Miyazaki once said Princess Mononoke would be his final film, and let us all be glad that wasn't the case.
Miyazaki once said Princess Mononoke would be his final film, and let us all be glad that wasn't the case. Meeting the 10-year-old daughter of a friend inspired Miyazaki to create this adventure about a young girl crossing over to the spirit world via an enchanted bathhouse --or is it all just her imagination gone gonzo??-- which eclipsed even Miyazaki's previous great films, and set the current high-water mark for elegance and inventiveness in traditional animation. Miyazaki incorporated some CGI here—and he famously draws tens of thousands of frames by hand for every feature. Spirited Away is an achingly bittersweet epic about growing up and adjusting to change. To date, this is the only animé to win the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, and as a work of fantasy filmmaking, it is worthy of comparison to The Wizard of Oz.