When Spirited Away was released in 2001, it amazed many people. For evidence, look no farther than it grossed more than $289 million at the box office, which was rather impressive given the film’s production budget of between $15 and $19 million.
Additionally, Spirited Away won the Berlin Film Festival’s Golden Bear and the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, which is particularly notable given that it is the first foreign film produced entirely of hand-drawn animation to have received the latter distinction.
To summarize, Spirited Away had such a significant impact that it is still regarded as one of the greatest films ever produced, which is why many people have been wondering about the possibility of a sequel.
Will There Ever Be a Spirited Away Sequel?
In 2016, some claimed that Spirited Away might finally receive its long-awaited sequel. However, the origins of such assertions were frequently insignificant YouTubers rather than recognized newspapers, implying that there is little reason to accept them.
To that end, it’s worth noting that Studio Ghibli isn’t exactly known for developing sequels to fan favorites. Indeed, they are renowned for avoiding unnecessary sequels, which may have harmed their prospective revenues but earned them a degree of legitimacy from a sizable portion of the movie-going populace.
Given that the story of Spirited Away was concluded in that film, there is little reason for Studio Ghibli to make another film to tie up loose narrative threads, even if there are a lot of people out there who are dying to know whether Chihiro and Haku ever fulfilled their promise to meet again in the future.
The evidence shows that there will be no sequel to Spirited Away shortly.
Studio Ghibli is not known for making sequels to their films, so the closest things to that are a spin-off of Whisper of the Heart and a 14-minute-long follow-up to My Neighbor Totoro called Mei the Kittenbus, which is screened exclusively at the Ghibli Museum and rarely elsewhere.
When combined with the absence of any genuine rumors of a Spirited Away sequel, it becomes evident that there is no reason to suppose such a film exists.
With that said, it’s worth noting that some intriguing details regarding Spirited Away did surface in 2016. In brief, a fan wrote to Studio Ghibli with some of the most often asked questions about Spirited Away, which resulted in a fairly lengthy response.
Must check:
Those interested should peruse the contents on their own. However, some of the replies varied from the rationale behind certain creative decisions to how Chihiro could discern that her parents were not among the pigs.
Consequently, the letter is worth reading for Spirited Away fans, especially if those nagging issues have been bothering them for years.