Free Web NovelChapter 346: The First Week
Nana watched the film through to its ending.
Yubaba, true to her nature, made things difficult even when keeping her word. She had brought her son back because Chihiro had fulfilled her side of the agreement.
Now, for her own part, rather than simply releasing Chihiro’s parents, she forced Chihiro to identify them from a group of pigs she had been raising into enormous, indistinguishable creatures.
Chihiro looked around the group for a moment. Then said simply and without hesitation that her parents were not among them.
Wait. How did she know that? Nana’s eyes went wide.
She genuinely could not tell the difference between any of these pigs. Yubaba had fed them into peerless fatness. They were effectively identical. And Chihiro had identified the absence of her parents from among them with a single look and complete certainty.
There was no explanation given. The film simply allowed Chihiro to know, and moved forward.
The familiar ethereal BGM returned.
Haku took Chihiro’s hand and escorted her out of the Bathhouse. The land that had been submerged by the sea had emerged again. The grassy plain Chihiro had crossed on her first night reappeared in the daylight, exactly as it had been.
"Chihiro just needs to go back the way she came. But she must not look back before she exits the tunnel."
"Haku, what about you?"
"I will tell Yubaba I will no longer be her apprentice. I have found my old name. I will return to my original world."
"We will meet again." Chihiro said it as though asking a question and making a statement simultaneously.
"Yes. Definitely."
"Definitely?"
The piano accompanied her as she walked forward alone across the plain toward the tunnel entrance, where her parents were waiting on the other side. She wanted to look back. She remembered she must not. She kept walking.
Nana’s nose had gone strange. Something was pressing behind her eyes.
Is this a bad ending or a happy ending.
She could not determine which it was. She only knew that she felt melancholy and uncomfortable in a way that was not overwhelming, just present. A specific quality of feeling that she recognised as the kind that stayed with you after a film rather than releasing when the credits rolled.
Chihiro reached the tunnel and walked through. When she emerged on the other side, when she was back in the ordinary world with her parents, she turned and looked back for the first time.
The car started. The story ended.
The lights came on in the screening room. Nobody moved. Everyone was waiting, wanting to confirm whether there was a post-credits scene, wanting the ending song to finish before they accepted that it was over.
There was no post-credits scene.
The film had simply ended there.
Could the promise between Chihiro and Haku to meet again be fulfilled? Whether Yubaba would release Haku from his apprenticeship, nobody knew. What would become of everyone in the Bathhouse? What happened to No-Face after he left with Zeniba?
The story was over but the characters seemed to have infinite possibilities still waiting ahead of them.
Nana walked out of the theatre in a thoughtful silence.
There were emotions. There were tears, or something close enough that the distinction did not matter. And underneath both of those, more than either of them: a reluctance to let go. A resistance to accepting that the two hours were finished and that this was all there was going to be.
The characters had been so vivid that she had only clearly understood she was watching a film after it ended.
Chihiro. Haku. Zeniba. Yubaba. No-Face.
Their story was over.
Will there be a second film.
The situation unfolded much as the media had anticipated, and also considerably beyond what they had anticipated.
Spirited Away became a massive hit without setbacks of any kind. Both in word-of-mouth and in box office performance.
On its opening Friday, the first-day box office reached 6.24 billion yen.
Given Rei’s current standing in Japan’s market, this figure was not considered exaggerated. It was within the expected range for a Shirogane-sensei theatrical release.
What was not within the expected range was the reception from outside the anime community.
The critical word-of-mouth for Spirited Away came in slightly higher than either Demon Slayer or Your Name had achieved. But more significantly, for the first time, it was not only people within the anime community praising the work. People in the mainstream film industry were offering the same evaluation.
Animated films and live-action films were simply different media expressions of the same art form. The creative concepts underlying both were not fundamentally different.
The Demon Slayer film was, if assessed honestly, a specific arc of a serialised story condensed into a theatrical format. It was not a complete cinematic work on the script level.
Your Name was a genuinely mature piece of cinema, but compared to Spirited Away it fell short in specific ways that professionals could articulate.
When members of the traditional film industry who had spent years dismissing Shirogane-sensei’s work as animation rather than film actually attended screenings of Spirited Away, a significant number of them went quiet.
With Demon Slayer and Your Name there had been angles available for criticism. The plot’s depth. The level of artistic ambition. These were openings that could be used.
Spirited Away did not offer the same openings.
The theme was not romance. Not battle. Not a franchise continuation. It was the story of a young girl with a temper and bad habits and an introverted disposition, growing through difficult circumstances into someone full of courage and genuine care for others.
It was also a sustained observation about what humans did to the natural world and what that cost. Delivered entirely through fantasy imagery without ever stating its concerns as explicit argument.
"The ending. Chihiro walking across the plain alone. Not allowed to look back. The piano underneath it. I was holding my breath for the entire walk and did not know I was holding it until she entered the tunnel."
Through the constraint of Yubaba’s contracts, the story observed what it meant to give your word and be bound by it.
Through Chihiro’s parents sitting down to eat food that did not belong to them and being transformed into pigs, it observed what selfishness and disregard for others ultimately cost.
The film did not lecture. It did not insert a character to explain what the audience was supposed to take from what they were seeing. The lessons were ones the audience arrived at themselves, through the experience of watching.
Children watched it as a fairy tale.
Adults were equally moved.
The film preached nothing and stuffed in no personal agenda. What it left behind was entirely the audience’s own realisation.
And most importantly, setting all of that aside entirely: the film was genuinely, specifically good and interesting as an experience. Not good in the way that required qualification or context. Simply good.
Once midnight passed and the first-day box office figures were released, the response from audiences across Japan was without meaningful dissent.
"I had only heard that Shirogane-sensei was exceptional and had never seen his work before. I took my daughter to see Spirited Away today. I was fine, just a little melancholy afterward, but my daughter absolutely loved it. She kept asking me questions about the plot the entire way out of the theatre."
"Shirogane-sensei has genuinely captured the child demographic this time. Neither Demon Slayer nor Your Name were children’s works in the traditional sense. Spirited Away is completely different. There were children everywhere in the screening room."
"I am in my thirties and watched it with complete interest from start to finish."
"It is good. I recommend it without reservation."
"There will be a second film, right? The world-building is so large. The story cannot end here." fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
"Shirogane-sensei has done this kind of thing before. Endings that leave space."
"The story is already complete. There does not need to be a second film. The promise between Chihiro and Haku to meet again is best left in the audience’s hearts. Do you actually want to see a plot where Haku finds Chihiro ten years later and they develop a romance?"
"When you put it that way, the bond between them feels more like something beyond the category of romance. Forcing it into that framework would diminish it."
"I love watching cliché plots. What is wrong with romance?"
"My son keeps asking when the second film is coming out and I do not know how to answer him. This film has considerable aftereffect on children."
"Everyone already knows this but I still have to say it. Shirogane-sensei is extraordinary."
"His films keep evolving in terms of script maturity and production quality. He is still developing."
The discussion pattern for Spirited Away was different from what Rei’s previous works had produced.
The plot of Spirited Away was simple enough that even children could follow it without difficulty. There was not much plot to analyse or debate. But a simple plot was not the same as a weak plot.
An animated film with a simple plot could still be constructed into something exceptional. The works of Hayao Miyazaki in Rei’s previous life had operated this way. So had the peak Disney productions. All ages, no prerequisites, no audience selectivity required.
Rei woke early the following morning.
His schedule during the theatrical run of Spirited Away was dense. Promotional appearances, media statements, fan interactions: all of it had been timed to support the film’s momentum through its crucial opening period.
Making the right statements at the right moments was also a form of promotion.
On the question of a sequel, which fans were asking about everywhere, he was explicit: there would not be one. On the question of how Chihiro had identified that her parents were not among the pigs, he answered with deliberate ambiguity, much as Hayao Miyazaki had in Rei’s previous life when the same question had been put to him.
Some things did not require explanation and insisting on one would diminish what the scene had done.
On the global box office expectations for Spirited Away, he did not hide his assessment. He said directly that it would probably be similar to Your Name.
This prediction was grounded in the box office history of his previous life. Before crossing over, the rankings of major theatrical box office in Japan had placed Demon Slayer first, Spirited Away after its re-release second, and Your Name third. The three works had produced similar total figures, but in terms of critical recognition and lasting reputation, the older classic had the clear advantage.
Rei had been through this process enough times that the whole sequence felt familiar.
Spirited Away began its theatrical journey through Japan and the global film market in the summer season.
First-day box office: 6 billion yen.
First three days of the opening weekend: 16 billion yen total.
First seven days: 24 billion yen.
Total first-week box office across the sixty-two countries where it released simultaneously: exceeding 38 billion yen.
The trajectory followed the same pattern as the Demon Slayer: Mugen Train Arc two years earlier. Similar to the first Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle Arc film the previous year. Similar to Your Name during its own summer release.
The market explosion during the spring holiday season would be larger in absolute terms, but the competition during that window would also be considerably more intense.
In a summer season slot, once a work’s quality was significantly above its contemporaries, the month-long student holiday provided sustained staying power that could match or exceed the concentrated box office of a top-tier spring holiday release. Spirited Away had clearly entered this process.
The specific quality of the online reaction to Spirited Away was different from what Demon Slayer and Your Name had produced. Those films had generated passionate debate, emotional responses, arguments about plot and character.
Spirited Away generated something closer to collective speechlessness followed by everyone trying to find words for the same experience at the same time.
"First-day box office of 6 billion yen for a family-friendly animated film in the summer season. The market that was supposedly too small for this category of story. The investors who moved their films to August made the correct decision."
"The response from mainstream film critics who had previously dismissed Shirogane-sensei’s work. The film did not give them available angles for criticism. They went quiet."
"No sequel confirmed. Shirogane-sensei being explicit about this. The promise between Chihiro and Haku remaining open, remaining in the audience’s hearts. This is the correct decision and I am not fully at peace with it." fгeewebnovёl.com
"Children asking their parents when the second film is coming out. Adults sitting with the same question and not voicing it. The aftereffect of this film across every demographic simultaneously."
"Shirogane-sensei still evolving as a filmmaker at twenty-four. The trajectory of this career across eight years. Whatever comes after Spirited Away is going to be built on a foundation of four theatrical films each of which was exceptional."
"The simple plot that was not a weak plot. The lessons that arrived without being stated. The characters who kept living in the audience’s imagination after the credits rolled. This is what all-ages filmmaking looks like when it is done at the highest level."
"Masterpiece. The word keeps being correct for everything this person makes and it keeps feeling insufficient."
"The ending. Chihiro walking across the plain alone. Not allowed to look back. The piano underneath it. I was holding my breath for the entire walk and did not know I was holding it until she entered the tunnel."
"Chihiro identifying that her parents were not among the pigs without explanation. The film trusting the audience to accept that she simply knew. Some things do not require explanation and this was one of them."
"Will there be a second film. I need to know what happened to Haku. I need to know if Yubaba let him go. I need to know what No-Face is doing at Zeniba’s house. I need more and I understand there will not be more and I am not at peace with this."
"I came with colleagues who do not watch anime. They came to be polite. They are now asking me what else Shirogane-sensei has made. All of them."
"This film is for everyone. Not in the way that phrase is usually used as a marketing claim. Actually for everyone. Every age in my screening room was completely absorbed. I have never seen that before."
...
You can support me on patreon and read upto 50 Chapters ahead p2treon.com/c/Ashnoir
