Chihiro's Journey: Analyzing "Spirited Away" | Far Flungers

On the first building we see an incomplete phrase. Alone the character 正 would be read "sho" or "sei" and means right, righteous, justice and genuine, but 正 also suggests 正しい, meaning correct, right, honest and truthful. There's more signs on the shops in the main road. At first casual glance as we go by, it does seem like they are all part of advertising for restaurants, but on closer examination, that proves not to be true.

When we get to the main street we see the characters 市場 for market (ichiba) and the word 自由 (jiyuu) for freedom. Then there are some disquieting Chinese characters. The mother says that all the places are restaurants. When you see 天 float by you might think 天ぷら (for tempura), but actually the characters are: 天祖 (tensoo) for the ancestral goddess of the sun, Amaterasu. In one frame we see only 天狗 (tengu), with "ten" above and "gu" below.  The character 狗 means dog, but can be used for dog meat (狗肉）which is not commonly eaten in Japan (and could suggest the homophone 苦肉 or "kuniku," which literally means bitter meat meaning a countermeasure that requires personal sacrifice. The character usually used for dog is 犬. Tengu, however, or heavenly dog, a legendary creature or supernatural being (yookai) that can be either harbingers of war or protective spirits of the mountains and forests.

Floating at the corner of one building is 骨 which means bone and it could be a restaurant term as in the creamy broth: 豚骨 (tonkotsu) which is literally pig bone. Yet bone or "hone" is used in idiomatic phrases such as hone-nashi meaning to lack moral backbone.

Some of the Chinese characters are just a little off, enough to make you think. Most obviously is the one syllabary and one Chinese character that are written backwards when we look above at the arch. The characters are 飢と食と会 which seem to substitute for 飢える (ueru, to starve), 食べる(taberu, to eat)  and 会う(au, to meet). The と signifies "and." It should read eat ( 食べる), drink (飲む) and meet (会う) or something like that, but the last two symbols are backwards on either side. Looking at these, perhaps Chihiro senses something is wrong.

Further, right before the father Akio turns down a small alleyway, he is framed by the characters for heaven on the left side of the screen and on the right side for devil. Soon after, what he sees is, especially in Japan, a supernaturally large buffet. While he assures Chihiro that he can pay for the feast and we remember he did have that foreign car, a Japanese person might be quickly calculating in their minds the exorbitant cost.

Chihiro briefly leaves her parents and above her head flashes a sign that reminds us both of family, pigs and death. The character 冢 (tsuka) means hill or mound. Yet this is not the preferred character which would be 塚 (also read tsuka). The small cross represents ground or earth. Without that radical, 冢 is only one stroke different than the word for house 家 (uchi) which is the same one used for the Chinese character combination that means family 家族 (kazoku). The significance here is that pig (豚 or buta) under a roof represents house/home 家. That quick flash of this character gives the suggestion of pig and family. Yet it is also like bone (骨 or hone) associated with death as in grave (冢穴).

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