According to Kamajī, Susuwatari was created by magic, and if they don't work diligently, the magic would dissolve, resulting in their disappear. When Chihiro was a child, she once fell into the Kohaku river but was safely washed ashore. This is why she and Haku have such a close connection. In the bathhouse garden, flowers from all year round bloom at the same time. All the seasons take place simultaneously, symbolizing that this is not the real world. Miyazaki did not invent this idea himself. In Pure Land Buddhism, those who show faith in Amida Buddha are reborn in the Pure Land, an eternal paradise, after their death. From the Heian period (794–1185), the technique seen in the film has been used to depict the Pure Land. Throughout his works, Miyazaki takes inspiration from traditional Japanese culture and adapts it for his artistic visions. When Chichiro first appears in the spirit’s realm, she sees multiple different shadows appear in the town as it comes to life. These dark shadows are the yokai Umi-Bozu – sea spirits which appear as dark shapes or outlines with white glowing eyes. They work in the Bathhouse in return for small star-shaped food, called Konpeitō. They are seen carrying coal to help power the boiler in Kamajī's Boiler Room. The have super strength relative to their body weight. Even Chihiro Ogino couldn't take a piece of coal without overextending herself.

Chihiro (千尋) becomes Sen (千) when Yubaba, who runs the bathhouse in the story, takes one character of her name and gains control over the girl. The susuwatari are tiny soot sprites that appear in the boiler room. They are a type of yokai that have been completely invented by Spirited Away’s creator, Hayao Miyazaki.These yokai only appear very briefly in Spirited Away, as a group of spirits who are entering the bathhouse when Chichiro first arrives. In the movie, these are the Onama-Sama. They wear capes of leaves, have large heads, and tusk-like teeth. This served as the inspiration for the character of Boh, Yubaba’s giant baby son. Boh is very strong due to his size and is being raised by Yubaba, who is also inspired by the yokai yama-uba.

At the start of Spirited Away, Chihiro’s father gets lost and takes the wrong road. This pattern of traveling along a mistaken path as a route to entering an entirely different world is very similar to Dante’s Divine Comedy. While Chihiro’s voyage is not on the same scale, it does an excellent job of presenting Japan’s unique spiritual world. Thunder and Lightning of the Gods Chihiro is the name of the main character, a 10-year-old girl. Miyazaki said that girls of that age are tough these days, which is why he chose one as the heroine. She is the daughter of middle-class parents, as is apparent from the four-wheel-drive Audi they own, the upscale brand of the supermarket bag inside, and the relatively young age at which they have been able to buy a detached house in the suburbs. The couple and their daughter Chihiro are selfish, ill-mannered, and devoted to their desires. They are typical of the Japanese people of the time, who ignored the country’s traditional, spiritual culture to sing the praises of economic prosperity. A close look at the old cedar shows that it is broken at the top. These kinds of old trees are often found at shrines in Japan, such as Kamigamo Shrine in Kyoto and Kasuga Taisha in Nara. They are revered, due to being seen as locations where kami descended from the heavens in the form of lightning. This divine connection makes these trees sacred.A kamikakushi refers to the sudden vanishing of somebody for no reason. It was apparently due to the absence of a known reason that such events were attributed to the kami (gods). Or it might be that identifying the kami as the perpetrators was a way of finding acceptance. In the Old Testament, when Moses brings the Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai, there is thunder and lightning. In Hinduism, Indra derives originally from a thunder god. However, in many religions, the gods’ origins in thunder and lightning have been forgotten, as they have become detached from natural phenomena to become omnipotent deities transcending human understanding. There’s a lot of debate around the meaning of No-Face and its inspiration but many believe that it is a type of yokai known as the Noppera-Bo. The character No-Face (Kaonashi) has no voice of his own, instead, using the voices of those he swallows. The lower half of his body is also semitransparent. These aspects may symbolize that he has no real self. The susuwatari also make an appearance in other Ghibli movies like My Neighbor Totoro – see if you can spot them!

In truth, the Oshira-Sama we see in Spirited Away more closely resembles the dolls linked to it rather than the spirit itself. Despite this, the original Japanese version of Spirited Away refers to the spirit as Oshira-Sama. The river spirit stinks out the whole bathhouse. Later, Chihiro soon realizes that the spirit is hurting from all the pollution trapped within it. In one well-known example, the Buddhist monk Kūkai (774–835) stated: “Composed of the five elements of earth, water, fire, wind, and space, all things in creation contain echoes of the truth. . . . Dainichi Nyorai, the supreme Buddha, is the image of the world as it is.” This attitude to kami could also be said to be Japanese tradition. It is true that some are powerful, like the sun goddess Amaterasu, who is said to be the ancestor of Japan’s emperors. Most kami, however, are familiar, approachable beings like Totoro, and there are loose boundaries between their world and the one where humans live. Animism and BuddhismThe Yama-uba inspired the villainous character Yubaba. The Yama-uba are a type of yokai that appear as mountain crones or old hags (see also ‘ Can A Human Become A Yokai? – What You Need To Know‘). Tales tell of their cannibalistic nature and they are often compared to witches in western cultures. This type of yokai is a very strange one as they appear as objects acquired or possessed by spirits. In Spirited Away, the tsukumogami make a very brief cameo as the hopping lanturn which guides Chihiro and No-Face to Zeniba. Kasuga-sama are a type of yokai which make a brief appearance on the boat that approaches the bathhouse in the beginning of the movie. At first, they are invisible and you can only see the paper masks they wear.