Overview: 'SPIRITED AWAY' is a wondrous fantasy about a young girl, Chihiro, trapped in a strange new world of spirits. When her parents undergo a mysterious transformation, she must call on the courage she never knew she had to free herself and return her family to the outside world.

Blu ray+DVD Verdict: I don't know if you know this, but 'Spirited Away' was the first anime film to be nominated for (and win) an Academy Award! It also has the longest run time of any other film nominated or winning in that category (125 minutes). As for the film itself, and with it being its first time on Blu ray, well, much like Miyazaki's (the Godfather of Japanese Animation) previous feature 'Princess Mononoke', 'Spirited Away' is an epic fairytale fantasy that deserves no better medium than the stunning animation work of Studio Ghibli.

This multiple award-winning masterpiece has grown to become the largest grossing film in Japanese history, and rightly so. From the moment our child heroine Chihiro enters the bath houses we are literally bombarded with an overwhelming sense of detail and rich, lavish colours rarely - if ever - seen in western animation. Scenes such as Chihiro running through the field of flowers, the marvelous landscapes seen from the train, Haku and Chihiro soaring the skies above, and Chihiro running across the pipe to climb the walls of the bath house are nothing short of breathtaking, and undoubtedly some of the most lavish animation ever to hit the screen.

The world of 'Spirited Away' is simply bustling with life; unique, quirky, instantly lovable creatures jostling about their daily activities and tasks in the bath houses, dancing across the screen like leaves caught in a playful summer breeze. The inventiveness of Miyazaki's character designs, much like in Mononoke, is wonderful to behold, in fact not since classic tales like Lewis Carroll's Alice In Wonderland and The Neverending Story have we been able to fall hopelessly in love with such original, quirky, magical, even fantastical characters. The viewer is plunged headfirst into another world for nearly two hours and one cannot help but be completely and utterly captivated. This is a Widescreen Presentation (1:85.1) enhanced for 16x9 TVs and comes with the Special Features of:

Introduction By John Lasseter
The Art of 'Spirited Away' - Explore Hayao Miyazaki's extraordinary creative vision
Behind The Microphone - Join the filmmakers and cast behind the English-dubbed version of the film for an inside look at its creation
Original Japanese Storyboards
Nippon Television Special
Original Japanese Trailers & TV Spots