Released on the 20th of July 2001 and with a length of 124 minutes, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (better known in the west as Spirited Away), is perhaps Miyazaki Hayao's best known work. Brimming with astonishing animation and epic adventure, it has been crowned Japan’s most successful film of all time and won the 75th Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. It’s a wonderfully welcoming work of art that’s as funny and entertaining as it is brilliant, beautiful and deep and will take you on a journey beyond your imagination.



Spirited Away is a wondrous fantasy about a young girl, Chihiro, trapped in a strange new world of spirits. She must call upon the courage she never knew she had in order to break the curse on her new friend, Haku, and return her family to the outside world. It’s a fantastic tale you will want to experience over and over again. This of course results in the fact that there are quite some nice Spirited Away items for sale. For this moment, we'd like you to know about the following:
- Spirited Away Art Print Cel
- Spirited Away Collector’s Edition
- Spirited Away Memorial Box
- The Art of Spirited Away
- Exhibiting Animation: Spirited Away Special Exhibition at the Ghibli Museum
- Spirited Away R4 Limited Edition

Spirited Away Art Print Cel
One of the favorites of the Spirited Away Collection is this limited Spirited Away Art Print Cel, which can only be bought at the Ghibli Museum in Mitaka, Japan. This beautifully crafted cel shows one of the scenes at the end of the film when No-Face and Sen take a train to visit Zeniba. No need to tell more, just take a look at the picture below!



Spirited Away Collector's Edition
Here’s some pictures of the Japanese Collector’s Edition of Spirited Away. This beautiful set, which is limited to Limited to 10,000 sets, was released the 19th of July 2002.



The Spirited Away Collector’s Edition includes three theater posters, a diorama of Yuya, a very nice press book made for the Berlin International Film Festival and "Haku's omusibi figure".



Following are some nice close-ups of the diorama.







Here are some close-ups of the book. The book is actually written in English and has 47 pages.





The rice ball / "Haku's omusibi figure".



Following are some pictures of the posters that are included in the Collector's Box. These are full Hansai-size (20.0" X 28.5" > 50.8 cm X 72.39 cm) movie posters which are the same as used for the Japanese cinemas.





Spirited Away Memorial Box
The Spirited Away Memorial Box contains the CD Maxi-Single, Image Album, and Soundtrack and also includes a set of postcards and is limited to 5,000 sets. As always the music has been composed by Joe Hisaishi.



The image album contains a collection of image songs/music which were inspired by "images" from the film's storyboard. They were composed before the film was complete. Some of the pieces are eventually used in the film. The soundtrack album contains the actual music used in the film. If you liked the music in the film, this is the album to buy. "Original Soundtrack" is sometimes shortened to "OST".



The Art of Spirited Away
The Art of Spirited Away is part of the Studio Ghibli “The Art of...” book collection. It is published by Tokuma Shoten and was first released on 8 August 2001. The book is paperbound, but printed on high quality glossy paper. With a total of 239 pages, it contains a variety of sketches, storyboards, background information, and cel reproductions (with backgrounds). It can be bought for price around 2900 yen, for example at Amazon (ISBN: 4-198-10006-3). Following are some nice pictures from the book.











Exhibiting Animation: "Spirited Away" Special Exhibition at the Ghibli Museum, Mitaka
This book was designed to be a published version of the exhibition at the Studio Ghibli Museum. It’s published by Tokuma Shoten and was first released in July 2002. The book is paperbound, but printed on high quality glossy paper. With a total of 96 pages, it includes detailed descriptions and the stories (in Japanese and English!) of each display, which includes backgrounds, layouts, storyboards, concept art, animation drawings, characters, production notes, breakdowns of specific shots, camera notes, interviews, and quotes from Miyazaki. It can be bought for price around 1900 yen, for example at Amazon (ISBN: 4-19-810007-1). Following are some nice pictures from the book.











Spirited Away R4 Limited Edition
The Australian Limited Edition of Spirited Away has a limited run of 10000 copies. It was released the 11th of June 2003 and is OOP now. Coming in a very nice Digipack it holds 2 discs. The first disc contains the film itself, which has a less reddish tint than for example the Japanese release. It also has a splendid Japanese DTS 5.1 soundtrack and literal subtitles that also include a translation for the theme song during the closing credits. A lesser point of DVD itself, is that is suffers from some ghosting. Some people say that this terribly affects the picture quality, but in our opinion this has been blown out of proportions. When watching the film on a regular sized TV the "ghosting" issue isn’t really obvious and doesn’t bother that much, but of course is more noticeable when watching it in 50" or on a projection screen.



The second disc contains some very nice special features with the nicest one being "The Making Of Spirited Away" documentary (41:53 - in Japanese, with English Subtitles).



There also is a storyboard comparison: (3 Angles), The Middle Of Nowhere (5:03), "It's Just A Dream" (4:48), Finding Work At The Bath House (5:09), Working For Tips (6:47), A Monster Called No Face (5:03), Themes Of Spirited Away: 'Bath Houses' (5pages), 'Religion' (5pages), 'Chihiro's Name' (4pages), 'Heroines' (3pages).



Besides that there are some trailers and TV spots: Japanese Trailers & TV Spots, American Trailer (2:18), French Trailer (1:47), Image Gallery: Feature Images, International Art, DVD-ROM Features: "Spirited Away Study Guide" (.pdf file). Finally the second disc also contains some easter eggs, like for example a bonus trailer of the Studio Ghibli Collection (7:49 - in Japanese, No Subtitles).