Miyazaki’s Spirited Away is hands down one of my favorite movies of all time. It’s a powerful and beautiful story about coming of age, poetically and whimsically told, a journey simultaneously through adolescence and a mythical world, stunningly animated in vivid and imaginative Ghibli fashion, that somehow all makes perfect sense while making no sense at all. The protagonist Chihiro finds herself passing through a gate into the magical world of the “kami” (the gods) and loses both her parents and nearly her own identity in the process. She must overcome the challenges she faces while working in a bath house in the magical world to rescue her parents and find her new self, all while not forgetting who she is, so as to make her passage back to the real world. Her journey is as unworldly as a dream, confusing as adolescence, and as ethereal as real life. We can’t help but deeply identify with Chihiro and root for her triumph, which in the end, is like life, fleeting at best. Still, the story is sublime, and leaves the viewer (me) every time blind-sided and teary-eyed.
It all hangs together on an emotional score by Joe Hayashi that sets the story in motion, that pushes the characters through each chapter, that pulls heartstrings of the viewer viewer, and challenges the musicians themselves, all through meaningful moments with each movement of the film. Though published at the time of the film, I believe it was just recently pressed on vinyl a few years along with many other scores of Ghibli movies, and on this day, I was luck to spot Mehran (and Jasmine) who had just picked up a copy of it at Tower Records while, get this, on their HONEYMOON in Tokyo!
Reviewing the scribbles I make whenever I meet people on the streets, I see that I wrote very little down for Mehran and Jasmine aside from “Honeymoon” and “Civic Engineers” and something about Magic the Gathering Cards. I followed up with a few questions for them about music and some highlights from their trip but didn’t hear back. So I’ll just have to leave it at that and simply say that it’s a GREAT choice of a record to take home from Japan and that I wish you a happy new life together (with more trips to Japan, and more records to share!)
More Tokyo Record Style on the way!
Joe Hisaishi / 久石 譲 – Spirited Away / 千と千尋の神隠し
Label: Studio Ghibli Records – TJJA-10027
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Limited Edition, Reissue, Stereo
Country: Japan
Released: Nov 3, 2020
Genre: Classical, Stage & Screen
Style: Soundtrack, Score, Modern, Anison
https://www.discogs.com/release/16150872-%E4%B9%85%E7%9F%B3-%E8%AD%B2-%E5%8D%83%E3%81%A8%E5%8D%83%E5%B0%8B%E3%81%AE%E7%A5%9E%E9%9A%A0%E3%81%97-%E3%82%A4%E3%83%A1%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B8%E3%82%A2%E3%83%AB%E3%83%90%E3%83%A0-Spirited-Away-Image-Album
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