Trivia for
Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001) More at IMDbPro »

• Executive Producer John Lasseter of Pixar supervised the English-language dubbing of the film and tried to match the actors' English-language dialog with the mouth movements of the animated characters.
  
  
• This is the first film to earn US$200 million in grosses before opening in the U.S.
  
  
• Although Hayao Miyazaki had considered retiring after completing Mononoke-hime (1997), he was inspired to make this film after seeing a friend's sullen 10-year-old daughter.
  
  
• In the scene during which Chihiro squashes the small worm like thing that inhabited Haku with her foot that, Kamaji tells Chihiro to "Cut the line!" Cutting the line is a Japanese good-luck charm performed by making a chopping gesture through another person's connected index fingers. This is done whenever someone is affected by some impurity. During footage of the dubbing process in the "Spirited Away" Nippon-TV Special, Rumi Hîragi, playing Chihiro, was not aware of this concept and had it explained to her by Miyazaki. One of the sound engineers commented, saying, "The young don't know it these days."
  
  
• The flexible light thing that jumps around and leads to the house is a reference to Pixar's mascot, Luxo Jr. Miyazaki is a big fan of Pixar and wanted to show his admiration.
  
  
• The song over the closing credits ("Itsumo Nando Demo"/"Always With Me") was intended for a Miyazaki film that was never made. Miyazaki played it relentlessly while making this film and decided to include it in the end credits.
  
  
• The cleansing of the river spirit is based on a real-life incident in Miyazaki's life in which he participated in the cleaning of a river, removing, among other things, a bicycle.
  
  
• The voices were looped in after the animation was completed. This is typical procedure for Japanese animation.
  
  
• To do the voice of Chihiro's mother talking while eating, actress Yasuko Sawaguchi actually spoke the dialog (in the original Japanese-language version) while eating a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Actress Lauren Holly did the same thing in the English version with an apple.
  
  
• Chi and Sen both use the same Japanese Kanji, which means 1,000 but are different readings of the same character. The name Sen is also a play on the name Chihiro.
  
  
• The kanji names of many of the characters provide clues to their identities: Yubaba - hot-water crone; Zeniba - money crone; Kaonashi - no face; Bô - young boy/child; Kamajii - kettle/boiler pot/old man; Chihiro - thousand fathoms or thousand searches; Sen - thousand (pronunciation of chi kanji when isolated).
  
  
• Miyazaki is a huge fan of Miyazawa's work "Ginga tetsudô no yoru," in which the main character, Giovanni, takes a train across the milky way and passes five different stations. During the scene in which Sen and her friends are taking a train, the song playing is called "Sixth Station."
  
  
• First anime film to be nominated for (and win) an Academy Award. It also has the longest runtime of any other film nominated or winning in that category (125 minutes).
  
  
• Chosen by "Les Cahiers du cinéma" (France) as one of the 10 best pictures of 2002 (#08, with Spider (2002))
  
  
• The city that Chihiro and her parents are moving to at the beginning is the fictional city of Tochinoki along Route 21, just north of Nagoya. Tochinoki is also the name of an amusement park to the north of Tôkyô and a spa resort in the south of Japan. The large hill in their neighborhood where the dirt road begins is named Green Hill.
  
  
• A minor dubbing error causes Haku's name to be slurred. His actual given name in "Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi" is Kohakunushi Nigihayami, while "Spirited Away" just refers to the Kohaku River, ignoring the rest of his name entirely, and therefore changing the meaning of his name drastically.
  
  
• The star-shaped treats the Susuwatari (black soots) were carrying are called kompeitô, a type of traditional Japanese candy.
  
  
• In 2006, this film was still the highest-grossing non-US-produced film in the world. It still holds that record to this date.
  
  
• Chihiro's father drives a first-generation Audi A4 sedan.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Hayao Miyazaki] [gorging on food] Chihiro's parents eat greedily near the start of the movie.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Hayao Miyazaki] [pigs] Chihiro's parents are turned into pigs as a result of eating food intended for the gods.
  
  
• Director Trademark: [Hayao Miyazaki] [flying] Chihiro flies on the dragon Haku's back.
  
  
• Lines were added in the English-language-dubbed version that do not exist in the original version: when Sen says that Haku is a dragon after she sees her parents in the barn; and the last lines between Chihiro and her parents in the car at the end.
  
  
• This was the first film directed by Miyazaki in which a child character was actually voiced by a child.
  
  
• The character No Face greatly resembles a silkworm. First, the movie is Japanese and silkworms are important in Japanese culture. No face seems to have a white face and a mouth below it. Silkworms have markings that look like facial features, and their mouths are below these markings. Silkworms and No Face eat constantly and grow rapidly. At the end of the movie, No Face goes with Sen to visit Zeniba. No Face stays with Zeniba spinning silk.
  
  
• First Studio Ghibli film produced in full digital process with DLP technology.
  
  
• First Studio Ghibli film in Dolby Digital EX 6.1 and DTS-ES 6.1 sound.
  
  
• In the English-language version, John Ratzenberger (Aogaeru) completely improvised the ditty he sings when he is extolling the virtues of the rich customer No-Face. ("Welcome the rich man, he's hard for you to miss...") The original script's song was "Welcome the rich man - he's pretty big, you see/so all bow down and get on bended knee."
  
  

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