We all love Studio Ghibli movies for various reasons, and one common reason is how comforting and nostalgic they can be for many viewers. Moreover, many Studio Ghibli movies are great to watch because you can watch them with family. I also used to think in such a way that these movies were such a fun ride and an adventurous story; I loved them for how bright and colourful they are, but now I believe that they are more than colourful stories; they have this ability to portray much deeper issues of the real world regarding various fields, and one such field might be environmental issues continuously faced by the current world. Here, particularly, I will talk about some environmental themes I noticed in ✨Spirited Away✨, which I did not initially notice as a teenager, as I did not have the lens back then.

I will talk about overconsumption that is seen throughout the whole movie. Firstly, we see this through Chihiro's parents, who started eating and kept eating continuously until they were turned into pigs, and throughout various scenes and dialogue, we are reminded of this.

I believe this over-consumption directly links back to one of the major causes of environmental depletion and degradation. Nowadays, everywhere you go, you see this constant "Fake" demand for wanting things; people and businesses will make you feel like you NEED so and so product. Moreover, producers even nowadays supply products that might not last long like it used to be so that customer just might buy a new one and hence they could earn more money. You keep thinking that if you don't buy this branded phone, makeup, bag, shoes, or accessories, you will not be liked, and you will be missing out on things, but we have a perfectly fine phone, enough makeup, shoes, bags, or furniture lying in our house, and as we keep buying new things, do we ever look back and think: how will these things be produced, where will they be produced, and who is going to produce them? Does this production process have any effect that makes using these products unworthy or inhuman? No, we don't ask such questions because they will take out the fun of buying and make us think of the dark and hard parts of the world. But is this desire of wanting things really good or sustainable for us anyway as human beings? To me, the answer is clearly "NO," but that's not what others think at all, and they are right to do so, but we definitely have to look into it at what cost. Believe it or not, everything literally EVERYTHING that we use comes directly or indirectly from nature, and as days keep going, our demand keeps rising, and there will come a day when nature will no longer be able to provide for us to the extent we want things, let alone even for future generations who are, in fact, our siblings or kids or even grandchildren.

The other interesting thing I was thinking about after watching the scene of how those amusement parks built in the 90s were built and later abandoned, and even when humans did not take care of the nature around these amusement parks, nature grew by itself without any intervention. Well... on the second note, this might not be an issue, just a general observation or idea of mine.

This self-nurturing ability of nature reminds me of "Rewilding"- at its core, the idea is that nature knows best how to heal itself or take care of itself. Researchers say that this may result in a more ecologically diverse environment. This is still a progressive idea that is being researched.

In the movie, there is a spirit that smelled nasty, commonly called the "Stink Spirit," that everyone at the bathhouse dreaded working with, and only Chihiro was willing to work with it, as she was ordered to by Yubaba. Even as she was working and using herbal bath water to clean the spirit, the workers were saying she was wasting their best herbal water on this stink spirit, and while she was working, the work itself was hard, and she was constantly fumbling and scared but never giving up. After hot water was poured into the spirit and it was being taken care of, after pulling out the thorn stuck into the spirit, we came to learn that this spirit is no ordinary spirit but a magnificent river spirit that has a lot of assets. Moreover, this spirit was turned into a stink spirit by pollution caused by human activity. If you look into that frame right after the thorn was taken out, we can see that there is a bicycle, oven, fridge, toy, ball, scraps of boats, roads, scarped clothes, iron scraps, washing machine, Chest drawer, glass and plastic bottles, parts of a car, fishing rod, and whatnot! All these are indicators of river pollution. Immediately following that, as the river spirit is truly cleaned, the spirit thanks Chihiro and, before leaving, as a reward, it gives everybody gold. Now everyone is excited and ready to take the gold for themselves, even though initially they didn't even want to work with this spirit and were later forced to work as Yubaba commanded. Even after that, as the workers were about to take the gold, Yubaba said that they could not, and only Yubaba could take this gold, as she's the owner of the whole house and the one in charge. This whole sequence portrays the current world system perfectly.

In the real world, we have countless rivers like that river spirit that provide us with goods and services that are not seen by the naked eye but can be noticed if somebody truly thinks about it. Rivers continuously provide us with fresh water, without which we couldn't even go on to survive a moment at all; water purification, water cycle regulation, trade opportunities, flood control, renewable electricity, and whatnot. Now, instead of taking care of such a wonderful gift, what we do is pollute it by throwing our trash and scraps in the river, which results in the destruction of the river and the loss of its ability to provide benefits, and we even go on to say, yikes, it's such a nasty thing, but in fact we were the ones who made it nasty. Moreover, if we think of Chihiro as someone who wanted to respect the river in the real world or a person who wanted to take care of it so it could return to its original form, instead of trying to help, we discourage such people and keep telling them there is no meaning in it, and even when they work, they face other obstacles, such as people in higher power not wanting to help them or invest in such technologies that will help to restore the river, as it is a waste of money to them, and even when they help, it's always for their own gain. Now, just as it was shown in the movie when the river is brought back to its original healthy form, and people are again able to gain benefit, they are making a big deal out of it over who gets the largest credit for this and who is first to receive the benefit; and again and by any chance if the river can yield much larger profit to the initial investors somehow, like Yubaba, the they would take away all the money by saying that they provided the technologies; without their help, nothing would happen again, trying to control people using their might or power of money/connections.

Lastly, I will talk about 'Haku' not being able to return to his home. In the movie, from Kamajī, we came to learn that Haku suddenly showed up here similarly to Chihiro, and for some reason he could not go back to his home, and as he kept working under Yubaba, he came to become more pale and lost his true self. Later, during the very end, as Chihiro came to the river, Haku actually is the river spirit of the Kohaku River; remember, he was able to regain his true self.

This reminds me how the rivers that support us give us bounties; instead of protecting them, what we do is cover them as humans, with them we cover them with mud and concrete to build buildings and infrastructure, without batting an eye on them. This is the very reason Haku lost his home and, similarly, how a lot of aquatic animals lose their home. Not only that, but at the same time we destroy plants and don't even plant one instead of the ones we remove.

Thank you for reading all of my thoughts, which turned into a rant session ngl😭. With that being said, I am no expert in environmental science or problems related to that; all I wanted to do is just share my thoughts and all. Now, if any of you guys have similar analysis or thoughts on this movie, along with all other Studio Ghibli movies, please feel free to share them in the comments. Again, I only talked about Spirited Away; I am pretty sure there are other themes as important as these in all the other movies of Studio Ghibli.

(Note: I will be adding a link to my short student Google survey in the comments on this exact theme of how Studio Ghibli movies on environmental themes (e.g., Princess Mononoke, Ponyo, Spirited Away, Pom Poko, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, and so on) can create environmental awareness among young adult viewers (ages 18 to 24). Now, if you are in that demographic and have watched one of these mentioned movies and want to help a suffering student :") or are also passionate about Studio Ghibli movies, please help me out by filling in my survey, which takes about 3 to 5 minutes. And thank you again; I really appreciate it (❁´◡`❁)💛🌼.)