Comparison with My Neighbor Totoro

1. Both movies start with a family moving to a new location, more specifically, a scene in the car they move in. Both beginnings involve movers, although they are only mentioned in Spirited Away.

2. Both movies present an inverted reality where a child has to care for the wellbeing of a parent.

3. Unlike Chihiro, Satsuki and Mei are excited and happy about the move. Although we never see her in school, we do see Chihiro's sulky reaction to the school, which can also be compared with Satsuki's willingness to go to her new school and her quick integration into her class

4. Like the children, the parents are also depicted as antitheses of each other. Whereas Satsuki and Mei's father is attentive and caring for his daughters, Chihiro's parents seem indifferent and dismissive in their treatment of her. Surely in their case they are undeserving of the devotion and concern she later shows for them. Satsuki and Mei show similar concern for their parents; however they are antithetically much more deserving of such devotion.

5. Chihiro and Satsuki both receive gifts from powerful spirits as payment for a unique service they performed. Those gifts, especially the one in Spirited Away, are later used to advance the plot. Both gifts are given at the culmination of great rainstorms.

6. Zeniba and Yubaba are twin sisters who don't get along; it can be claimed that the character of Granny from MNT is Zeniba's true twin sister as Granny has basically the same character as Zeniba. Both Zeniba and Granny freely and willingly give the protagonists permission to call them Granny. Kamaji, while filling a different niche in the story and a male, also claims Chihiro to be his granddaughter.

7. Both movies feature some sort of supernatural mode of transport, which eventually is used by the protagonists as a means of closing some of the plot's loose ends.

8. The Characters of Konta in MNT and Haku in SA both develop affection towards the protagonist and, for different reasons, both mask that affection and treat the protagonists rudely. However, both help the protagonists out on multiple occasions and end up showing their true and good nature.

Anything I missed?


As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields.
-Leo Tolstoy