Spirited away for retards like me

Hey Zig Forums, I don't normally post here but help me understand this guy. As an American the fact that he's some random spirit of a river that Chihiro almost drowned in offscreen many years prior that's never mentioned once seems like an asspull. Would it make more sense if I was Japanese and understood the relevance of some paved over river or is it just poor storytelling?

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I mean, you’re watching something not even made for your culture. What do YOU think?

So then does every japanese person watch this movie and go "ahhh yes the kohaku river, of course! It all makes sense"?

This is just some basic kami concept that you should look into

I'm sure not everyone but I remember never understanding references to the young samurai going off to defeat the Onis. Yet any child in japan would get it immediately

It's the fucking spirit world. Spirits represent things in the real world. Is this really that hard? Retard. Their connection is why they were drawn to each other.

>Spirited Away
>poor
choose one

I'm asking because in western culture you can't just mention something like that at the last moment and expect people to respond like it makes sense, hence why I'm asking if it's a jap thing to just reference a real place as if there was any precedent for it. At the very least you'd think a special connection would have been referenced toward the beginning, like she was moving because the kohaku river near their house was paved over or some shit so they move to a place with a better sense of nature idfk. Clearly I'm seeing it's a jap thing so whatever

Why would this even be an asspull even without the Japanese context?

The audience is never told Chihiro almost drowned in the kohaku river until the exact scene that she discovers hakus real name. There is a single shot of Chihiro holding on to hakus horns at about the halfway point, but this doesn't indicate anything at all to do with the kohaku river specifically or an instance of Chihiro almost drowning. It's fine if I'm being filtered by virtue of just not being japanese, but to reference a specific real life location with zero previous mention to western sensibilities looks like an asspull

The shit isn't about conflict, so the question isn't really who comes out at the top, who's saved and who's lost. So there can't be any asspull by definitions. It's not a Marvel movie fffs! It's about self-discovery.

I never said it's about who is on top and you're getting real defensive bud. I was just asking if it's a jap thing and it is. Get over it

Been years since I watched it but if Haku has shown himself as a dragon before that reveal there's nothing surprising as dragon is mostly associated with river in East mythology

Right, it's a narrative reveal, I guess.

I'm not sure why you think it's an asspull or what you think an asspull is?

We already know he's a spirit and that he's connected to Chihiro in some way, why is it an asspull to discover that he saved her as a child? I just don't get the grievance...

Perfect, that's the answer I was mostly looking for. Haku can be a dragon and dragons are mostly river beings, the sludge monster that's actually a river spirit already plants a seed of some kind of destruction of rivers and the environment and shit. From their the connection to the kohaku river makes sense because of the concrete paving. Thank you.

>As an American
Nah, you're just someone who's focusing on the wrong detail, quite literally missing the point. It's not really about your culture sensibilities and whatnot. You're hung up on something you consider a "plot hole" as if pointing it out, you've proved the "poor storytelling" of the film. But the film's payoff so to speak doesn't rely on that in the first place.

An important theme of the story is that you never really forget things, they just get deeply buried in your subconscious as you grow up and gradually lose innocence. Do you consider every epiphany to be an "asspull"? The sudden realization of Chihiro needs not be foreshadowed, simply signify the culmination of her journey.

I've been trying to find the meaning of using the kohaku river as a story element moreso than just the thematic symbolism. So much of this thread is basically just saying "lmao don't worry about it it's fine, focus on something else" I found my answer and it now makes sense both in ways of symbolism and to the story itself. Cry more fag.

I'm just really tired of people who talk about asspulls without really understanding where the concept applies and where it doesn't. If the narrative is centered around a conflict, then it makes sense to lay out what the sides have and then make a point about who prevails and why. In this setting the concept of an asspull applies, cause if something "undeclared", so to say, intervenes in the conflict and changes the outcome, then the whole story loses its coherence.

Stories of self-discovery make a different point: you don't know what you have. You never know what will pull out of trouble when you really need it, and if you do you're not in real trouble. You're a creature that lived for decades, over which stuff happened - good, bad. You get lucky sometimes and a river that almost killed you once becomes the most beautiful thing ever. One can go even further, into the evolutionary history of each of us, but that isn't done here.

Though I guess it was the other way around, with the river protecting her and her returning the favor in the end. The point still stands though, she had no idea that's even relevant when her troubles began and gradually got to it.

Nope. It's just poorly written garbage that happens to look nice.

Do you know what an ass pull is? God I've grown to hate this board over the past couple of years. You can criticize that part of the film but at least use correct terms to discuss your gripes with it. Fuck.

That line and the turnip head prince in Howl's Moving Castle are the funniest shit in the English dubs.

>Ass pull
>A moment when the writers pull something out of thin air in a less-than-graceful narrative development, violating the Law of Conservation of Detail by dropping a plot-critical detail in the middle, or near the end of their narrative without Foreshadowing or dropping a Chekhov's Gun earlier on.
Are we on the same page here?

You don't need to be japanese to understand spirited away. That's a meme. All of its magical world and rules tropes are pretty much universal.
All the japanese stuff is more or less aesthetic such as a tsukumogami parade instead of fairy courts, or paper familiars instead of household spirits.

There are hints across the movie that show the plot does make sense more or less but even then you don't need them. Spirited Away is pretty much a folk tale. Tam lin, the arthurian cycle, the tale of princess kaguya, the one thousand and one nights stories, christian andersen's tales, the odyssey, etc. are full of aspulls, divine interventions, random revelations, wierd turns of events. There's really no point in questioning this stuff in this kind of stories. Shit happens, the fairy folk laugh, the little girl learns something.

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It's already been hinted several times by then that they somehow knew each other.
The most blatant was when she called out his name when he was chased by the paper summons.
Pay attention!

>Watching Ghibli for the plot

The asspull didn’t bother me itself, it was how everyone was making this huge deal of remembering your names and then he randomly says “oh yes that’s my name haha”

The only thing that could make more sense is the relationship of dragons with water.
>Haku=Dragon=Water
>Haku=Saves Chihiro
>Chihiro in water=Haku saves Chihiro from drowning
>Haku is the spirit of the river Chihiro fell in

>The audience is never told Chihiro almost drowned in the kohaku river until the exact scene that she discovers hakus real name.

Because that would give everything away you tit.

Very nice post by well read user.

I think the point was he's at peace with his situation at the end of the movie.

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