Innocence (Spirited Away)

Have any of you seen that movie? It's an amazing production. An anime, of course, which would cause it to automatically displease some. I highly recommend you at least watch it once. It took the director--who is a genius, by the way--put a lot of time into it, and the concepts are beautifully structured, along with the art. It's a movie you can just...get lost in. It all seems so natural, watching the spirits drift around, seeing the odd creatures talk, and encountering the magic. When the credits roll, there's an empty ache, because I realize it was all just a television visualization. I'm so eager to believe that somewhere, on that other other continent called Asia, that a little tunnel like that exists, and it leads to a city of spirits, and there's a magical bath house filled with vitality, and if I signed my name on a little slip of paper, I could escape from the human side, and forget all the horrors on the other side of that tunnel...

There's just something about that movie that tugs at me. It's not sad in the least...just...it's a mythical feeling, I suppose. And there's one concept in the whole movie that just rivets my eyes to the screen: The love. It's a rare love. It's a love that has no roots in anything other than friendship. It's wanting to protect someone who you hold dear to you, and get nothing in return. It's a love that's almost not love; there is no relationship, there is nothing but friendship. It's beautiful beyond words, to love someone so much that your mind never looks farther than that second, that word, that look. It's a love you have even when you've found that "One". Best friend doesn't even CUT the surface. I don't know how to describe it...innocent. That's the word. Innocent. It's a love devoid of any other desires but friendship. You can see it when Kohaku looks at Chihiro. Innocence. Out of all the ideas and concepts, the Innocence is the least believable.. I could believe No Face is standing outside of my window. I could believe in River Spirits. But Innocence still existing in love? Impossible. The director had high hopes when he added that love in. Maybe it's hiding with No Face and Lyn and all the other spirits. But it's so impossibly unobtainable, that innocence, at least with most people. I know very few, I hold what I do have very near, because I know it's just a dream. It's a dream I desperately cling to, at any rate.