Enthralling anime!

Spirited Away is a breathtaking, incredible anime experience. The whole movie is a highly imaginative, wonderful, fantastical children's anime feature that could be the greatest piece of animation to come out of Japan.

A young girl named Chihiro (voiced by Hîragi in the Japanese dub, and Chase in the English dub) is travelling to her new home with her parents. Before arriving at their new house, Chihiro's father takes a wrong turn and ends up stopping in front of a mysterious building. Soon Chihiro finds herself venturing into a secret world where her parents undergo a mysterious transformation.

Chihiro is left disorientated, and is now trapped in a world where she must face strange spirits, groups of creatures and a pissed off sorceress who seeks to prevent her from saving her parents from the spell and returning to their rightful place in the human world.

The animation looks gorgeous. Each character - each location - has been beautifully detailed for best effect. Without limited itself to one audience, the movie extends beyond the regular anime lovers. I, myself, am not the biggest fan of anime - and I never will be - but Spirited Away was an amazing experience unlike any anime I've ever viewed before. The story is unique and innovative, with characters who are both strange and creative. It's not often that one would find giant frogs in a feature such as this, but this only heightens the creativity of the filmmaking team.

The director, Hayao Miyazaki, is a name that towers above most other names in the anime world. Many would recognise his work, and this could be his best yet. The whole experience is uniquely strange and interesting, and in a sense groundbreaking. Because of the miraculous voice cast, the audience can easily get into the story. The whole voice cast is amazing, be it English or Japanese. It's obvious that the English dub was of high priority, and is outstanding despite a very limited number of lip-synching issues.

The captivating animation sucks you in - keeping you fascinated, wondering what will happen next. At the end of the day, the experience is engaging and incredibly creative. It's no wonder that Spirited Away walked away with an Oscar for Best Animated Feature of 2002.

Admittedly, the film does tend to drag on extensively - but the animation and techniques keep us sucked in despite this tendency. Spirited Away is a breathtaking production, and one of the greatest anime films that has come to fruition in recent years. It's not for all tastes, but I would recommend the film highly.