Akio Ogino

Akio Ogino (荻野 明夫, ogino akio) is a thirty-eight year old working-class male and father to Chihiro Ogino in the Japanese animated film Spirited Away. As punishment for his crimes against the Spirit World, Akio is cursed and transformed into a pig for much of the movie.

Appearance
Akio has lightly tanned skin, short brown hair and small dark-colored eyes. Compared to other characters in the series Akio has a very bulky figure, though more of his bulk is attributed to body fat as opposed to muscle. He also grows a very lightly accentuated mustache on his upper lip.

Personality
While his personality is never fully elaborated on in the film, it is shown in the introduction to the film that he is extremely overconfident and brave, driving his car through an undeveloped footpath after missing a turn. His curiosity, love for adventure and general carelessness first lands him and his family at the entrance the tunnel of the Spirit World and subsequently places him under a curse.

History
Not much is known about Akio's past except for the fact that he and his family have decided to move from an unnamed location to the suburbs. Unfamiliar with the roads there, Akio misses a turn and compensates by driving over a footpath in hopes to eventually reach his new house. He nearly drives the car into a stone statue and revels in the architectural beauty of the Spirit World Tunnel. Curiosity piqued, Akio then takes Yuko Ogino and Chihiro through the tunnel, unwittingly stepping into the Spirit World.

Akio is later seen picking up a scent of food and, with wife and daughter in tow, finds a whole street of



unoccupied food stalls. Thinking that all expenses would be paid for (due to his owning of credit cards), Akio and Yuko begin to stuff themselves with food meant for spirits and immediately fall under a curse that prevents them from stopping. Akio is then seen at sunset where his consumption of the food has transformed him and his wife into large pigs. Whipped by angry spirit stall owners for eating so much food, Akio consequently forgets his previous life as a human.

He is next seen sleeping alongside his transformed wife (as pigs) in the pigpen, completely forgetting that he was once a human and ignoring Chihiro's calling. Akio is not seen until the end of the movie where he and Yuko are waiting for Chihiro by the Tunnel entrance, forgetting about their experience as pigs after the dispelling of their curse. Completely unaware of how much time has passed, Akio exclaims at how dusty and dirty the car has become, and dismisses the mess as a prank as the film ends.