Chihiro Ogino

Chihiro Ogino (荻野 千尋, ogino chihiro) referred through most of the film by her nickname Sen (sen, lit. one thousand) is the ten year old core protagonist of the Japanese animated film Spirited Away.

Personality
Initially shown to be petulant, egoistic, childish and easily frightened, Chihiro's growth into a capable individual is a core factor to the movement of Spirited Away's plot. During her adventure in the Spirit World, she matures from an easily scared girl with a childlike personality to match her age to a hard-working, responsible, and brave young girl who has learned to put her fears aside for those she cares for. To protect her friends and rescue her parents from a spell that has turned them into livestock, Chihiro sheds her former personality and adapts to her environment to become a courageous, quick-witted and reliable girl.

The strength of her bond with Haku as the story progressed eventually evolved into a very sincere form of love that dispelled Yubaba and Zeniba's curses on Haku.

History


At the start of the film Chihiro was introduced to have moved from an unnamed location to the countryside with her parents Akiichirō Ogino and Ichiyūko Ogino. Awoken from a nap in her parents' car, Chihiro complains that the farewell bouquet she received from her friends have nearly wilted. Her father subsequently misses a turn he was supposed to take and instead drives the car through an undeveloped footpath surrounded by spiritual offerings. Nearly crashing the vehicle into a stone statue, Akiichirō leaves the car behind and finds a large tunnel. Curious, he brings Ichiyūko and Chihiro through the tunnel and unwittingly into the Spirit World, where he quickly picks up a delicious scent from nearby empty food stalls.



Drawn in by the scent, Akiiichirō and Ichiyūko begin to devour the unguarded food. Refusing to eat out of nervousness, Chihiro leaves to explore the rest of the seemingly deserted land and meets Haku on the bridge to Yubaba's Bathhouse. Haku, shocked at Chihiro's arrival, tells her to leave immediately and that he would try to buy some time for her escape. Reluctant but afraid Chihiro runs back to inform her parents of Haku's words, but finds out that they have been turned into large pigs. Upon witnessing the emergence of countless black figures (spirits) and the transformation of her parents Chihiro decides to run back to the tunnel herself in fear, only to find that the way back has been sealed by a vast amount of water. Realizing that there was no longer a way back to the Human World, Chihiro hides on her own and attempts to dismiss the occurrences as a dream, but finds her body slowly fading into nonexistence.



Haku finds Chihiro soon after, giving her medicine to prevent her from disappearing from the world altogether. He dispels a charm placed on Chihiro's legs to impede her movement and takes her to Yubaba's Bathhouse, imprinting directions in her mind. Following these instructions Chihiro climbs down perilous flights of stairs to find Kamaji's boiler room, where she is disheartened to find that Kamaji already has countless Susuwatari working for him. Nevertheless he sends Chihiro off with Lin, informing the weasel spirit that Chihiro was in fact his granddaughter and that she needed to find a job with the bath house proprietor: Yubaba. Chihiro then finds herself taken up the elevator to the top floor where Yubaba's office lies.

Harshly welcomed, threatened and harassed at first by the ruthless Yubaba, Chihiro's determination and Bo's timely interference forces Yubaba to relent and offer Chihiro a job at the bathhouse in exchange for her name, which Yubaba promptly corrects as 'Sen'. Chihiro, now referred to as 'Sen' is taken by Haku down to meet Lin, who shows respect for Chihiro now that she has survived an encounter with Yubaba. Shocked by so many drastic changes in her life, Chihiro finds herself unable to sleep properly and is woken up by Haku, who tells her he would bring Chihiro to her parents.

Chihiro meets Haku at the pigpen, where Haku points out that Chihiro's parents have no memory of being human prior to their transformation into pigs. Tearfully, Chihiro yells at her 'parents' to not fatten themselves too much in fear that they would be eaten. She runs from the pigpen and is next seen accompanied by Haku, who offers her riceballs, knowing that Chihiro would be hungry. He also gives Chihiro her clothes and farewell card that came with her bouquet, warning her to never forget her real name or suffer enslavement from Yubaba. Haku then sadly tells Chihiro that he has forgotten his own name, but also speaks of remembering Chihiro's name for some reason. Reinvigorated by Haku's encouragement Chihiro returns to the bathhouse, but not before witnessing a transformed Haku fly off into the distance.

Due to her interactions with Haku, Chihiro is nearly late for her work the next shift. She unwittingly lets a wandering No-Face (Kaonashi) into the bathhouse under assumption that he was a customer. She and Lin are then tasked with cleaning the dirtiest bathtub, a task the latter describes as 'harassment'. Deciding that scrubbing with hands simply won't get the job done, Lin tells Chihiro to retrieve Bath Tags from The Foreman. Initially rejected by the stingy Foreman, No-Face appears whilst The Foreman was speaking to Yubaba and hands an expensive tag to Chihiro, who returns to fill the large tub.

Upon the arrival of a first-assumed 'Stink Spirit', Chihiro is then tasked with cleaning the paying customer and, through hard work and perseverance, uncovers the Stink Spirit's identity as a famous river god whose body was nearly destroyed by humans dumping trash into his river. Gifting Chihiro with the River God's Medicine (an emetic dumpling) as a symbol of gratitude, the customer happily leaves the bathhouse big tub floor covered in gold nuggets and feeling refreshed. Yubaba proceeds to congratulate and praise Chihiro for her endeavors.

The next morning Chihiro finds a white dragon, whom she recognizes as Haku from his flight the previous day after showing her her parents, attacked by shikigami. After saving Haku from a potentially deadly encounter with the shikigami, Chihiro finds that her friend has been terribly injured. Yet before she could treat him, Haku painfully flies to Yubaba's penthouse. Chihiro, driven by her want to save her friend, moves towards Yubaba's penthouse via the bathhouse's exterior structures, unwittingly allowing one of Zeniba's shikigami to stick to her back. She forces open the window (with help from the shikigami) to Bo's room, and almost loses an arm when Bo threatens to twist it unless she plays with him. Running out of options Chihiro thrusts her palms (still stained with Haku's blood) at Bo who, in fear, throws a violent tantrum. Chihiro then takes the opportunity to escape into Yubaba's office, where she finds the three green heads attempting to roll Haku's unmoving body into a hole for disposal. Attacked by the heads, Yubaba's Bird or Yu Bird and an angry Bo, Chihiro is saved by the interference of Zeniba who transforms Bo and Yubaba's bird into a mouse and a pitifully small black bird. She replaces Bo with the three heads soon after, placing a lip-sealing spell on Chihiro to prevent her from spilling secrets. Before Zeniba could explore her twin sister's room however, Haku (in a struggle) smashes her shikigami and disperses her projection. Chihiro then falls with Haku, Yubaba's Bird and Bo into the boiler room where she frantically attempts to save Haku from death by giving him half the medicine she received from the river god. She is then seen stepping on and killing a magically conjured worm that was sapping Haku's life force.

Chihiro then pleads for Kamajii to let her visit Zeniba regardless of the witch's reputation, believing that the gold seal that Haku stole from her was indeed enchanted with a death curse. Chihiro explains that she would definitely save Haku, and receives train tickets for her trip. She then makes her way to the upper floors, but is met with a furious Yubaba. It is revealed that No-Face has turned monstrous and vulgar due to the influences of the bathhouse personnel. Standing up to No-Face bravely and relenting the other half of the anemic dumpling to No-Face, Chihiro flees as a monstrous No-Face chases her whilst vomiting. She is then seen walking along the railroad tracks with Bo, Yubaba's bird and No-Face.

She arrives at the last station at nighttime and meets Zeniba, who reveals that the magically conjured worm Chihiro killed was a virus that Yubaba implanted in Haku to keep him under her command. Chihiro then stays with Zeniba, waiting by the door for news about Haku or her parents. Fearing that Haku may be dead, Chihiro tearfully spills her worries to Zeniba, who in turn gives Chihiro a hair tie that represents 'everyone's feelings'. At that exact moment, a transformed Haku arrives to take Chihiro back to the bathhouse. Happily thanking Zeniba for her hospitality Chihiro leaves with Haku where she recalls a childhood memory, unintentionally reminding Haku of his real name and freeing him from Yubaba's grip.

She is seen again on the bridge to the bathhouse where Yubaba presented her with the challenge of picking her parents out of a line of pigs. Chihiro ultimately succeeds in guessing that her parents weren't there and is free to leave. Before reuniting with her parents, Chihiro bids a sad farewell to Haku, who assures her that they will meet again someday. Chihiro is then seen with her parents, crossing the tunnel once again and returning to their parked car.

The entrance to the tunnel now looks different and the parked car is also not the same. It may be that she and her parents have actually "returned" to a similar yet not the same human world or that time spent in the spirit world passed quicker, therefore she may have returned to the human world weeks later in comparison to the short time she spent there.

Speculation
It is mentioned by director and creator Hayao Miyazaki that Chihiro has 'lost' all her memories of the Spirit World following her exiting of the tunnel. However according to Haku's promise, he and Chihiro will meet again someday. This may or may not be referring to Chihiro's death and transformation into a spirit. However, Zeniba's quote, "memories are never forgotten, they are just difficult to recall" suggests that Chihiro will eventually remember her experiences at the Bathhouse. Regardless, the fate of Chihiro and Haku relationship remains unknown and up to audience interpretation.

Trivia

 * In an interview regarding Chihiro's character design, Hayao Miyazaki informs the audience that "[He] created a heroine who is an ordinary girl, someone with whom the audience can sympathize. It's not a story in which the characters grow up, but a story in which they draw on something already inside them, brought out by the particular circumstances. [He] wants [his] young friends to live like that, and [he] thinks they, too, have such a wish."


 * Chihiro was created based on a ten-year old girl, a Miyazaki friend's daughter. This girl also made Miyazaki continue working after promising retiring from filmmaking after Mononoke Hime (1997).


 * 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.