pull out the "thorn" that she finds, resulting in the spirit's cleansing, and his rewarding the bathhouse with piles of gold.]] Yubaba is honest and effusive in her praise, hugging Chihiro, gushing about how much money she made and telling her other employees that they could learn a thing or two from her. At the end, [[spoiler:she agrees with Haku to give Chihiro one last test to earn her's and her parents' freedom back, and honors her word when Chihiro passes with flying colors.]]

** The bathhouse is but one landmark in an abandoned town, albeit a noticeably grand and beautiful one. The city itself is given not insignificant emphasis before the plot kicks off, but after, the parts of town beyond the bathhouse don't really factor into the plot at all.
** [[spoiler:The river kami that Chihiro cleans gives her an herb cake, and she dreams about using it to change her parents back. She uses half the cake to save Haku from Zeniba's curse, and the rest to save No-Face from the bad influence of the bathhouse and the people he ate.]]
* RescueRomance: Both Chihiro and Haku for each other throughout the film. Haku is Chihiro's MysteriousProtector who helps her through her ordeal and is revealed to have [[spoiler:saved Chihiro when she fell into his river as a child. Chihiro gives him half the medicine she was planning on giving to her parents, relives him of Zeniba's curse and reminds him of his full name, freeing him from Yubaba.]]

** The Soot Sprites, who also appear in ''Anime/MyNeighborTotoro'', another Miyazaki-directed Studio Ghibli film.

* SchmuckBait: Subverted at the end. [[spoiler: Chihiro is specifically told that when she's leaving she should ''not'' to look back. She almost does, but she has enough willpower not to.]]
* SchmuckBanquet: Chihiro's parents can't help but eat the food laid out for them in the abandoned restaurant. Chihiro resists it because she senses something is wrong with the place.

** The "lesson" that No-Face learns from the bathhouse residents. Chihiro teaches him an opposing lesson when she refuses his offered gold.
** Chihiro's parents at the buffet. Her father's blind faith in cash is what gets everyone in trouble; he assumes the price is ''monetary''.

* {{Shapeshifting}}: [[spoiler: Chihiro's parents are [[ForcedTransformation transformed into pigs against their will. Haku, a dragon]], can transform into a human, and Yubaba can become a birdlike creature to get around or act as a spy. [[spoiler:Zeniba turns Boh, her nephew, into a mouse.]] In the Japanese version, it's explicitly stated that ''every worker'' in the bathhouse is a transformed animal spirit.

** The AfterlifeExpress above is a shout out to ''Anime/NightOnTheGalacticRailroad'' (book or film).

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Though the story takes place in a fantasy world full of wonder, much of it is Chihiro suffering through her job at the bathhouse: exploited, lonely and yearning for her home and her family. However, the movie leans more towards the idealistic end of the scale near the end, wherein Chihiro has endeared herself to many of the spirits she's met, prompting them to lend her their support in [[spoiler:her helping Haku and rescuing her parents.]]

* SmallRoleBigImpact: Aogaeru, the frog spirit; while he only has a handful of lines, it's his greed that ultimately [[spoiler:corrupts No-Face]], initiating a major conflict later in the film.

* SpoiledBrat:
** Yubaba's baby spends his days in a room full of pillows and presumably eating as much as he pleases. Upon finding Chihiro, he threatens to ''break her arm'' if she refuses to play with him. [[spoiler:Zeniba has so little patience for his cacophonous antics that upon their encountering each other she almost immediately transforms him into a mouse.]]
* StalkerWithoutACrush: No-Face is this for Chihiro. Even after he becomes the center of the entire bathhouse's attention, it's her he offers a mountain of gold to. When she says no thank you and runs off (as she's desperately hurrying to help Haku while all this is going on) he goes on a rampage that can't be mollified until she agrees to speak with him again.
* StatingTheSimpleSolution: When Chihiro's family first enters the spirit world, they cross over a dried-up riverbed. When Haku and Chihiro meet, he stridently warns her to leave before sunset. After failing to rescue her parents, Chihiro ''does'' try, but it gets dark all too quickly, and by nightfall the formerly dry riverbed has reverted to a river with waters too deep for her to wade across by the time she gets there.

** When the stink spirit approaches the bathhouse, Yubaba defies this trope and warns every employee to not react to the stench because a customer is a customer.

* TightropeWalking: Chihiro has to do this on a thin metal pipe attached to the outside of the building to reach a far ladder overlooking the deep water below. She is absolutely terrified all throughout, but she does make it.

** You can't tell in English, but Chihiro's parents really should knwo better than to eat in an "empty town" where the signs advertise such foods as "dog" and "[[ImAHumanitarian eyeball]]". But even for someone who doesn't read or speak Japanese, it isn't hard to tell that there's something ''very'' strange about the situation the Oginos find themselves in. Possibly downplayed in that it's not unlikely the food itself is enchanted to be especially enticing despite the strange circumstances its found in.
** Most of the bathhouse employees who cheerfully serve No-Face without even questioning where he's from, even though he just pops up in the middle of the night and mysteriously speaks with the voice of another employee. Yubaba later curses their stupidity over letting No-Face in, suggesting that they ought to have recognized the threat he potentially posed. Downplayed in that Yubaba is established to be incredibly greedy and less than generous with her employees' paychecks, hence the frog worker Aogaeru trying to pry up bits of gold from the floorboards after everyone one else is asleep, which is when he becomes [[No-Face's first victim]].

* UncomfortableElevatorMoment: There's a hilarious scene in which Lin smuggles Chihiro aboard the bathhouse's upper elevator, where she winds up stuck with an elephantine [[UglyCute Radish Spirit]] that takes up most of it. Humans have been established as being ''not welcome'' in the bathhouse, so she's bracing for the worst while ineffectually trying to remain unnoticed. Luckily, the Radish Spirit is either kindly enough, mischievous enough, or apathetic enough to not call anybody's attention to her.
* UnfoldingPlanMontage: When instructing Chihiro how to get to Kamaji, Haku touches her forehead and both she and the audience see a preview of the path ahead.

* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Several characters display the ability to do this, such as Yubaba, who can turn into a crow-like creature, and Haku, [[spoiler: whose alternate form is a dragon.]]

%%* WeNeedADistraction: Haku covers for Chihiro's appearance when they're making their across the crowded bridge to the bathhouse.
* WhamShot: Chihiro's parents turning away from their SchmuckBanquet to reveal [[spoiler: [[ForcedTransformation they've been turned into pigs]]]]. It's at this point that both Chihiro ''and'' the audience realize things have gone [[FromBadToWorse from bad to irreparably worse,]] and that Chihiro won't be leaving for home with her family anytime soon.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: No-Face. Terribly lonely, he took a liking to Chihiro when she offered him kindness and let him into the bathhouse. Unfortunately, something about said bathhouse [[spoiler:leads him to become an ever-growing, ever-ravenous monster that swallows up everything in sight. And the more monstrous he gets, the more obsessed he becomes with Chihiro.]]
* YearOutsideHourInside: While the audience is never given [[spoiler:the exact amount of time that the Oginos are in the spirit world, the trope is heavily implied: when they return to the living world, the car is dusty and it's been overgrown with foliage. The car ''does'' start without a problem, however, so it can't have been more than a few days or weeks.]]

Chihiro Ogino (Rumi Hiiragi), a sullen young girl unwillingly moving to a new town, is stranded in the spirit world after her parents (Takeshi Naito and Yasuko Sawaguchi) stop by what appears to be an abandoned town and eat food that [[spoilerturns them into pigs.]] At first, her only aid is Haku (Creator/MiyuIrino), a mysterious boy who finds her shelter and a job in a bathhouse that caters to these spirits. Eventually, Chihiro makes more friends as she searches for a way to make her parents human again and escape the spirit world before she forgets her real identity. And that's all just within the first 30(ish)-minutes of the movie--and that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the odd denizens of the spirit world, ranging from the villainous bathhouse managing witch Yubaba (Mari Natsuki) to arachnid worker Kamajii (Bunta Sugawara) to the enigmatic, near-voiceless spirit No-Face (Akio Nakamura).

Chihiro Ogino (Rumi Hiiragi), a sullen young girl unwillingly moving to a new town, is stranded in the spirit world after her parents (Takeshi Naito and Yasuko Sawaguchi) stop by what appears to be an abandoned amusement park and eat food that turns them into pigs. At first, her only aid is Haku (Creator/MiyuIrino), a mysterious boy who finds her shelter and a job in a bathhouse that caters to these spirits. Eventually, Chihiro makes more friends as she searches for a way to make her parents human again and escape the spirit world before she forgets her real identity. And that's all just within the first 30(ish)-minutes of the movie--and that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the odd denizens of the spirit world, ranging from the villainous bathhouse managing witch Yubaba (Mari Natsuki) to arachnid worker Kamajii (Bunta Sugawara) to the enigmatic, near-voiceless spirit No-Face (Akio Nakamura).

* FineYouCanJustWaitHereAlone: Chihiro originally refuses to accompany her parents into the empty amusement park, but follows when they decide to go on ahead anyway.

* FoodPorn: Typical for films directed by Miyazaki; this one ''begins'' with a suspiciously delicious looking banquet waiting in the empty amusement park, and it's designed to make viewers' mouths water.

** [[spoiler: The cleansed river spirit moves through the air in a sinuous, looping motion reminiscent of flowing water. Haku's dragon form emulates this style of movement in flight; he is revealed to be a river spirit as well.]]
*** [[spoiler:When the Stink Spirit first appears, Yubaba finds its behavior familiar and suspects there is more too it than its appearance would suggest. She's proven correct when its MuckMonster body is revealed to be an outer-shell for a dragon-like River Spirit. This makes sense in hindsight, as she'd encountered a very similar spirit at least once before: Haku.]]

* GettingEatenIsHarmless: [[spoiler:No-Face, after Chihiro feeds him the river spirit's medicine, throws up everything and everyone he ate.]] They are all none the worse for the experience.
* GhostTown: At first. By day, the bath house and thesurrounding village look like an abandoned amusement park. Then night falls.

** [[spoiler:Haku and the purified river spirit]] are huge, serpentine dragons that can fly through the air the way fish swim through water. [[spoiler: In this form, Haku flies Chihiro back to the bathhouse towards the end of the film.]]

** During the [[spoiler:cleansing of the River Spirit]], Yubaba demonstrates an ability to float in mid-air; given her enormous head, she might qualify for this trope.
* GiantSpider: Kamaji's eight limbs bring to mind a spider, or opilione, also known as harvestmen or daddy longlegs.

* HighPressureBlood: A small amount spouts out of the [[spoiler:River Spirit]] after Sen pulls the last of the junk out of him.

* InterspeciesRomance: Chihiro and Haku. She's a human girl and he's a [[spoiler:river spirit/dragon.]]

* IWantMyMommy: PlayedForDrama. [[spoiler:As it gets dark, he lights start coming on in the amusement park and spirits begin to appear, Chihiro runs to find her parents so they can escape. But going back to the food stall all she finds are two large pigs wearing their clothes. On her own in a ''very'' strange place, she's unable to process what's happened, and she starts running through the stalls, calling for her parents, becoming more and more panicked the longer she can't find them. The English version takes it further by having her break down and scream, "MOMMY!" It doesn't help that her actress is actually a kid, Creator/DaveighChase.

** The spirit world, being mostly nature-associated, is being gradually hemmed in by redevelopment, with especially tragic consequences for river spirits. [[RealitySubtext Sadly true in reality,]] in that almost all rivers in Japan that go even remotely close to developed areas are turned into concrete troughs.

* MeaningfulName:
** Chihiro's name can be translated as "a thousand fathoms" or "ask a thousand questions". Several characters of Chihiro's name are "stolen" by Yubaba, so that all that's left is the generic name Sen, which means only "a thousand." Essentially, Chihiro has been reduced from a person to a number in Yubaba's service, and according to Haku, she can only break free of it if she remembers her full name.
** Chihiro was the name of the real little girl upon whom Miyazaki based the character, like "Literature/{{Alice|InWonderland}}".
*** Also, possibly by coincidence, the kanji characters left after Yubaba removes most of Chihiro's name resemble the English word "it". A further dehumanization.
** The movie itself: ''Sen to Chihiro'', or "Sen and Chihiro", -- two different people.
** No-Face, a featureless black spirit that literally has no face, only a mask to represent one.
** Haku, while having its own meaning, also sounds very close to the Japanese word for "100", Hyaku. This goes rather well with Chihiro's new name, Sen, meaning "1,000".
* MindScrew: '''Big time.''' This was lampshaded by Creator/CartoonNetwork's ads for it, which, after explaining that Chihiro gets stuck in an alternate universe, [[spoiler her parents are turned into pigs, and she sells her name to a "crazy witch lady",]] the narrator goes on to say, "And that's just the first twenty minutes!"
* MissingChild: Chihiro gets trapped in the spirit world after her family [[spoiler: is changed into pigs.]] She has no way home and in the moment, she has no she can trust or ask for help.
* MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold: Actually, two of them. Despite initial impressions, both [[spoiler:Yubaba nor Zeniba have HiddenDepths, and No-Face tells Chihiro/Sen that he is lonely, he doesn't have any friends or family, initially tries very hard to repay her kindness and is only disruptive while he is in the bathhouse.]]

** When her parents start eating the food, Chihiro takes the time to admire the beauty of the bathhouse and, noticing the train tracks, tries to see if she can spot the train. Then, in this previously completely abandoned town, a boy abruptly appears, has ''[[OhCrap very surprised]]'' reaction to her presence, and curtly tells her to run across the river before it's too late. When Chihiro goes to find her parents, [[spoiler: she finds they've been turned into pigs,]] the lanterns are lighting one by one, strange spirits are arriving from everywhere, and the dry riverbed her family crossed is now an impassable river. The poor girl goes from exploring an abandoned amusement park with her family to being trapped in a strange and dangerous magical world in the span of ''minutes.''
** [[spoiler: During the river spirit scene, it goes from comical to awesome when Chihiro realizes he has a "Thorn" stuck in his side that needs to be pulled out. Then a lot of garbage comes out, revealing a wizened smiling face who thanks Chihiro and rewards her.]]

* NatureSpirit: Most of the creatures in the spirit world qualify, with the notable example [[spoiler: of the river spirits that Chihiro assists.]]
* NeedleInAStackOfNeedles: The test at the end of the movie, where Chihiro has to find [[spoiler:her parents hidden amongst other pigs. She correctly guesses that none of them ''are'' her parents, breaking the curse.]]

** If Chihiro's parents hadn't explored that abandoned amusement park and gotten tempted by the strange food, they might not have stranded themselves and their daughter in the spirit world.
** Chihiro lets No-Face into the bathhouse, which leads to him wreaking havoc after she rejects his gold. Before [[spoiler:going to Zeniba to help Haku, Chihiro must confront him and lead him out, after he's become very big, very volatile and very dangerous.]]

* NightParadeOfOneHundredDemons: While it is not overtly said, the plot has hints that this is what's occurring during the film's events. The protagonist Chihiro and her parents end up trapped in the Spirit World when they stay at the abandoned amusement park before sunset, something that is commonly believed would happen to humans who happen upon the Hyakki Yagyo. The fact that it is set in an amusement park with food processions, in and out-going cruise ships and a fully-stocked bathhouse hints that the story is taking place in the middle of a festival.

* OddJobGods: There are various kinds of spirits in this world, including a Radish Spirit and a Stench Spirit. [[spoiler: In the latter's case, this is somewhat subverted in that he isn't an actual stench spirit -- he's actually a powerful river spirit, whose river had been polluted. Still, the fact that he was initially mistaken for one does suggest that Stench Spirits ''do'' exist.]]

** Chihiro when she sees that [[spoiler:her parents are transformed into pigs.]]

* ProperlyParanoid: Chihiro tells her parents to keep away from the abandoned amusement park and not eat the food that's left out there because the place gives her the creeps, but they are too entranced by the food and sure of themselves to listen. Chihiro is proven completely correct when the sun goes down, the town comes to life, and her parents fall under a terrible curse.

** The bathhouse is located at the end of the abandoned amusement park, the latter of which is given the most emphasis before the plot kicks off. After the family becomes trapped, the park doesn't really factor into the plot at all.
** [[spoiler:The river spirit that Chihiro cleans gives her an herb cake, and she dreams about using it to change her parents back. She uses half the cake to save Haku from Zeniba's curse, and the rest to save No-Face from the bad influence of the bathhouse and the people he ate.]]
* RescueRomance: Both Chihiro and Haku for each other. Haku is Chihiro's MysteriousProtector who helps her through her ordeal and is revealed to have [[spoiler:saved Chihiro when she fell into a river as a child. Chihiro gives him half the medicine she was planning on giving to her parents, relives him of Zeniba's curse and reminds him of his full name, freeing him.]]
* ResignationsNotAccepted: Yubaba will employ anyone at her bathhouse who asks, but they must sign a contract that makes them forget their true name and binds them to her service until they recall it.

** Boh as a mouse also counts.

* SceneryPorn: This movie is chock full of it, as can be expected from anything by Miyazaki--the fantastical and finely detailed architecture of the bathhouse is given the most attention, and it ''earns'' it.
* SchmuckBait: Subverted at the end. [[spoiler: Chihiro is specifically told ''not'' to look back when leaving. She almost does, but she has enough willpower not to.]]
* SchmuckBanquet: Chihiro's parents can't help but eat the food laid out for them in the abandoned park. Chihiro resists it because she senses something is wrong with the place.

** Chihiro's parents at the buffet. "Daddy's got credit cards and cash!" Her father's blind faith in cash gets everyone in trouble; he ''assumes'' the price is paper money or credit.
* {{Shapeshifting}}: [[spoiler:Haku, a dragon]], can transform into a human, and Yubaba can become a birdlike creature to get around or spy on people. [[spoiler:Zeniba turns Boh, her nephew, into a mouse.]] In the Japanese version, it's explicitly stated that ''every worker'' in the bathhouse is a transformed animal spirit.
* ShooTheDog: When Chihiro first meets Haku, he tells her she shouldn't be at at the bathhouse and to run across the river before sundown. Night falls ''as they're speaking''. He tells her to GetOut while he distracts someone. Despite her confusion and misgivings, Chihiro tries, but she can't rescue her parents or make it out in time before the formerly-dry river becomes full.

** Being told not to look back may be a reference to various myths, including the story of Izanami and Izanagi, Orpheus and Eurydice, or Lot and his wife...[[spoiler:except in Chihiro's case, she's successful.]]

* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Though taking place in a fantasy world full of wonder, much of the story is Chihiro suffering through her job at the bathhouse, exploited, lonely and yearning for her home and her parents. The movie leans more towards the idealistic end of the scale near the end however, wherein Chihiro has endeared herself to many of the spirits she's met, which prompts them to lend her aid to survive and do whatever it takes to help Haku and her parents.

* SpiritWorld: The world on the other side of the abandoned theme park is a city of spirits, who bustle through the streets and patronize the bathhouse.
* SpiritedYoungLady: Like many of Miyazaki's other female protagonists, Chihiro is a modern version of this trope. Outwardly, she is everything a well-brought-up girl should be, but she is not exactly poised or well-mannered. She is understandably upset when she and her parents have to move to Tochinoki, is [[spoiler:traumatized by her mom and dad turning into pigs, has to be a virtual slave to a powerful witch and has to fight for her life in a dangerous and unfamiliar world of magic. When Haku is being attacked by Zeniba's paper airplanes, she loses all her "spoiled little rich girl" qualities and battles against all of the odds to save his life.

** Yubaba's baby spends his days in a room full of pillows and presumably eating as much as he pleases. Upon finding Chihiro, he threatens to ''break her arm'' if she doesn't play with him. Zeniba gets tired of him so quickly she transforms him into a mouse.
* StalkerWithoutACrush: No-Face is this for Chihiro. Even after he becomes the center of the entire bathhouse's attention, it's her he offers a mountain of gold to, and when she says no thank you and runs off (as she's desperately hurrying to help Haku while all this is going on) he goes on a rampage and isn't satisfied until she agrees to speak with him again.
* StatingTheSimpleSolution: When her family first enters the spirit world, they cross over a dried-up river. Haku stridently warns Chihiro to get across the river before sunset, or she'll be stuck. After failing to rescue her parents, Chihiro does try, but it gets dark all too quickly and the formerly dry riverbed is filled with water, too deep for her to wade across, by the time she gets there.

** The other bathhouse workers complain about Chihiro's [[HumansAreSmelly human stench]] potentially driving away customers. Once Chihiro is employed under the name Sen, Yubaba tells her workers to stop complaining, as Sen will soon [[GoingNative stop smelling like a human,]] and in the meantime, they're stuck with her anyway because Yubaba is honor-bound to give Sen the employment that she asked for.
** When the polluted river spirit approaches the bath-house, Madame Yubaba defies this trope and warns every employee to not react to the stench because a customer is a customer. No matter how difficult the stench is to endure, they still don't want to offend their customer.

* TakeAThirdOption: At the end, [[spoiler:Chihiro is shown a dozen pigs, and has to choose which two among them are her parents in order to free them and herself. But she can't pick them out. Because, as she says, her parents aren't in there.]]
* TakeAwayTheirName: Yubaba magically enslaves her employees by stealing bits of their names, which also robs from them memories of their full name and eventually their former life. They can only get free of her if they remember their real, full name.

** In Chihiro's case, Yubaba goes further than taking away the characters of Chihiro's name, as the MeaningfulRename trope shows. Chihiro's new "name" isn't really a name at all - it's a ''number''.
* TheyShouldHaveSentAPoet: Several times--as Chihiro takes in the sights of the bathhouse, the endless ocean, etc.--she notes aloud on how amazing the view is.
* TightropeWalking: Chihiro has to do this on a thin metal pipe attached to the outside of the building to reach a far ladder overlooking the deep water below. At the end, however, she is absolutely terrified when she makes it.
* TomboyishPonytail: Chihiro wears a ponytail combined with sidetails.

** You can't tell in English, but Chihiro's parents should really have known better than to eat in a "park" where the signs advertise such foods as "dog" and "[[ImAHumanitarian eyeball]]". Not to mention that they really should have waited to pay before digging in, and they kept insisting that there was nothing weird or supernatural about the 'park'. It's pretty easy even for someone who doesn't read or speak Japanese to tell that there's something ''very'' strange about all the situation. It can be theorized that the food is more than a little magical and that probably didn't help, though they still fell for the SchmuckBanquet big time.
** Most of the bathhouse employees, who cheerfully serve No-Face without even questioning where he's from, even though he just pops up in the middle of the night and mysteriously speaks with the voice of another employee. Yubaba later curses their stupidity over letting No-Face in, suggesting that they ought to have recognized the threat he potentially posed.
* TrappedInAnotherWorld: Chihiro's parents ate food intended for spirits, and are turned into pigs as punishment. To help them, Chihiro must work at the bathhouse under Yubaba's rule. Until she can succeed, Chihiro and her parents are stuck in the spirit world.
* UncomfortableElevatorMoment: A hilarious scene in which Lin smuggles Chihiro aboard the bath house's upper elevator. She's stuck on it with the elephantine, UglyCute Radish Spirit. Since she's ''really'' not supposed to be in the bath-house at all and most of the other spirits have already expressed their revulsion for humanity, she's trying hard to brace for the worst while remaining unnoticed. (Not easy when the other passenger is so big that you're being squeezed against the side of the elevator.) Veeery awkward. Luckily, he's either kindly enough, mischievous enough, or apathetic enough to call nobody's attention to her.
* UnfoldingPlanMontage: When instructing Chihiro how to get to Kamaji, Haku touches her forehead and we see a preview of the path ahead.

* VoiceChangeling: No-Face can perfectly imitate the voices of people he's just eaten. Otherwise, he's silent.
* VoluntaryShapeshifting: Several characters portray this ability, such as Yubaba's ability to turn into a crow-like creature, and Haku's alternate form as a dragon.
* VomitIndiscretionShot: No-Face is given an emetic dumpling by Chihiro, sending him into a rampage that ends with the bathhouse being covered top to bottom with his vomit. Yubaba gets the worst of it, however.
* WainscotSociety: The spirit community doesn't appear to be in very regular contact with the human world -- but nonetheless, {{Muggles}} can fall into it by just wandering into the wrong abandoned amusement park.
* WatchOutForThatTree: After all but flying down a staircase, Chihiro runs straight into a wall at the end.
%%* WeNeedADistraction: Haku covers for Chihiro's appearance.
* WhamShot: Chihiro's parents turning away from their SchmuckBanquet to reveal [[ForcedTransformation they've been turned into pigs]]. It's at this point both Chihiro and the audience realize things have turned FromBadToWorse, and that she won't be leaving the area anytime soon.

* WhatYouAreInTheDark: Towards the beginning, when Chihiro and her parents find the abandoned restaurant, they have either two ways to respond to the situation at hand. On one hand, Chihiro's parents have a moment of weakness when they let even a little greed and hunger tempt them to help themselves to the food before they've even paid. On the other hand, Chihiro refuses to partake the food, even at her own parents behest, because she recognizes they'll get in trouble for eating without permission from the restaurant's owners. Three guesses as to which party had the right idea.
* [[WhenSheSmiles When He Smiles]]: When Haku smiles, it's only around Chihiro. But when he does smile, boy does it light up his face.
* WhiteMaskOfDoom. No-Face is first encountered as a partial black cloak and a white mask. Later his body grows a horrible maw, jarring with the lost-child-in-pain expression of the mask.
* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: No-Face. Terribly lonely, he took a liking to Chihiro when she offered him kindness and let him into the bathhouse. Unfortunately, something about said bathhouse leads him to become [[spoiler:an ever-growing monster that eats everything in sight and becoming more and more obsessed with Chihiro.]]
* YearOutsideHourInside: While the audience is never given an exact amount of time that the Onigos were in the spirit world, the trope is heavily implied: when they return to the living world, the car is dusty and it's been overgrown with foliage. The car ''does'' start without a problem, however, so it can't have been more than a few days or weeks.

** All the bathhouse workers are animal spirits. The frog spirits are particularly common, and easy to identify by their upturned lips and wide eyes. Slug women are also incredibly common.
** [[DeadpanSnarker Lin]] is a [[AsianFoxSpirit fox spirit]] who has a knack for getting out of trouble and nabbing food.
** Yubaba can turn into a giant corvid, a family of birds that has a reputation for being cunning, ominous omens of death and destruction. As corvids can prey on the dead, Yubaba takes advantage of people in the spirit world by stealing their names and enslaving them to her for as long as they are unable to remember what was taken.
** The six-armed Kamaji, with his fuzzy mustache and black sunglasses, is reminiscent of a spider.
* TheAssimilator: After No-Face [[spoiler:eats a frog bathhouse worker,]] he is able to speak using the worker's voice and even gains a pair of frog legs. He later loses these attributes after [[spoiler:the river spirit's medicine causes him to barf the frog back up.]]

** Miyazaki also loves his environmental messages, and this film has two big, though subtle, examples. The first is when [[spoiler:Chihiro heals the river god after their river was heavily polluted and filled with garbage.]] The second is when [[spoiler: Chihirio remembers Haku's full name, which reminds them both that he is the spirit of the Kohaku River, which had been built over years ago.]]

* BaitAndSwitch: When Chihiro's parents cross traverse the tunnel and come out on the other side, there is a not insignificant emphasis placed on the empty amusement park that they find there. (Mrs. Ogino explains that the park was probably made before the Japanese recession and thus quite old, but Chihiro isn't impressed because the whole place is giving her bad vibes.) However, once the plot really kicks off, the bathhouse that Chihiro stumbles upon serves as the focal point for most of the adventure.

** WordOfGod states that this is the reason No-Face follows Chihiro (to him, Sen) around after she lets him into the bath-house and keeps trying to offer her gold when he meets up with her again later.
** It's also implied that this is why Kamaji is willing to help Chihiro out so much--she saves a Soot Spirit that is crushed under the weight of his coal and finishes the job for him, proving that she is both kindhearted and willing to work if it's necessary.
** Likewise, Chihiro does all she can [[spoiler:to help clean the stink spirit: she uses the tokens that No-Face steals for her, and when the spirit shows her a thorn in its side, Chihiro shouts for everyone to help, leading a ChainOfPeople to pull it out with a rope. This cleanses the spirit of a veritable mountain of junk, revealing him to be a formerly polluted river god. In return, the spirit tells her "Well done," and rewards her with a medicinal cake that becomes absolutely instrumental later.]]

** Both of Chihiro's parents, (her dad in particular) develop ravenous appetites when they discover the food in the abandoned amusement park.

* BirdRun: Haku can move so fast he hovers inches above the ground.

** The American ending hints that [[spoiler:Chihiro ''will'' remember some of her adventure; when her father remarks starting life in a new home and school can be scary, Chihiro replies, "I think I can handle it," suggesting that she's maintaining her memories (or at least the confidence she gained) from her trip to the spirit world.]]

* BloodFromTheMouth: [[spoiler:Haku, due to the effects of Zeniba's curse. Makes sense given he swallowed her crest;]] Kamaji observes he is bleeding from the ''inside''.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: A given, considering the [[{{Youkai}} setting]] [[TheFairFolk of the story]]. [[spoiler:Chihiro's parents are turned into pigs for the crime of eating food intended for the gods, if that's not just the result of humans eating such food.]]

* BookEnds: The film begins and ends with [[spoiler:Chihiro clutching her mother's arm as they follow her father through the tunnel. Her mother even tells Chihiro both times to not hold so tight--that she'll make her fall.]]

* ButtMonkey: The little green frog man. He is magicked by Haku, he faints when the Stink Spirit gets too close, and then he is [[spoiler: eaten by No-Face.]]
* CainAndAbel: [[spoiler: Yubaba plays the Cain to her twin sister's Abel. [[DownplayedTrope Somewhat downplayed]] in that, while she doesn't appear to want to directly ''hurt'' her sister, Yubaba does command Haku to steal a gold seal with Zeniba's name on it in order to gain power over her. Likewise, Zeniba doesn't let her sister ''or'' Haku get away with such a theft unchallenged and without retribution.]]
* CaptainObvious: Chihiro says a few obvious things in the Japanese version. The English dub added several more examples, albeit some ("It's a bathhouse," for example) to add for clarity for a non-Japanese audience (as a Japanese audience, even if they didn't recognize what the bathhouse was by its appearance, would be able to read the sign above its entrance identifying what it was).
* CatharticCrying: When [[spoiler:Haku reunites Chihiro with her parents after their transformation, reminds her of her real name and offers her something to eat away from the bathhouse]], she eats and bawls her heart out, finally getting to decompress after her trauma. Notably, she is mentally in a much healthier place afterwards and has even regained some hope.

** The changes that come with growing up. Chihiro is introduced dealing with moving away from her old friends and into a new house in a new city, a dilemma ''dwarfed'' by everything that follows.

* CharacterDevelopment: Chihiro inspires this in near everyone she interacts with. Kamaji is initially brusque with her, but becomes much warmer when she proves herself to him. Lin first sees her as a burden at best, but eventually becomes very protective of her. [[spoiler:Chihiro leaves No-Face in a better place than she found him, and inspires Boh to become more independent, which plants the seeds for his and Yubaba's relationship with each other to improve. In hindsight, she even seems to have this effect on Haku. When she asks Lin about him, she describes him as cold and untrustworthy; one can infer that he ''was'' like that, but meeting Chihiro inspired him to be more open.]]
* ChekhovsBoomerang: [[spoiler: The medicine from the water god helps cure Haku's injuries ''and'' frees No-Face from all the food (and people) he'd eaten.]]
* ChekhovsGun: Chihiro's farewell card helps her remember her name after Yubaba steals it.
* ChekhovsGunman: No-Face's first appearance is seemingly as just another "face" in a crowd of equally strange spirits. Once Chihiro lets him into the bathhouse, he becomes a much more relevant character.
* ComeWithMeIfYouWantToLive: When Haku finds Chihiro again, he keeps her from disappearing and leads her to the bathhouse so she can procure a job to avoid a terrible fate.

* ComfortFood: Onigiri is Japanese soul food; Chihiro has some and takes a moment to cry after her incrediblly hectic and hazardous introduction to the spirit realm.

* ConverseWithTheUnconscious: Chihiro tells [[spoiler: the unconscious Haku]] that she is leaving for some time [[spoiler:(to return the golden seal to Zeniba)]] and that he has to get better. Later when he wakes up, he reveals to Kamaji that he heard Chihiro's voice and followed it until he woke up.

* CounterfeitCash: Once he's inside, No-Face uses an illusion of conjured gold to pay for services in the bathhouse, having witnessed the establishment's employees scrambling over the [[spoiler:River Spirit's]] gold. After Chihiro successfully [[spoiler: manages to get No-Face out of the bathhouse]], all of the gold No-Face gave out crumbles to dirt.
* CultureChopSuey: The [[SceneryPorn bathhouse and spirit world overflow with every imaginable cultural and aesthetic detail.]] From [[FeudalJapan the feudal ages]] to mid-twentieth century Japan. (With the purposeful exception of {{Samurai}} or [[UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan soldiers]].)

** Despite being a fox spirit, Lin looks indistinguishable from a human; some fans have theorized she may have once, indeed, been human and in the same situation as Chihiro.
** Haku is a male example: he presents as a young, {{Bishonen}} boy about Chihiro's age. [[spoiler:In his true form, he's a dragon.]]
* DarkIsNotEvil: Quite a few spirits are helpful to Chihiro initially--most notably Haku, Lin and Kamaji--but many others warm up to her and start to like her over the course of the film.

* DarkWorld: After dark, the carnival site becomes a hub for spirits and gods. However [[DarkIsNotEvil dark is not necessarily evil.]]

* DirectionlessDriver: Chihiro's father loses his way, which is what brings the family to the derelict amusement park in the first place.
* {{Disneyfication}}: Less so than most, but in addition to ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'', the film is also partially a LighterAndSofter version of the rather grisly Japanese fairy tale "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shita-kiri_Suzume Shita-kiri Suzume]]".
* DisproportionateRetribution: Chihiro's parents eat food that's left out in the open in unattended booths (that look just like food service stalls) and are fully willing to pay for it if an owner appears. So naturally they [[spoiler:deserve to be turned into pigs, right? (Of course, Humans might consider it Disproportionate Retribution, but seeing as this is a common theme in stories among [[TheFairFolk fairies and spirits]], such beings [[BlueAndOrangeMorality usually do not.]] If it wasn't a [[FoodChains trap]] in the first place]].)
* TheDissenterIsAlwaysRight: Chihiro and her parents come across an abandoned amusement park. In that park, there's a spread of freshly made food that smells so delicious that her parents start digging in. Chihiro protests that they shouldn't because they might get in trouble, but they don't pay her any mind and continue eating. [[KarmicTransformation This turns them into pigs]] because the food wasn't meant for humans.
* DistressedDude: [[spoiler:Haku]] is heavily injured from [[spoiler:Zeniba]]'s spell, and needs both [[spoiler:[[ChekhovsGun the medicine from the river god]]]] and Chihiro's [[ThePowerOfLove love]] to save him.
* DontLookBack: Chihiro is instructed not to look back [[spoiler:when leaving the Spirit World. She ''nearly'' turns when she's almost out, but she resists the temptation.]]
* DownTheRabbitHole: The long, dark tunnel Chihiro's family passes through before reaching the amusement park.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: Chihiro has to go through some significant hardship in order to stay alive and save her loved ones. [[spoiler:Working in the bathhouse, healing Haku, and rescuing her parents shapes her into a more mature and confident person along the way. The English dub even ends with her reassuring her father that she can handle school her new school.]]
* EatenAlive: Happens to [[spoiler:three of the bathhouse employees after No-Face goes nuts. Fortunately, Chihiro's medicine makes him cough them up. (Along with everything else he's eaten.)]]

* EmotionEater: WordOfGod has stated that the reason [[spoiler: No-Face went on a rampage is that he feeds on the emotions of those around him. In this case, {{Greed}}.]] Good thing it wasn't permanent.
* EndOfAnAge: There's a subtle theme of cultural traditions eroding: Chihiro doesn't recognize roadside shrines or understand the traditional etiquette, and the formerly [[{{Reincarnation}} two-way]] AfterlifeExpress now only goes in one direction. The [[ImageSong image album]] has the workers lament that fewer and fewer gods show up every year, as they're slowly dying out because "there are no gods in electric things".
* EnigmaticMinion: Haku is bound to Yubaba's service but helps Chihiro whenever no one else is around to see.
* EstablishingCharacterMoment: After Haku gives Chihiro the berry to stop her from disappearing and to prove that it worked, they gently touch hands. It's a fast blink-and-you-miss moment but [[TheStoic Haku's]] tender expression quickly reveals Haku's true nature to the audience.

* EverybodyHasStandards: Yubaba spitefully claims she's going to punish Chihiro for leaving her post [[spoiler:(even under the circumstances of luring away Noh Face) by having her [[{{Pun}} piggish]] parents slaughtered and made into food. Her employees, upon hearing this, appear distraught and rather disturbed at the idea. Thank goodness for Haku's bargaining chip.]]
* EverybodyHelpsOutDenouement: Although they are initially content to sit back and watch her suffer, the denizens of the bathhouse band together to help Chihiro with the stink monster. Later, a group of characters who were all originally hostile to Chihiro work together to make her a protective charm.
* EvilTwin: Played with in the case of [[spoiler:Yubaba and Zeniba. Zeniba claims that the two of them are opposites in every way. Zeniba ''did'' lay a curse on the seal Haku stole and threatens Chihiro in order to keep her quiet, but she ultimately is a kind old woman compared to her much meaner and greedier twin.]]

* ExpressiveMask: No-Face's mask to some extent; it almost seems to smile or frown sometimes. The artists noted that they wish they'd been able to rely on lighting a little more to set his mood instead.

** The name Yubaba is reminiscent of "Literature/BabaYaga", a witch of slavic folklore who usually presents as an incredibly dangerous obstacle on the path to some goal.

* TheFairFolk: The whole film (and the amusement park) is built around a traditional FairyTale portrayal of {{Youkai}}.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: No-Face. Terribly lonely, he took a liking to Chihiro when she offered him kindness and let him into the bathhouse. Unfortunately, something about said bathhouse led him to become an ever-growing monster eating everything in sight and becoming more and more obsessed with Chihiro.
* YearOutsideHourInside: While the audience is never given an exact time scale for how long Chihiro was in the spirit world, the trope is heavily implied: when she returns to the living world, the car is dusty and the foliage around it has grown some. The car does start without a problem, however, so it can't have been more than a few days or weeks.
* YouAreACreditToYourRace: Yubaba doesn't like humans at ''all'', and at their first meeting she shows tremendous contempt for Chihiro. However, by the time Chihiro has proven herself several times over and ''insists'' on facing Yubaba's challenge fair and square, the old ogress admits her uppity servant has courage and determination.
* {{Youkai}}: Most of the background characters, being nature spirits of one form or another.

* IKnowYourTrueName: Yubaba binds people to her by stealing their names, and they can only get free of her if they remember their real name. The theft of her sister's gold seal is an attempt to steal her name as well.
* ImAHumanitarian: Apparently humans taste good to the spirits, though they're not inclined to eat them on a whim.

* IndirectKiss: Chihiro bites the medicine ball in half before feeding it to Haku. She may have been trying to show Haku that it was safe to eat, or simply didn't have the strength to break a very hard piece of medicine with her hands as opposed to her jaw.

* ItsAllAboutMe: After Chihiro has pried a job out of Yubaba, over relentless and vicious attempts to intimidate her out of asking, Yubaba laments her promise to employ anyone who asked for a job, as it makes her have to be so nice all the time and she really hates that.
* IWantMyMommy: PlayedForDrama. When her parents turn into pigs, Chihiro is in denial. She starts running through the stalls, calling for them. Her panic increases with the lack of response. The English version takes it further by having her break down and scream, "MOMMY!" No, it doesn't help that her actress was actually a kid, Creator/DaveighChase.
* JerkassHasAPoint: Even for a then [[SpoiledBrat spoiled kid]], Chihiro has the right idea when she tells her parents not to eat the food they find in the abandoned town. After all, they didn't really know if they could afford to pay for even a portion of the food they ate. In this case, [[ForcedTransformation the price was too high]].

** Haku finds out that [[spoiler:before he worked for Yubaba, he rescued Chihiro as a child from drowning when she fell into his river]]. At the bathhouse, he sets up Chihiro with Lin who is a MamaBear, rescues her clothes and name, and protects her at every turn. [[spoiler:Chihiro remembers his real name, defends him from Zeniba, and frees him from Yubaba's mind control, allowing him to regain his free will]].
** Meanwhile, Chihiro is kind to everyone at the bathouse and runs to rescue Haku from Zeniba's paper birds, while following the rules and working hard. [[spoiler:The River Spirit gives her medicine to heal Haku and No-Face, Kamaji gives her train tickets to return Zeniba's seal, and Haku bargains for her and her parents to return to the human world]].
* KarmicTransformation: For Chihiro's parents when their gluttony gets them transformed into pigs.
* KickTheDog: Though unintentional, when Yubaba first glimpses Boh as a mouse, she fails to recognize her son and only sees a rodent and adds an insult. With only his eyes, Boh clearly expresses his hurt and then anger at his mom. After this, Boh and Yubaba's servant-bird both stick with Chihiro.

* LoopholeAbuse: As noted above, Yubaba is magically bound to hire anyone who repeatedly asks her for a job. However, she's free to distract, insult, or even physically assault the potential employee; that person has to remain completely focused on requesting employment to counteract this.
* LossOfIdentity: Yubaba steals the names of anyone who works for her, thus taking their memories of their past and their real name. Even Chihiro, who was in the spirit world for a day, had nearly forgotten her name until reminded. In fact, Haku is trying to free himself from Yubaba's contract by remembering who he is as well. But for [[ThePowerOfLove some reason]], [[spoiler:he was only able to recall Chihiro.]]

* MacGuffin: Chihiro leaves the bathouse to returns Zeniba's figure to her in hopes that she can help Haku in turn.
* MagicalLand: The bath-house borders two worlds--the human world (which can be reached by going across the dry riverbed by day), and the world of the ''kami'' (which can be reached by taking a ferry across the still-flowing river by night). The latter is a Magical Land.
* MamaBear: Yubaba nearly assumes a OneWingedAngel form out of rage when she discovers her son is missing.
* MagicallyBindingContract: How Yubaba employs people for her bathhouse--she literally rips their signature from the paper.

** The spirit world, being mostly nature-associated, is being gradually hemmed in by redevelopment, with especially tragic consequences for river spirits. (Sadly true in reality, in that almost all rivers in Japan that go even remotely close to developed areas are turned into concrete troughs.)

** Chihiro's name can be translated as "a thousand fathoms" or "ask a thousand questions". Chihiro's name is later "stolen" by Yubaba and she is given the more generic name Sen, which means only "a thousand." Essentially, Chihiro has been reduced from a person to a number in Yubaba's service, and according to Haku, she can only break free of it if she remembers her true name. Turns out Chihiro was the name of the real little girl upon whom Miyazaki based the character, like "Literature/{{Alice|InWonderland}}".

* MindScrew: '''Big time.''' This was lampshaded by Creator/CartoonNetwork's ads for it, which, after explaining how Chihiro got stuck in an alternate universe, her parents turned into pigs, and she sold her name to a "crazy witch lady", the narrator goes on to say, "And that's just the first twenty minutes!"
* MissingChild: The moment where Chihiro gets trapped in the spirit world with her family having changed into pigs. She runs through the food stalls in a strange place, desperately calling for her parents. Chihiro deals with some pretty grown-up situations while maturing as a person.
* MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold: Actually, two of them. Despite initial impressions, neither Yubaba nor Zeniba are all that evil. Neither is No-Face, who is seen only by himself, and tells Chihiro/Sen that he is lonely and doesn't have any friends or family.
* MonsterAndTheMaiden: A human girl named Chihiro befriends and works with Haku, a NatureSpirit who can turn into a [[DragonsAreDivine dragon]]. Haku [[MysteriousProtector looks out for Chihiro]] while she works to get her parents back, and in exchange, she [[spoiler:breaks the curse [[CainAndAbel Yubaba and Zeniba]] placed on him.]]

** Chihiro leaves her parents when they start eating the food. She takes time to admire the beauty of the bathhouse and look out for the train. Haku appears, goes OhCrap and tells her to run across the river before it's too late. When Chihiro goes to find her parents, she finds out they turned into pigs, and a strange spirits have arrived. Chihiro freaks out, calls for her parents, and ends up in a TroubledFetalPosition when she can't make it across the river.
** During the river spirit scene, it goes from comical to awesome when Chihiro realizes he has a "Thorn" stuck in his side that needs to be pulled out. Then a lot of garbage comes out, revealing a wizened smiling face who thanks Chihiro and rewards her.

** Yubaba's son, Boh, who seems to be the only thing she cares about more than making money. When he goes missing, she goes full MamaBear on Haku, complete with breath of fire.
** Chihiro herself is also this to a number of characters. She brings out the best in the sarcastic Lin, the stoic Haku, and the grouchy Kamaji, and is the only one who cares for No-Face properly.

* MultiArmedMultitasking: Kamaji, the spider spirit, runs the bath house's boiler room without any help from the other employees. He uses his six arms to simultaneously stoke the boiler, collect ingredients from the many drawers in the wall behind him, grind them to powder, and mix them into herbal blends to add to the bathwater. The only thing he can't do himself is feed coal into the boiler; for that, he enchants soot into little spirit-balls who toss the coal in for him.
* MyBelovedSmother: Yubaba, who keeps her baby sheltered in a room and relentlessly indulges him, producing a SpoiledBrat.
* MysteriousProtector: Haku for most of the film. He's the only friendly face Chihiro has in the spirit world and constantly helps her, but he goes long periods without appearing and is tight-lipped about his motivations.
* NameAmnesia: Yubaba controls the workers at the baths by taking away their names and giving them new ones. Haku warns Chihiro that if she forgets her real name like he did, she won't be able to escape and will have to serve Yubaba forever. [[spoiler:Chihiro manages to free him by reminding him that his true name is the Kohaku River.]]

* NatureSpirit: Most of the creatures in the spirit world qualify, with the notable example of the river spirit Chihiro assists.
* NeedleInAStackOfNeedles: The test at the end of the movie, where Chihiro has to find her parents hidden amongst other pigs. [[spoiler:She correctly guesses that none of them are her parents, breaking the curse.]]

** If Chihiro's parents hadn't explored that abandoned amusement park, and gotten tempted by the strange food, they might not have stranded themselves and their daughter in the spirit world.
** Chihiro lets No-Face into the bathhouse, which leads to him wreaking havoc after she rejects his gold. Chihiro then lures him out while going to Zeniba to see Haku.
** Played with. Chihiro already knows the power of names and how they can break spells. She reveals Haku's true name to him while they're at cruising altitude, and the dragon reverts to human form. Luckily, he can fly in that form, too.
* NightParadeOfOneHundredDemons: While it is not overtly said, the plot has hints that this is occurring during the film's events. The protagonist Chihiro and her parents end up trapped in the Spirit World when they stay at the abandoned amusement park before sunset, something that is commonly believed would happen to humans who happen upon the Hyakki Yagyo. The fact that it is set in an amusement park with food processions, in and out-going cruise ships and a fully-stocked bathhouse hints that this is occurring in the middle of a festival.
* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: PlayedWith. When Haku tells Chihiro to leave before it gets dark, she goes back for her parents. Then she sees they're turned into pigs, but is unwilling to believe it. She runs through the road for a while calling for her parents, before trying to cross the river alone. Haku then tells her she has to save her parents by getting a job with Kamaji, and Yubaba.
* NoOSHACompliance: The bathhouse has a steep, rickety wooden stair along the outside of the building, overlooking a deep trench. Chihiro's lucky she slid straight down... into a wall.
* NoMouth: The Radish Spirit has no mouth and cannot talk. [[SilentSnarker Not that he needs to.]]
* NoSell: Yubaba's fireball doesn't even slow down No-Face.

* OcularGushers: Chihiro cries quite a lot at first until she begins to grow up and take responsibility for herself. Then again, she ''is'' only 10 or 11, and is going through a pretty traumatic experience.
* OddJobGods: There are some pretty weird spirits in this world, such as the Radish Spirit, and the Stench Spirit. [[spoiler:A subversion; he isn't an actual stench spirit -- he's actually a powerful river spirit, whose river had been polluted. Still, this does suggest that Stench Spirits ''do'' exist somewhere.]]

** Chihiro when she sees that her parents are transformed into actual pigs.

** Yubaba gets a good one after No-Face {{No Sell}}s her fireball. [[CoveredInGunge Just before she's engulfed in a wave of vomit]].

* OneWingedAngel: Yubaba transforms into a terrifying form when she's angry.

* ParentsInDistress: Chihiro's parents are cursed during the beginning of the movie. Most of the plot revolves around her finding a way to free them, while also getting acquainted with the Spirit World.
* ParentsKnowTheirChildren: Inverted. [[spoiler:To rescue her parents, Chihiro must pick them out of a line-up of several dozen other pigs. She correctly determines that none of the pigs are her parents.]]

* ThePowerOfFriendship: When Chihiro is leaving Zeniba's house she is given a ribbon to protect her that "was woven from threads made by your friends".
* ThePowerOfLove: [[spoiler:Zeniba reveals that Haku could only have been saved from her spell by Chihiro's love for him.]] Strangely, this line does not exist in the Japanese version.

* ProperlyParanoid: Chihiro yells at her parents to keep away from the abandoned amusement park and not eat the food that's out there because she's getting the creeps. They ignore her since she's been bratty during the drive. Surprise, surprise, the bathhouse is a portal to the spirit world and the enchanted food turns them into pigs! Say what you will about Chihiro, but she has good instincts.
* PunchClockVillain: Yubaba is a very unpleasant old lady, but only curses Chihiro because she's basically constrained to carry out her role by her job.
* PuppyLove: Chihiro and Haku are both young, and though they are not an OfficialCouple, there's enough implication for this trope.

** Kamaji. Haku tells Chihiro to seek a job from him for this reason. Although Kamaji doesn't need Chihiro's help himself, he sees her pluck and spirit. So instead he bribes Lin into taking Chihiro to get a job directly from Yubaba. Later on, he helps her when Haku falls into the boiler room and is bleeding heavily.
** Despite being quite unsympathetic as an antagonist, wanting to turn Chihiro's family into pigs and all, Yubaba turns out to be reasonable as well. She makes Chihiro work as hard as the rest of the other workers, who have years of labor behind them, but sees that she has potential. Yubaba senses that the Stink Spirit is something more, and orders Chihiro to clean him as a SecretTestOfCharacter; when Chihiro says he needs help because something is stuck in his side, Yubaba orders all the bathhouse employees to help Chihiro pull out the "thorn" (actually a lot of garbage) from the spirit, cleaning it, unveiling its true form as a river dragon, and leaving them with piles of gold. She then hugs Chihiro and says SoProudOfYou for figuring out what was wrong. At the end, [[spoiler:she agrees with Haku to give Chihiro one last test to earn her parents and freedom back, and honors her word when Chihiro passes with flying colors.]]

** The bathhouse being located at the end of an abandoned amusement park. Mrs. Ogino gives some exposition to Chihiro that the park was probably abandoned because of the recession probably so now it's just a lot with relics. The amusement park then disappears when Chihiro and her parents accidentally cross over into the spirit world and doesn't factor into the rest of the plot; Chihiro doesn't even remember what her mother said about it.
** The river spirit that Chihiro cleans gives her an herb cake, that she thinks she can use to change her parents back. [[spoiler:She uses half the cake to save Haku from Zeniba's curse, and the rest to save No-Face from the bad influence of the bathhouse and the people he ate.]]
* RescueRomance: Chihiro and Haku since he is her MysteriousProtector and it's revealed that [[spoiler:he saved Chihiro when she fell into a river as a child.]]
* ResignationsNotAccepted: Yubaba will employ anyone at her bathhouse who asks, but they must sign a contract that makes them forget their true name and binds them to service until they recall it.

* RunningGag: Chihiro keeps getting [[AmusingInjuries knocked on the head]].
* SceneryPorn: This movie is chock full of it, as can be expected from anything by Miyazaki--the fantastical and finely detailed architecture of the bathhouse is given the most attention.
* SchmuckBait: Subverted with the ending in which Chihiro is told ''not'' to look back when leaving. She almost does, but she has enough willpower not to.
* SchmuckBanquet: Chihiro's parents can't help but eat the food at the beginning. Chihiro resists it because she senses something is wrong with the place.

** The "lesson" that No-Face learns from the bathhouse residents. Chihiro teaches him a lesson when she refuses his gold.
** Chihiro's parents at the buffet. "Daddy's got credit cards and cash!" However, this may not ''entirely'' count given that they mention that they can pay the bill when the workers get back.
** It's her father's blind faith in cash that gets everyone in trouble. After all, he's ''assuming'' the price is paper money or credit.
* ShadowArchetype: Boh acts as this for Chihiro, representing what would she be like if she never encountered the Spirit World.
* {{Shapeshifting}}: [[spoiler:Haku, a dragon]], can transform into a human, and Yubaba into a birdlike creature. [[spoiler:Zeniba turns Boh into a mouse.]] Also, in the Japanese version, it's explicitly stated that ''every worker'' in the bathhouse is a transformed animal spirit.
* ShooTheDog: When Chihiro first meets Haku, he tells her she shouldn't be at at the bathhouse and to run across the river before sundown. The sun then goes down ''fast''. He tells her to GetOut while he distracts the spirits. Chihiro tries, but she can't rescue her parents and doesn't make it in time before the formerly-dry river becomes full.

** Being told not to look back is a callback either to the story of Izanami and Izanagi, Orpheus and Eurydice, or Lot... except in Chihiro's case, she's successful.
** Speaking of Greek mythology, Chihiro's parents being turned into pigs after eating food belonging to the supernatural hearkens back to ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', with Yubaba the spirit/witch/youkai in place of Circe the goddess/sorceress/nymph. The same danger, just stretched out over a longer period of time, is posed to her parents but, much like Odysseus, Chihiro saves them in the end. Furthermore, her parents' lack of awareness that they've been in the spirit world for as long as they were, thinking it was only an hour or two at most, is reminiscent of the Land of the Lotus-eaters.
* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: Though taking place in a fantasy world full of wonder, much of the story is Chihiro suffering through her job at the bathhouse, lonely and yearning for her parents. The cynicism leans more towards the idealistic end of the scale near the end, wherein Chihiro finds a newfound determination to survive and do whatever it takes to help Haku and her parents.
%%* Small Parent Huge Child: Yubaba's son Boh is a massive baby twice the height of his mother. It's implied that he's actually an adult who resembles a baby due to his mother continuing to coddle him into adulthood.

* SpiritWorld: The world on the other side of the abandoned theme park is a city of spirits, bustling through the streets and visiting the bathhouse.
* SpiritedYoungLady: Like some of Miyazaki's other female protagonists, Chihiro is a modern version of this trope. Outwardly, she is everything a well-brought-up girl should be, but she is not exactly poised or well-mannered. She is understandably upset when she and her parents have to move to Tochinoki, is supposedly traumatized by her mom and dad turning into pigs, has to be a virtual slave to a powerful witch and has to fight for her life in a dangerous and unfamiliar world of magic. When Haku is being attacked by Zeniba's paper airplanes, she loses all her "spoiled little rich girl" qualities and battles against all of the odds to save his life.

* [[StalkerWithACrush Stalker Without a Crush]]: No-Face may qualify as this for Chihiro.
* StatingTheSimpleSolution: When her family first enters the spirit world, they cross over a dried-up river. Haku shouts at Chihiro to get across the river before sunset, or she'll be stuck. Chihiro does try, but it gets dark all too quickly and the dry-river fills up with water, too deep for her to wade across. There's also the problem of her parents being turned into pigs, since she can't and won't leave them behind.

** The other bath-house workers complain about Chihiro's [[HumansAreSmelly human stench]] potentially driving away customers. Once Chihiro, now known as Sen, is employed, Madame Yubaba tells the workers to stop complaining, as Sen will soon stop smelling like a human, and in the meantime, they're stuck with her because Madame Yubaba is honor-bound to give Sen the employment that she asked for.
** When the polluted river spirit approaches the bath-house, Madame Yubaba defies this trope and warns every employee to not react to the stench because a customer is a customer. No matter how difficult it will be to clean their customer, they still don't want to offend their customer.
* TheStoic: Haku, when he's not with Chihiro. He doesn't even bat an eyelid when Yubaba breathes fire at him.
* TakeAThirdOption: At the end, [[spoiler:Chihiro is shown a dozen pigs, and has to choose which two among them are her parents in order to free them and herself. Her choice? Her parents aren't in there.]]
* TakeAwayTheirName: The witch Yubaba magically enslaves her employees stealing their names, thus taking their memories of their past and their real name. She gives them new names, to avoid nameless confusion. They can only get free of her if they remember their real name.

** Yubaba has gone further than taking away names and giving new ones, as the MeaningfulRename trope shows. Chihiro's new "name" isn't really a name at all - it's a ''number''.
* TheyShouldHaveSentAPoet: Several times--as Chihiro takes in the sights of the bathhouse, the endless ocean, etc.--she notes aloud on how amazing they are.
* TightropeWalking: Chihiro has to do this on a thin metal pipe outside to reach a far ladder overlooking the deep water below. At the end, however, she is absolutely terrified when she makes it.

** You can't tell in English, but Chihiro's parents should really have known better than to eat in a "park" where the signs advertise such foods as "dog" and "[[ImAHumanitarian eyeball]]". Not to mention that they really should have waited to pay before digging in, and they kept insisting that there was nothing weird or supernatural about the 'park'. It's pretty easy even for someone who doesn't read or speak Japanese to tell that there's something ''very'' strange about all this. It can be theorized that the enchantments on the food are probably what caused them to gorge themselves, though they still fell for the SchmuckBanquet big time.

* FoodChains: Chihiro's [[GenreBlindess parents]] wind up making a big mistake by eating food that isn't for them. Chihiro, contrarywise, must eat a morsel of the spirit world's food in order to avoid fading away.
* FoodPorn: Typical for films directed by Miyazaki; this one ''begins'' with a suspiciously delicious looking banquet waiting in the empty amusement park, which is designed to make viewers' mouths water.

** [[spoiler: The cleansed river spirit moves in a sinuous, looping way that is reminiscent of flowing water. Haku's dragon form emulates this style of movement in flight, because he himself turns out to be a river spirit as well.]]
*** [[spoiler:When the Stink Spirit first appears, Yubaba finds its behavior familiar and suspects there is more too it than it appears. She's proven correct when its MuckMonster body is revealed to be an outer-shell for a dragon-like River Spirit. This makes sense because she has encountered a very similar spirit before: Haku.]]
** Chihiro's father can be heard snorting as he eats English dub, which works as subtlety foreshadows his and Chihiro's mother's fate.

** [[spoiler: Chihiro's parents and the other humans turned into pigs. They show no sign of being anything more than mud-rolling animals after.

* ForgottenFirstMeeting: [[spoiler:Haku, a river spirit, saved Chihiro when she fell into his river as a child. Chihiro remembers this as they're [[FlightOfRomance flying back to the bathhouse together near the end of the film, recovering Haku's full, true name.]]
* FrogMen: Yubaba's male servants range from somewhat froggish-looking humanoid men to complete frogs.

* {{Geas}}: Yubaba swore an oath that binds her to employ anyone who asks her for a job. She doesn't like it. And, as detailed in LoopholeAbuse below, tries to weasel her way out of hiring humans, but eventually concedes when Chihiro insists.

* GentleGiant: The Great Radish Spirit is gigantic, but also seems gentle and supportive. Even without words.

* GhostTown: At first. By day, the bath house and surrounding village look like an abandoned amusement park. The spirits appear at night.

** [[spoiler:Haku in dragon form and the purified river spirit]] are huge, serpentine dragons that can fly through the air the way fish swim through water. [[spoiler:Haku is big and strong enough carry Chihiro back to the bathhouse.]]

* GiantSpider: Kamaji's eight limbs make him reminiscent of a spider, or opilione, also known as harvestmen or daddy longlegs.

* GoldFever: All of the employees at the bathhouse go crazy trying to scoop up all the gold that No-Face drops. [[spoiler: Unfortunately, it wouldn't have been enough to cover the damages he causes, even if it hadn't been made of dirt.]]

* GrayAndGrayMorality: One of the main themes of this movie is the blurred line between good and evil. People who seem good have flaws but even Yubaba, the closest thing the film has to a villain, is just trying to seem fair and dearly loves her son, Boh.
* TheGreatestStoryNeverTold: After Chihiro's parents are turned back into humans, they have absolutely no recollection of what happened and thus have no idea what their daughter went through in order to save them. Chihiro might have kept her memories and be the only one (in human world, at least) who knows the truth, and even if she does, we may safely assume that nobody is going to believe her.
* {{Greed}}: The greed for gold from the bathhouse employees caused No-Face to become consumed to eat as much as he wants. They get their comeuppance when the gold turns out to be just dirt.

** This movie has an unusually subtle one for Miyazaki: a "stink spirit" comes to visit the bathhouse, and the bathhouse workers try to turn him away because he is so rank. [[spoiler:The "stink spirit" is actually the spirit of a polluted river, and after Chihiro gives him a bath and, with others' help, de-pollutes him, Chihiro is rewarded with the medicine that later helps both Haku and No-Face.]]
** Also, the spirit of the Kohaku River ([[spoiler:Haku]]) was enslaved and forgot his identity after that river was filled in by humans.

** [[spoiler:The silent spirit No-Face is shunned by everyone else except for Chihiro, who treats him with kindness. He later begins swallowing up spirits, which bloats him into a disgustingly obese, multi-limbed creature. Only medicine from Chihiro appeases him.]]
** The Radish Spirit is a big, floppy, vaguely obscene-looking example of this trope -- as well as TheSpeechless and GentleGiant. On the other hand, he doesn't suffer the social ostracism usually associated with TheGrotesque.
* GrowingUpSucks: Subverted. Chihiro acts sulky at first, then becomes mature and resourceful as the film goes on. Or as the film goes on she is revealed to be more mature and resourceful than she appears.
* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: A non-lethal example; when Dragon Haku destroys Zeniba's enchanted shikigami, her projection cartoonishly splits in half before fading away.
-->'''Zeniba:''' Ow, a paper cut!
* HandsLookingWrong: After Chihiro has been in the spirit world too long, she starts to vanish, noticing that her hands are becoming translucent. Naturally, she starts to panic about this before Haku arrives and gives her some spirit food to insure that she won't disappear.

* HeroicBystander: Believe it or not, the Soot Spirits get to be this! When [[spoiler:Yubaba's]] cursing slug tries to escape, the little balls of soot team up to block their tunnels, keeping the creature from getting away and allowing Chihiro to kill it.
* HighPressureBlood: A small amount spouts out of the River Spirit after Sen pulls the last of the junk out of him.

** Both of Chihiro's parents, (her dad in particular,) develop ravenous appetites when they discover the food in the abandoned amusement park.
** Boh, [[spoiler:or rather the three heads transformed to look like him,]] who wolfs down chocolates.

* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: [[spoiler: Yubaba]] is eventually revealed to have a twin sister named [[spoiler:Zeniba]]--while look exactly alike, they are the closest things that the movie has to a BigBad and a BigGood, respectively.

** All the bathhouse workers are animal spirits. The frog spirits are particularly common, and easy to identify by their upturned lips and wide eyes.
** [[DeadpanSnarker Lin]] is a fox spirit who has a knack for getting out of trouble and nabbing food.
** Yubaba can turn into a giant corvid, a family of birds that has a reputation for being cunning, ominous omens of death and destruction. As corvids can prey on the dead, Yubaba takes advantage of people in the spirit world by stealing their names and "killing" their past selves so they can't remember who they are and thus are enslaved to her forever (unless they remember their name).

* TheAssimilator: After No-Face [[spoiler:eats a frog bathhouse worker,]] he is able to speak using the worker's voice and even gains a pair of frog legs. He later loses these attributes after [[spoiler:he river spirit's medicine causes him to barf the frog back up.]]

** Miyazaki also loves his environmental messages, and this film has two big, though subtle, examples. The first is when [[spoiler:Chihiro heals the river god after their river was heavily polluted and filled with garbage.]] The second is after [[spoiler: Chihirio remembers Haku's full name, when they both to realize he is the spirit of the Kohaku River, which had been built over years ago.]]

* BadBlackBarf: [[spoiler:No-Face]] starts coughing up and drooling black barf (among other things) after [[spoiler:Chihiro gives him medicine.]]
* BaitAndSwitch: When Chihiro's parents cross through the tunnel and come out on the other side, there is a not insignificant emphasis placed on the empty amusement park that they find there. (Mrs. Ogino explains that the park was probably made before the Japanese recession and thus quite old, but Chihiro isn't impressed because this whole place is giving her bad vibes.) However, once the plot really kicks off, the bathhouse that Chihiro stumbles upon serves as the focal point for most of the adventure.

** Both of Chihiro's parents, (her dad in particular,) develop ravenous appetites when they discover food in the abandoned amusement park--they are [[spoiler:(appropriately) transformed into pigs to represent their gluttony.]]
** Boh, [[spoiler:or rather the three heads transformed to look like him,]] eating chocolate. [[spoiler:Clearly taking advantage of their transformation.]]
** No-Face, who devours a ludicrous amount of food at the bathhouse and [[ExtremeOmnivore swallows several people whole.]] When Chihiro finally faces him, it's in a room filled to the brim with mountains of food.

** The American ending hints that [[spoiler:Chihiro ''will'' remember some of her adventure; when her father remarks starting life in a new home and school can be scary, Chihiro replies, "I think I can handle it," suggesting that she's maintaining her memories (or at least the confidence she gained from her trip to the spirit world).]]

* BloodFromTheMouth: [[spoiler:Haku due to the effects of Zeniba's curse. Makes sense given he swallowed her crest;]] Kamaji observes he is bleeding from the ''inside''.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: A given, considering the [[{{Youkai}} setting]], [[TheFairFolk of the story]]. [[spoiler:Chihiro's parents are turned into pigs for the crime of eating food intended for the gods, if that's not just the result of humans eating such food.]]

* BookEnds: The film begins and ends with [[spoiler:Chihiro clutching her mother's arm as they follow her father through the tunnel. Her mother even tells Chihiro both times to stop clutching at her--that she'll make her fall.]]

* CainAndAbel: [[spoiler: Yubaba plays the Cain to her twin-sister's Abel. [[DownplayedTrope Somewhat downplayed]] in that, while she doesn't appear to want to directly ''hurt'' her sister, Yubaba does command Haku to steal a gold seal with Zeniba's name on it in order to gain power over her. Likewise, Zeniba isn't going to just let her sister get away with the attempted theft without retribution.]]

* CatharticCrying: When Haku reunites Chihiro with her parents after their transformation, reminds her of her real name and offers her something to eat away from the bathhouse, she eats and bawls her heart out, finally getting to react to her trauma. Notably she is mentally a lot healthier and hopeful afterwards.

** The shock of entering adulthood. Chihiro is introduced dealing with moving away to a new city, a dilemma ''dwarfed'' by being alone in a hostile spirit world.

* CharacterDevelopment: Chihiro inspires this in near everyone she interacts with. Kamaji is initially brusque with her, but becomes much warmer when she proves herself to him. Lin first sees her as a burden at best, but eventually becomes very protective of her. [[spoiler:She leaves No-Face in a better place than she found him, inspires Boh to become more independent, which plants the seeds for his and Yubaba's relationship with each other to improve. In hindsight, she even seems to have this effect on Haku. When she asks Lin about him, she describes him as cold and untrustworthy; one can infer that he ''was'' like that, but meeting Chihiro inspired him to be more open.]]

* ChekhovsGunman: No-Face's first appearance is seemingly as just another "face" in a crowd of equally strange spirits. Once he's let into the bathhouse by Chihiro, he becomes a much more relevant character.
* ComeWithMeIfYouWantToLive: When Haku finds Chihiro again, he keeps her from disappearing and leads her to the bathhouse so she can procure a job and avoid a terrible fate.

* ComfortFood: Onigiri is Japanese soul food; Chihiro has some and cries to decompress from her incredible hectic and hazardous introduction to the spirit realm.

* ConverseWithTheUnconscious: Chihiro tells [[the unconscious spoiler:Haku]] that she is leaving for some time [[spoiler:(to return the golden seal to Zeniba)]] and that he has to get better. Later when he wakes up, he reveals to Kamaji that he heard Chihiro's voice and followed it until he woke up.
* CoolBigSis: Lin, despite her initially cold reaction to Chihiro, develops into this as she warms up to the girl.
* CounterfeitCash: Once he's inside, No-Face uses an illusion of conjured gold to pay for service in the bathhouse, having witnessed the bathhouse employees scrambling over the [[spoiler:River Spirit's]] gold. After Chihiro successfully [[spoiler: manages to get No-Face out of the bathhouse]], all of the gold No-Face gave out crumbles to dirt.
* CultureChopSuey: The [[SceneryPorn bathhouse and spirit world overflow with every imaginable cultural and aesthetic detail, from [[FeudalJapan the feudal ages]] to mid-twentieth century Japan. (With the purposeful exception of {{Samurai}} or [[UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan soldiers]].)
* CuteClumsyGirl: Chihiro repeatedly trips, stumbles, and crashes around the spirit world, though she gets better over time. She all but ''flies'' down the wooden staircase to the boiler room at the beginning of the film, but she later manages to run across a ''pipe'' to safety before it detaches from the building almost under her feet.

* DarkIsNotEvil: Quite a few spirits are friendly to Chihiro initially--most notably Haku, Lin and Kamaji--but a few others warm up to her and start to like her over the course of the film.

* DirectionlessDriver: Chihiro's father loses his way, which is what brings the family to the derelict amusement park.

* DisproportionateRetribution: Chihiro's parents eat food that's left out in the open in unattended booths (that look just like food service stalls) and are fully willing to pay for it if an owner appears. So naturally they deserve to be turned into pigs, right? (Of course, Humans might consider it Disproportionate Retribution, but seeing as this is a common theme in stories among [[TheFairFolk fairies and spirits]], such beings [[BlueAndOrangeMorality usually do not. If it wasn't a [[FoodChains trap]] in the first place]].)
* TheDissenterIsAlwaysRight: Chihiro and her parents come across an abandoned amusement park. In that park, there's a spread of freshly made food that smells so delicious that the parents start digging in. Chihiro protests that they shouldn't because they might get in trouble, but they don't pay her any mind and continue eating. [[KarmicTransformation This turns them into pigs]] because the food wasn't meant for humans.

* DontLookBack: Chihiro is instructed not to look back [[spoiler:when leaving the Spirit World. She ''nearly'' turns when she's almost left, but with the sparkling of Zeniba's magic hairband, resists the temptation.]]

* DubSpeciesChange: The English translation of the artbook for the movie refers to Lin as a weasel spirit, when she's a fox spirit in the Japanese version.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Chihiro has to go through some significant hardship in order to stay alive and save her loved ones. Working in the bathhouse, healing Haku, and being trapped by Yubaba (among other things) shapes her into a more mature and confident person along the way. The English dub ends with her reassuring her father that she can handle school, after that adventure.
* EatenAlive: Happens to three of the bathhouse employees after No-Face goes nuts. Fortunately, Chihiro's medicine makes him cough them up. (Along with everything else he's eaten, much of which he spits up on Yubaba.)
* EccentricMentor: Yubaba's twin sister Zeniba is a friendly witch who offers some sage advice to Chihiro during her stay.
* EmotionEater: WordOfGod has stated that the reason No-Face went crazy is that he feeds on the emotions of those around him, and that their {{Greed}} corrupted him. Good thing it wasn't permanent.
* EndOfAnAge: A subtle one about cultural traditions eroding: Chihiro doesn't recognize roadside shrines or understand the traditional etiquette, and the formerly [[{{Reincarnation}} two-way]] AfterlifeExpress now goes only one direction. The [[ImageSong image album]] has the workers lament that fewer and fewer gods show up every year, as they're slowly dying out, and "there are no gods in electric things".

* EstablishingCharacterMoment: After Haku gives Chihiro the berry to stop her from disappearing and to prove that it worked, they gently touch hands. It's a fast blink-and-you-miss moment but [[TheStoic Haku's]] tender expression quickly reveals to the audience that he isn't as cold as he appears to be.
* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes: Yubaba genuinely cares about her enormous baby. She spoils him rotten and ''loses it'' when she discovers he's missing.
* EverybodyHasStandards: In the beginning, Chihiro comes across as a spoiled, bored kid who gives up easily and treats everything with pessimism. Even so, she demonstrates a rather strong sense of right when she warns her parents not to eat the food they find at the restaurant, understanding they have no right eating it.
** Later, Yubaba spitefully claims she's going to punish Chihiro for leaving her post (even under the circumstances of luring away Noh Face) by having her [[{{Pun}} piggish]] parents slaughtered and made into food. At hearing this, her employees are rather disturbed to hear she would do this. Thank goodness for Haku's bargaining chip.
* EverybodyHelpsOutDenouement: Although they are initially content to sit back and watch her suffer, the denizens of the bath house band together to help Sen with the stink monster. Later, a group of characters who were all originally hostile to Sen work together to make her a protective charm.
* EvilTwin: Played with in the case of Yubaba and Zeniba. Zeniba claims that the two of them are opposites in every way. Zeniba ''did'' lay a curse on the seal Haku stole and threatens Chihiro to stay quiet, but she ultimately is a kind old woman compared to her much meaner and greedier twin.
* ExpressiveHair: Sen's hair tends to spike up whenever something startles her, or just freaks her out in general.
* ExpressiveMask: No-Face's mask to some extent; he seems to smile or frown sometimes. The artists noted that they wish they'd been able to rely on lighting a little more to set his mood instead.

** With all the explicit similarities to ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'', it is extremely likely that Yubaba is consciously inspired by the character of the Duchess. Both are old ladies, grotesquely deformed with gigantic heads, both mean and bad tempered and care immensely (in all the wrong ways) for a huge, spoiled baby who is actually happier to be transformed into a simpler creature. The Duchess, when first met, is grumpy and grouchy, but the second time, in the Queen of Hearts' party, she is almost uncomfortably friendly to Alice. Yubaba and Zeniba may not be the same person, but they do look the same and are exact opposites in terms of personality.
** She's also suspiciously similar to Juno from ''Film/{{Beetlejuice}}'': a grumpy old white woman from the spirit world who smokes a lot of cigarettes. Their voices even sound alike.
* FacialFacade: Implied with No-Face, who nominally has a white mask for a face. Given his name however (and the fact his mouth is located elsewhere) it is heavily implied the mask is just a rouse to lure in victims, and he is actually TheBlank.
* TheFairFolk: The whole film (and amusement park) is built around a traditional FairyTale portrayal of {{Youkai}}.
* FeudalJapan: Though the "human world" is set during the modern day, the spirit world has this aesthetic to it, from the clothing of its people to the architecture of the buildings.
* FillingTheSilence: Quite a bit in the English dub, with background chatter added to otherwise quiet scenes and a few ad-libbed lines thrown in.
* FineYouCanJustWaitHereAlone: Chihiro originally refuses to accompany her parents into the haunted amusement park, but follows when they decide to leave her behind. It turns out she was right about the place.

* FlightOfRomance: In the climax with Haku and Chihiro. Then turns into FreeFallRomance and back to FlightOfRomance again when Haku recovers.
* FoodChains: Chihiro's parents [[GenreBlindness should know better]] than to eat food that doesn't belong to them in a fairy tale. Chihiro, however, must eat a morsel of the Spirit World's food in order to avoid fading away, binding her to the realm just enough to keep her solid.
* FoodPorn: Typical for films directed by Miyazaki, but this one begins with Chihiro's parents gorging on a banquet, in a scene that is designed to make viewers' mouths water. That being said, the film is bound to make your stomach turn later on, especially considering emetics are a major ChekhovsGun.

** The cleansed river spirit moves in a sinuous, looping way that is reminiscent of flowing water after he is outside of the bath house, which [[spoiler:Haku's dragon form also emulates in flight; only natural, since Haku himself turns out to be a river spirit.]]
*** [[spoiler:When the Stink Spirit first appears, Yubaba finds its behavior familiar and suspects there is more too it than it appears, a suspicion that is proven right when its MuckMonster body is revealed to be an outer-shell for a dragon-like River Spirit. This makes sense because she has encountered a very similar spirit before: Haku.]]
** Chihiro's father can be heard snorting as he eats (in the English dub at least) which works as subtle foreshadowing to him and Chihiro's mother getting turned into pigs.

** Chihiro's parents and the other humans turned into pigs. They show no sign of being anything more than mud-rolling, omnivorous animals after.
** Zeniba turns Boh (Yubaba's son and Zeniba's nephew) and Yubaba's servant into a mouse and a tiny bird, respectively. When Chihiro later asks her to change them back, she says that the spell has worn off, and they can change back any time they want. (They don't choose to until later.)
* ForgottenFirstMeeting: [[spoiler:Haku, a river spirit, saved Chihiro when she fell into the river as a child. Chihiro remembers this only when they're [[FreeFallRomance flying through the sky together]] near the end of the film, which causes Haku to remember his identity too.]]

* {{Geas}}: Yubaba swore an oath which makes her bound to employ people who ask her for a job. She doesn't like it, and, as detailed in LoopholeAbuse below, tries to weasel her way out of hiring humans, but eventually concedes when Chihiro insists.
* GenericCuteness: Chihiro was designed specifically to ''avoid'' this trope. Hayao Miyazaki has complained about how a plain or unattractive male character can still be the star, but female characters all have to be cute to be the protagonist.
* GentleGiant: The Great Radish Spirit is gigantic, but also seems gentle and supportive (through body language--he's not a talker).
* GettingEatenIsHarmless: No-Face, after Chihiro feeds him the river spirit's medicine, throws up everything and everyone he ate. They are all none the worse for the experience.

** [[spoiler:Haku in dragon form and the purified river spirit]] are huge, the former even being able to carry Chihiro near the film's ending.
** Yubaba can also drape herself in her cloak and fly like a very large bird.

* GiantSpider: Judging by his eight limbs, Kamaji seems to be a spider youkai. He might also be an opilione, also known as harvestmen or daddy longlegs.
* GluttonousPig: Chihiro's parents turn into pigs after gorging themselves on the spirits' food. Kind of justified: they are eating food made for gods in a territory where gods gather night by night...
* GoldFever: All of the employees at the bathhouse go crazy trying to pick up the gold No-Face drops, although it turns out to not be enough to cover the damage he causes in the end. Not to mention that it turns out to be [[spoiler:made of dirt.]]

** Yubaba, her baby, and [[spoiler:her sister.]] There are two scenes with Yubaba nose-to-nose with normal (not super-deformed) characters, and her head is taller than Haku's head and torso combined.
** The Great Radish Spirit. Stubby little root-fingers, a face like conjoined elephant twins, and... [[BrainBleach radish nipples]].
* GoodSmokingEvilSmoking: Yubaba smokes a cigarette and exhales billowing clouds of smoke right into [[SecondFaceSmoke Sen's face]]. Her nicer sister Zeniba is not seen smoking.
* GratuitousEnglish: In the original Japanese-language version, Kamaji says "Good luck!" in English to Chihiro as she leaves the boiler room to seek a job from Yubaba.

* ActorAllusion: "I'll miss you, Chihiro. Your best friend, Rumi." (In the original Japanese, Chihiro is voiced by Rumi Hiiragi.)

* ActorAllusion: "I'll miss you, Chihiro. Your best friend, Rumi." (In the Japanese version, Chihiro was voiced by Rumi Hiiragi.)
* AdultsAreUseless: Chihiro's parents see nothing peculiar about a whole city on the other side of an abandoned tunnel being completely empty despite fresh food being put out. Despite their daughter's protests, they decide to just sit and eat while Chihiro wanders around by herself. Unfortunately for them, the food was intended for gods and spirits, so they were turned into pigs as punishment.
* AfterlifeExpress: The train that Chihiro takes to get to Zeniba's home is intended for use by the dead moving onto the next life and has phantom passengers.
* AlwaysIdenticalTwins: Yubaba's eventually revealed to have a twin sister named Zeniba--they look exactly alike, but are also the closest things that the movie has to a BigBad and a BigGood, respectively.
* AmbiguouslyHuman: Some of the spirits have a human like appearance to them, with some such as Lin and Haku, looking nigh distinguishable from normal humans. However, even the more human-like spirits have traits and attributes (subtle or otherwise) that make it clear that they're not really human.

** [[DeadpanSnarker Lin]] is a weasel spirit who has a knack for sneaking out of trouble and nabbing food.
** Yubaba is a crow/raven who are known to be cunning, ominous and foretell death and destruction, such as Yubaba taking the names of her workers and "killing" their past selves so they can't remember who they are and thus are enslaved to her forever (unless they remember their name).
** The six-armed Kamaji, with his fuzzy mustache and black sunglasses, is a spider spirit.
* TheAssimilator: After No-Face eats the green frog, he is able to speak using the frog's voice and even gains a pair of frog legs. He later loses these attributes after the river spirit's medicine causes him to barf the frog back up.

** Miyazaki also loves his environmental messages, which comes up twice through the film. The first instance of this is when Chihiro heals the river spirit after being heavily polluted and filled with garbage. The second is Chihiro realizing Haku is the spirit of the Kohaku River, which had been built over for years.
* AwardBaitSong: "Itsumo Nando Demo" (''Always With Me'') by Youmi Kimura. It was originally written for ''Rin the Chimney Sweeper'', but that project fell through. Miyazaki listened to the song constantly while working on ''Spirited Away''. It's also missing some key elements of an Award Bait Song, most notably the lack of "sparkly" synth.
* BadBlackBarf: No-Face starts coughing and drooling black barf (among other things) after being given medicine from Chihiro.
* BaitAndSwitch: When Chihiro's parents cross through the tunnel and come out on the other side, they remark that the ruins must belong to an abandoned amusement park. Mrs. Ogino explains to Chihiro that the park was probably one made before the giant recession in Japan and thus it's a relic. Chihiro isn't impressed because this whole place is giving her bad vibes. Then they go further across a dried river...and it turns out the rest of the plot happens at the bathhouse that Chihiro spots!

** WordOfGod states that this is the reason No-Face followed Sen around after she let him into the bath-house.
** It's also implied that this is why Kamaji was willing to help Chihiro out so much--she saved a Soot Spirit that struggled under the weight of his coal and finished the job for him, proving that she was both kindhearted and willing to work if provoked.
** Likewise, Chihiro does all she can to help the stink spirit clean up, using the tokens that No-Face gave her. As she gets stuck in its mud, the spirit saves her from drowning and shows her a thorn in its side. Chihiro shouts that he needs help pulling it out, and she leads the ChainOfPeople in using a rope to remove the thorn. This ends up cleaning the spirit, revealed to be a river god. The god lets her see its true form, gives her a medicinal cake, and tells her, "Well done."
* BellyMouth: No-Face has one, which only becomes visible during his rampage and in a later scene where he is eating cake.

** Chihiro's parents, particularly her dad, have ravenous appetites--they are (appropriately) transformed into pigs to represent their gluttony.
** Boh eating chocolate, or rather the three heads transformed to look like him. Clearly they're taking advantage of replacing the spoiled-rotten kid.
** No-Face, who combines this with ExtremeOmnivore (he swallows several people whole). When Chihiro finally faces him, it's in a room filled to the brim with mountains of food.

* BirdRun: Haku is able to swiftly hover inches above the ground by running this way.

** Chihiro restores her parents to human form and returns to the real world, but it's implied that memories of the spirit world promptly leave her mind afterward, and she won't be able to see Haku again. Once implied by Miyazaki that Chihiro and Haku wouldn't meet again until her death.
** The American ending also hints that Chihiro ''will'' remember some of her adventure; when her father remarks starting life in a new home and school can be scary, Chihiro replies, "I think I can handle it," suggesting that she's maintaining her memories (or at least the confidence she gained from her trip to the spirit world).
* BloodFromTheMouth: Haku due to the effects of Zeniba's curse. Makes sense since Kamaji says he is bleeding from the ''inside''.
* BlueAndOrangeMorality: This being [[{{Youkai}} the spirit world]], [[TheFairFolk after all]]. Chihiro's parents are turned into pigs for the crime of eating food intended for the gods. The young Chihiro is left to fend for herself, and had it not been for her job, would likely be killed just for being human.
* BlushSticker: Chihiro has these throughout the entire film.
* BodyWipe: Near the beginning with Chihiro's dad, when he found the restaurant with the source of a delicious smell.
* BookEnds: The film begins and ends with Chihiro clutching her mother's arm while they follow her father through a tunnel. Her mother even tells Chihiro to stop clutching at her--that she'll make her fall.

* ButtMonkey: The little green frog. He is magicked by Haku, he faints when the Stink Spirit gets too close, and then he is eaten by No-Face.
* CainAndAbel: Yubaba and Zeniba. Though the two of them look exactly alike, Yubaba is a manipulative, almost heartless overseer whose main concern (besides her son) is making as much money as possible. Zeniba, meanwhile, has a peaceful life in the forest and is nothing but friendly to Chihiro and the others.
* CaptainObvious: Chihiro says a few obvious things in the Japanese version. The English dub added several more examples, albeit some ("It's a bathhouse," for example) were added for clarity for a non-Japanese audience (a Japanese audience, even if they didn't recognize what the bathhouse was by its appearance, would be able to read the sign above its entrance identifying what it was).
* CatharticCrying: When Haku shows Chihiro her parents as pigs, reminds her of her real name and then offers her something to eat in an isolated part of the spirit town, she begins eating and then just starts bawling her heart out at all the accumulated trauma. Notably she is mentally a lot healthier and hopeful afterwards.

** The importance of names. Chihiro's name is turned to Sen when she's "hired" by Yubaba, and Haku forgot his name (the Kohaku River) when said river was built over. Both characters desire to get their "names", i.e. true lives and identities back.
* CharacterDevelopment: Chihiro starts the story as a sullen, moody preteen not wanting to face change. Then she [[spoiler:starts working at the bathhouse, makes friends, and rescues Haku from Zeniba.]] By the end, she's much more appreciative of her parents and responsible for her actions. The English dub goes further by the last line of the film saying, "I think I can handle it" about her new school.
* ChekhovsBoomerang: [[spoiler: The medicine from the water god]] helps cure Haku from his injuries ''and'' free No-Face from all the food (and people) he has eaten.
* ChekhovsGun: The farewell card given to Chihiro helps her remember her name after Yubaba stole it.

* ComeWithMeIfYouWantToLive: Haku says something like this to Chihiro when she first enters the spirit world.

* ComfortFood: Onigiri is Japanese soul food; this is one of the reasons why Chihiro cries while eating one of these.
* ComingOfAgeStory: At the start of the film, Chihiro comes off as a lost, yet hardheaded little girl. Her experiences in the spirit world help her break out of her shell and shape her into a polite, confident young woman.
* ConverseWithTheUnconscious: Chihiro tells the unconscious Haku that she was leaving for some time (to return the golden seal to Zeniba) and that he had to get better. Later when Haku wakes up, he reveals to Kamaji that he heard Chihiro's voice and followed it until he woke up.

* CounterfeitCash: Throughout the film, No-Face pays for his time in the bathhouse by conjuring gold from his hands, having developed this mentality after witnessing the bathhouse employees fawning over the River Spirit's gold. After Chihiro/Sen successfully manages to get No-Face out of the bathhouse, all of the gold No-Face gave them crumbles to dirt, having apparently been an illusion the entire time.
* CultureChopSuey: The massive SceneryPorn of the bathhouse and the spirit world overflows with every imaginable and recognizable cultural and aesthetic detail of historical Japan from [[FeudalJapan Feudal times]] all the way to mid-twentieth century Japan. (Purposefully excluded are any details of {{Samurai}} or [[UsefulNotes/ImperialJapan soldiers]].)
* CuteClumsyGirl: Chihiro often trips, stumbles, and crashes through the spirit world, though she gets better in time. Whereas she all but ''flies'' down the wooden staircase in the beginning, she later manages to run across a ''pipe'' as it crumbles.

** Despite being a weasel spirit, Lin looks fully human; some fans have theorized she may have once, indeed, been human and in the same situation as Chihiro.
** Haku is a male example in his usual form, a young, {{Bishonen}} boy about Chihiro's age; in his true form, he's a dragon.
* DarkIsNotEvil: Quite a few spirits are friendly to Chihiro initially, most notably Haku, but also Lin and Kamaji, and a few others warm up to her and start to like her eventually (the crisis with No-Face seems to be the part where a ''lot'' of them start to do so) [[spoiler:until the end, where almost ''all'' of them are trying to support her.]] And of course, there's No-Face itself, a rather terrifying HumanoidAbomination which craves Chihiro's friendship.
* DarkWorld: The carnival site after dark becomes a hub for spirits and gods. By extension, DarkIsNotEvil (most of the time, at least).
* DeadpanSnarker: Most of Lin's lines are sarcastic or snide, especially when talking to Kamaji or when she's at first apathetic to Sen.

* {{Disneyfication}}: Less so than most in that trope, but in addition to ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'', the film is also partially a LighterAndSofter version of the rather grisly Japanese fairy tale "[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shita-kiri_Suzume Shita-kiri Suzume]]".
* DisproportionateRetribution: Chihiro's parents eat food that has been left out in the open in unattended booths (that look just like food service stalls) and are fully willing to pay for it if an owner appears. So naturally they deserve to be turned into pigs, right? (Of course, Humans might consider it Disproportionate Retribution, but seeing as this is a common theme in stories among [[TheFairFolk fairies and spirits]], such beings [[BlueAndOrangeMorality apparently do not]].)
* TheDissenterIsAlwaysRight: Chihiro and her parents come across an abandoned amusement park. They come across a spread of freshly made food and the parents start digging in. Chihiro says they shouldn't because they might get in trouble, but they don't pay her any mind and continue eating. [[KarmicTransformation This turns them into pigs]] because the food was meant for spirits.
* DistressedDude: Haku was heavily injured from [[spoiler:Zeniba]]'s spell, needing both [[spoiler:[[ChekhovsGun medicine from the water god]]]] and Chihiro's [[ThePowerOfLove love]] to save him.
* DontLookBack: Chihiro is instructed not to look back when leaving the Spirit World. She ''nearly'' turns when she's almost left, but with the sparkling of Zeniba's magic hairband, resists the temptation.
* DownTheRabbitHole: The long, dark tunnel Chihiro's family passes through into the spirit world.

* DubSpeciesChange: The English translation of the artbook for the movie refers to Lin as a weasel spirit, rather than a fox one like in the Japanese version.
* EarnYourHappyEnding: Chihiro has to go through some hardship to stay alive and save her loved ones. Working in the bathhouse, healing Haku, and being trapped by Yubaba (among other things) shapes her into a more mature and confident person along the way. The English dub ends with her reassuring her father that she can handle school, after that adventure.

* PolarOppositeTwins: Zeniba and Yubaba might look exactly alike, but couldn't be more different in personality. Zeniba is nice and grandmotherly but is clearly capable of anger and retribution, while Yubaba is a nasty old woman who is still a ReasonableAuthorityFigure.

''Spirited Away'' was released in its home country on July 20, 2001, and an English dub conducted by Disney came to the United States on December 20, 2002.

* UncomfortableElevatorMoment: A hilarious scene in which Lin smuggles Sen aboard the bath house's upper elevator. She's stuck on it with the elephantine, UglyCute Radish Spirit. Since she's ''really'' not supposed to be in the bath-house at all and most of the other spirits have already expressed their revulsion for humanity, she's trying hard to brace for the worst while remaining unnoticed. (Not easy when the other passenger is so big that you're being squeezed against the side of the elevator.) Veeery awkward. Luckily, he's either kindly enough, mischievous enough, or apathetic enough to call nobody's attention to her.

The film was an immediate hit in both Japan and America, and was the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time for almost two decades, grossing a total of 31.68 billion yen ($304.2 million), until it was topped by ''[[Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train]]'' in 2020. It also won the MediaNotes/AcademyAwardForBestAnimatedFeature, making it the first (and currently only) traditionally animated film, anime film, and non-English-language animated film to do so. This victory was especially noteworthy as the Oscars tend to favor [[AllCGICartoon CGI]] and/or American productions.

Chihiro Ogino (Rumi Hiiragi), a sullen young girl unwillingly moving to a new town, is stranded in the spirit world after her parents Akio (Takeshi Naito) and Yuko (Yasuko Sawaguchi) stop by what appears to be an abandoned amusement park and eat food that turns them into pigs. At first, her only aid is Haku (Creator/MiyuIrino), a mysterious boy who finds her shelter and a job in a bathhouse that caters to these spirits. Eventually, Chihiro makes more friends as she searches for a way to make her parents human again and escape the spirit world before she forgets her real identity. And that's all just within the first 30(ish)-minutes of the movie--and that doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the odd denizens of the spirit world, ranging from the villainous bathhouse manager Yubaba (Mari Natsuki) to arachnid worker Kamajii (Bunta Sugawara) to the enigmatic, near-voiceless spirit No-Face (Akio Nakamura).

* RecycledTrailerMusic: One of the Japanese trailers for the movie uses the song [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2EDABZX_Ow "The Lost Paradise"]] from ''Anime/CastleInTheSky''.

[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with the Australian TV show]] ''Series/{{Spirited}}'', the 1974 film ''Swept Away'', that film's 2002 remake[=/=]Music/{{Madonna}} vehicle, the ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom/WesternAnimation/''Literature/HarryPotter'' [[Fanfic/SpiritedAway2012 fanfic of the same name]], or the [[Creator/DreamworksAnimation DreamWorks]] film ''WesternAnimation/SpiritStallionOfTheCimarron''.

[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with the Australian TV show]] ''Series/{{Spirited}}'', the 1974 film ''Swept Away'', that film's 2002 remake[=/=]Music/{{Madonna}} vehicle, or the [[Creator/DreamworksAnimation DreamWorks]] film ''WesternAnimation/SpiritStallionOfTheCimarron''.

The film was an immediate hit in both Japan and America, and was the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time for almost two decades, grossing a total of 31.68 billion yen ($304.2 million), until it was topped by ''[[Manga/DemonSlayerKimetsuNoYaiba Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train]]'' in 2020. It also won the UsefulNotes/AcademyAwardForBestAnimatedFeature, making it the first (and currently only) traditionally animated film, anime film, and non-English-language animated film to do so. This victory was especially noteworthy as the Oscars tend to favor [[AllCGICartoon CGI]] and/or American productions.