01-14-2014, 05:43 AM
The Spirits in Spirited Away are not based off of spirits in Japanese lore, but rather Miyazaki's own life experiences. In an interview, Miyazaki recollects cleaning a river in a volunteer group once. He found a bicycle and when he couldn't pull it out, he tied a rope around the handle and him and 10 other volunteers pulled it out. The no face spirit is also supposedly based off of Miyazaki's own social awkwardness.
Several of Miyazaki's main characters are based off of real life people. Kiki was based off the 13 year old daughter of the producer for Kiki's Delivery Service and Chihiro was based off another co-worker's daughter of the same age. Ponyo and Sosuke were a bit more detailed though as Miyazaki believe's that they are what five year old's would be like if they could show and express what they understood about the world the same as any adult could. These two were also based off of many young 5 year old children Miyazaki knew because his co-workers would sometimes bring their kids to work with them.
The town in Kiki's Delivery Service is more or less a combination of two Swedish cities. The capital Stockholm and a smaller but popular tourist attraction town called Visby. In Visby there is a cafe which has an ocean side view fairly close to it, this was the influence for Osono's Bakery.
The ending song in Spirited Away was not originally intended for the film. It was supposed to be a part of another movie that didn't end up happening. Supposedly, Miyazaki liked the song so much though, that he built a movie that it would work in, and it turned out to be Spirited Away.
Several of Miyazaki's main characters are based off of real life people. Kiki was based off the 13 year old daughter of the producer for Kiki's Delivery Service and Chihiro was based off another co-worker's daughter of the same age. Ponyo and Sosuke were a bit more detailed though as Miyazaki believe's that they are what five year old's would be like if they could show and express what they understood about the world the same as any adult could. These two were also based off of many young 5 year old children Miyazaki knew because his co-workers would sometimes bring their kids to work with them.
The town in Kiki's Delivery Service is more or less a combination of two Swedish cities. The capital Stockholm and a smaller but popular tourist attraction town called Visby. In Visby there is a cafe which has an ocean side view fairly close to it, this was the influence for Osono's Bakery.
The ending song in Spirited Away was not originally intended for the film. It was supposed to be a part of another movie that didn't end up happening. Supposedly, Miyazaki liked the song so much though, that he built a movie that it would work in, and it turned out to be Spirited Away.