Transformations of the Animal, the Technologic, and the Human, in Miyazaki's Spirited Away

The aim of this paper is to combine scholarly works on transhumanism and studies in Japanese folklore to explore the function of animals in Miyazaki Hayao's Spirited Away. Using Napier's “Matter Out of Place: Carnival, Containment, and Cultural Recovery in Miyazaki's Spirited Away” I will discuss the loss of culture and identity in the face of industrialization and technology, through the use of traditional forms of myth and magic. I will argue that the function of animal-human transformation in Spirited Away is used to express particular human qualities, and critiques these qualities in a way similar to transhumanism, as exemplified in Graham's “The end of the 'human'?” This combined perspective allows for an analysis that looks both back in history to the undercurrents of Japanese folklore, and forward at the contemporary concerns of sublimation into a new and vastly changed culture rippled through with technology, which produces the anxiety and tension symbolized in the dual worlds of Spirited Away.

1. My analysis will begin with an assessment of animals and otherness as it relates to the portrayal of human qualities in Spirited Away. Then I will discuss the various aspects of Japanese mythology present in the film's treatment of these magical creatures.

a. I will also highlight the importance of Japanese identity linked to tradition.

2. Graham's essay opens the possibilities for viewing concerns of technology and transhumanism in the film, by making available the argument that the mechanisms meant to “extend our organs and our senses...threaten what we wanted to preserve by destroying us as the subjects...” this quote will serve as the pivot for exploring Miyazaki's critique on the nature of the human and the mechanisms which play toward our undoing (food, fallibility, desire, etc.).

3. I will analyze scenes incorporating traditional mythological elements, animal-human transcendence, and anxiety at the intersection of incompatibility.

a. The moment when Chihiro begins to disappear incorporates the myth of Izanagi and Izanami and highlights the concern of “dismemberment or effacement” of the body (Graham).

b. The frog men, the licentious men, and the women of the bathhouse (qualities are expressed in animal form).

c. The carnivalesque bathhouse scene evokes the Japanese festival matsuri and also inserts a critique on the nature of consumption and desire born from industrialization. Supported by Napier's arguments.

i. Traditional and modern elements are pastiched in this scene.

ii. The negativity here is largely described in the polluting nature of the bathhouse.

d. Haku and the Yubaba. Majestic abilities are given to the guardian, dragon is a potent symbol in Japanese mythology. Yubaba transforms as a bird that resembles a military plane and sends paper cranes to attack Haku. (the fight between tradition and technology and the usurpation of traditional elements to be used by the technologic)

e. Daddy the pig. With the quote “Don't worry, you've got Daddy here. He's got credit cards and cash” we see the inability of capitalism to cope with magic and myth, supporting the values of self-ability rather than the cyborg-add-on of a strip of plastic.

3. Return to the texts of Napier and Graham, to show the transgressed boundaries of identity and otherness, as seen in the “other world” Chihiro and her family enter in to, and the “other” which Chihiro herself represents.

a. Animal embodiment reveals human traits (transgression of boundaries) and form identities.

b. Like transhumanism, “offers the possibility to portray the post/human as something that is always already mediated through, and constituted by, its environment and artefacts” (Graham).

c. The “animalizing postmodern” identities of many of the characters are connected to the human community through their very contrast, accentuating the transformation of animalistic desire to human nature, as Chihiro must find through maturing through the film (Napier).

4. Question (and answer) the successfulness of the film in addressing Chihiro's ability to overcome the produced anxiety. Does she return in the end with a more crafted self-identity? Did the effects of the world remain with her? These questions can help further the overall judgement made on changing societies.

The attendant issues surrounding the loss of humanness created by technology and industrialization are heightened in the context of Japanese tradition and values. Animal traits unearth particular human qualities that are critiqued by the film as products of transformation. Chihiro must retain her self-identity through the tests and trials of the changing world-scape, much in the way we as individuals must negotiate the ever-changing boundaries of technology and culture. Placing Napier, and Graham in conversation with Miyazaki's reveals greater claims of Self and Other that are present in the film.

Works Cited

Graham, Elaine L.. Representations of the post/human: monsters, aliens, and others in popular culture. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2002. Print.

Napier, Susan Jolliffe. "Matter Out Of Place: Carnival, Containment, And Cultural Recovery In Miyazaki's Spirited Away." The Journal of Japanese Studies 32.2 (2006): 287-310. Print.

Spirited Away. Dir. Hayao Miyazaki. Perf. Daveigh Chase, Suzanne Pleshette, Miyu Irino. Walt Disney Home Video, 2003. DVD.