Spirited Away

Ohhhhhhhh! I get it! With the last two Miyazaki movies I saw, I could see how they work really well on a nostalgic level and how they're awesome for a kid to escape into this fantastical setting, but only with this film can I see how well it can translate for an adult too.  Not that exactly fair to note, but I just wanted to mention that it felt like the animation quality of this film as opposed to the other two I've seen was way better, with more interesting and visually appealing character designs, more fluid movement, and less goofy things for the sake of being goofy. I felt like it was something to mention though since it helped me to immerse myself in the film much better and just generally made for a more enjoyable watch.  I think the single thing that made this movie work so damn well was the tone it had throughout. It never stressed anything too much and made it seem like the most important and grand thing ever, but it also never made anything feel insignificant and worthless. What it did was allow you to soak in a world in which everything had some level of importance and value but without overdoing it and making everything feel worthless.  There's a couple of things that contribute to this, namely the characterization and sound design. All of the characters are introduced in ways that don't betray any kind of grand ideologies of theirs or make them seem like any less than people that we're seeing for the first time. They all act in realistic and understandable ways, given the absurd situations, and they all feel like they have full personalities, even if we don't see those different characteristics express themselves fully. The score is similarly tame but not too tame, being beautiful and soft and ever-present to make sure that we can feel the magical nature of the incredible journey our protagonist is in. It just feels so nice and it's really hard to put into words.  So it's a basically perfect film... yeah. It kinda does that think that My Neighbor Totoro did where it didn't have a super defined plot, but I didn't mind nearly as much this time around and many of the moments were more well executed here.  It's a masterpiece, and I'll be watching it again soon.  TL;DR - Imagine wearing a seatbelt in the stuffed backseat of a car