Growing up, Mulan was my absolute favorite movie. Every long car ride, sick day at home, or sleepover party, I watched Mulan; I have probably watched this movie five hundred times. Watching Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away was actually my first experience ever watching anime. As soon as the film began I noticed a big difference between it and Mulan/other Disney films.

Both films had distinctly different animation styles. I found Spirited Away to be extremely detailed. During the beginning of the film I can recall how vividly detailed the scenery was in the family’s car ride, even though stones on the side of the road were extreme intricately shaded which I found very impressive. The movie itself presented images that were very real looking but at the same time there was something noticeably off with the pictures, they were all two dimensional. One thing that I found interesting was that the characters themselves seemed less detailed the surrounding scenery, they lacked complex shading and they resembled basic cartoon sketches. I also found the movement of the characters to be very unnatural, almost robotic. In addition, each picture of the film focused on the characters and had the backround be perfectly still, so even though scenery was extremely detailed the picture seemed to be fake because there was no movement in the background.

The animation style of  Mulan differed in that it was extremely exaggerated to the point where it also looks fake. Both the characters and the scenery are very detailed and exaggerated; colors are more vivid, and every picture looks like it required advanced technology to create rather than a simple cartoonist. I also observed that there was a lot more going on in each scene of Mulan than in Spirited Away. While each scene in Spirited Away focused on the characters and had the backround be detailed but still, each scene of Mulan not only was the character in action but so was the background. I can recall a comic scene where Mulan was crossing a bustling street with her grandmother and literally there is movement everywhere you look on the screen. Even though Mulan appears fake in many aspects, the movement and dialogue of the characters is very lifelike. I went to Disney’s Hollywood studios when I was in the sixth grade and actually learned how they animated Mulan; they put sensors on humans and had them act the scenes in the movie out and then, using advanced technology, animated these motions making the movie as a whole seem much more lifelike.

I found the plot of both movies to be very similar. Spirited Away involves a character that spends the entirety of the movie trying to overcome an obstacle and eventually succeeds in the end. This plot line is not only similar to Mulan but pretty much every Disney movie ever created. However one thing I did notice was that while Mulan had a sidekick (Mushu), Chihiro did not. Another thing that I observed is that while the music in Mulan was almost like a musical with catchy tunes and light hearted lyrics, Spirited Away features only background music. On the whole, I feel like Mulan is more of cheerful story featuring funny characters and a captivating plot line while Spirited Away is a more serious film that is equally as  captivating but not nearly as playful.