While many people hail Spirited Away, the 2001 animated film created by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, for its captivating visuals, it also offers deep emotional insights that will make you think differently about how you treat other people.
One character in particular, No-Face, forces viewers to consider the ways in which people deal with loneliness and rejection, and how we often try to mask our unhappiness in things like greed and gluttony. Taking a deep look at the character of No-Face offers a valuable insight into human nature, and might even bring a tear to your eye when you relate the character to people in your own life.
Before we dive into the character of No-Face, let’s set the stage by quickly summarizing Spirited Away as a whole.
Spirited Away Summary (Spoiler Alert)
If you haven’t seen Spirited Away, I highly recommend you watch the movie before reading this article. It’s hailed as one of Studio Ghibli’s best movies, and it got a 97% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer.
Spirited Away follows the journey of the main character, Chihiro, a 10-year-old girl whose family moves to a new town. On the way to their new home, her family runs into a tunnel in the forest. Chihiro’s father becomes curious and leads them through the tunnel, on the other side of which they find an abandoned amusement park.
The storefronts in the amusement park are filled with food and Chihiro’s parents, hungry from the journey, decide to eat the food and leave money for the vendors, who are nowhere to be found. Chihiro, who doesn’t want to get in trouble, runs away. However, as the sun goes down, Chihiro notices a ship approach the amusement park and a whole bunch of spirits gets off.
As the spirits get off the ship, the whole amusement park comes to life. Chihiro runs back to warn her parents about the approaching spirits, only to find that her parents have already been turned into pigs. A benevolent humanoid spirit named Haku then appears to Chihiro and rescues her from being eaten by the other spirits. He takes Chihiro into the bathhouse in which he works and asks his boss, Yubaba, if she will offer Chihiro a job.
Yubaba tells Chihiro that if she ever wants to go home, she must work for her freedom, and makes Chihiro sign a contract and changes her name to Sen. As Chihiro tries to get acclimated to her new job, there are many spirits who are willing to help her, and others who are not.
No-Face, a large and mysterious spirit, appears to Chihiro when he is locked out of the bathhouse in the rain. After Chihiro lets him, he becomes attached to her, constantly helping her out and offering her pieces of gold, which he is able to conjure at will. Eventually, after having several of his gifts rejected by Chihiro, No-Face begins eating the other spirits in the bathhouse. Chihiro is forced to deal with this, and she feeds No-Face a bitter dumpling that she received from another spirit that makes him throw up the other spirits.
Eventually, with the help of Haku and Zeniba, Yubaba’s twin sister, Chihiro is able to kidnap Yubaba’s son. Yubaba then agrees to grant Chihiro her freedom and to change Chihiro’s parents back into human beings.
The Character of No-Face
While the movie is filled with many interesting spirits, the character of No-Face is particularly interesting. For his first couple of appearances, he does not speak at all, yet still portrays very human emotions that viewers can easily resonate with. It seems that No-Face has lost his way in the world and no longer knows who he is. He easily becomes attached to other characters in the movie, he is highly sensitive to others’ reactions to him, and he seems to emulate the behaviors of those around him. No-Face, as his name implies, lacks an identity.
The first interaction that Chihiro has with No-Face is when she is first entering the bathhouse. Haku leads Chihiro across the bridge and tells her that she must hold her breath, or the other spirits will recognize her as a human. None of the spirits notice Chihiro, with the exception of No-Face, who seems to be staring directly at her. Perhaps the fact that Chihiro is lost in a foreign world, just like No-Face, gives him the ability to see her.
The next day, Chihiro walks across the very same bridge and sees No-Face standing in the same spot. No-Face seems to be wearing a smile on his mask, but Chihiro greets him and quickly rushes away. When Chihiro turns around to see if he’s still there, he has disappeared. In this scene, No-Face exhibits behavior similar to a nervous child trying to make friends by positioning himself close to someone he favors, but not having the courage to initiate any sort of interaction.
From then on, it seems like No-Face latches onto Chihiro. He appears to her in the garden outside the bathhouse, and Chihiro expresses concern that he may be getting wet. Chihiro tells No-face that she will leave the door open for him so that he can enter the bathhouse. No-Face seems like a very lonely spirit who is not used to being noticed, much less helped. When Chihiro shows kindness towards him, he sees this as a source of hope that he might not be so lonely anymore and sets out to win over her friendship.
In a later scene, No-Face helps out Chihiro when she’s washing the River Spirit. When the River Spirit has been cleaned, it leaves behind a bunch of gold for the employees of the bathhouse, and they all get very excited. No-Face observes the hysteria over the gold and begins to understand that gold is a way of winning the favor of others. He holds a piece of gold, and it almost seems as if he’s thinking, These people all seem to really love gold. Maybe if I give people gold, they’ll love me too.
Later that same evening, No-Face appears to a frog spirit and lures him in with gold only to consume him whole. At this point, No-Face begins to take on the characteristics of the frog. He can now speak in the frog’s voice, and he sprouts frog-like legs. The frog spirit is also notoriously greedy, and it seems like that greediness has started to affect No-Face’s personality as well.
No-Face begins tossing gold out to the employees of the bathhouse, who are all serving him and swooning around him. At this point, No-Face could be compared to someone who doesn’t really know who they are or how to make friends, so they use their wealth to try to make others like them. However, when Chihiro appears and does not accept his gift of gold (because she’s not greedy like the rest of them), No-Face goes into a rage and begins eating more of the other spirits. No-Face cannot understand why the one who he wishes to please most, Chihiro, is not won over by his gifts like the rest of them, and so he descends into gluttony and anger.
Yubaba then discovers that Chihiro was the one who let No-Face into the bathhouse in the first place, and says that Chihiro must deal with him. This scene, in which Chihiro speaks privately with No-Face, is perhaps the most revealing of No-Face’s character. When Chihiro first enters, No-Face requests that she take some of the food in the room or accept his gift of gold. When Chihiro refuses, he recoils, as if suffering from the pain of rejection. Chihiro then asks him if he has a mother or father, and he replies that he has no one, that he is completely alone.
Chihiro then feeds him a bitter dumpling that she got from the River Spirit and he begins to run around the bathhouse vomiting a black sludgy substance. In this scene, it almost seems like No-Face is purging himself of his greedy and gluttonous ways. Perhaps this scene is symbolic of Chihiro forcing No-Face to realize that his efforts to fill his void of loneliness with greed and gluttony have been futile, and that these vices are no substitute for true friendship. This seems especially true since, once Chihiro leads No-Face out of the bathhouse, he returns to his normal form.
No-Face then follows Chihiro to the home of Zeniba, Yubaba’s kind and benevolent twin sister. From the moment that No-Face enters Zeniba’s home, he seems to be heavily influenced by Zeniba’s presence. He seems calmer, more assured, more polite, and happier. Zeniba even teaches No-Face how to knit, and gives him positive reinforcement as he does so, which he seems to enjoy. As Chihiro prepares to leave Zeniba’s home, Zeniba tells No-Face that he is welcome to stay with her, and he accepts her offer.
This is the last time that No-Face appears in the movie, but I think it’s safe to assume that he has found a place where he can be happy, have companionship, and be himself at Zeniba’s house.
What We Can Learn From No-Face
I think that the character of No-Face is extremely beneficial for thinking about the way we treat other people, especially in today’s world. Oftentimes when people do bad things, it’s a way of trying to get attention or of lashing out against a world that they feel has forgotten them.
When you get down to it, everyone really just wants to be accepted and loved. It may sound cliche, but many of the world’s problems could be solved if we could simply learn to show more kindness toward one another and let other people know that we care about them rather than letting them brood in their loneliness.
If we could all leave the door open for someone when it’s raining, like Chihiro, or invite someone into our home, like Zeniba, every once and a while, there would be far fewer unhappy people in the world.
