# drawing spirited away, one impossible room at a time

- Link: https://tacobout.online/2026/10/31/the-bathhouse-had-a-design-phase/
- Published: 2026-10-31T13:00:00-05:00
- Author: schwegler

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An art book is a useful way to spend more time with a movie without asking it to
become a franchise. No sequel announcement required. Just let somebody explain how
the rooms got there.

_The Art of Spirited Away_ is the production-art option: VIZ’s 240-page hardcover
gathers paintings, designs, sketches, storyboards, commentary and a complete English-
language script. It is a book about the film’s visual construction, rather than 
another adaptation to follow through the same plot.

That distinction is the reason to consider it. A finished animated scene makes hundreds
of design decisions look inevitable. A room has a particular shape, a character 
occupies it a particular way, and somehow the whole thing feels like a place that
existed before the camera arrived. Looking at the preparatory work changes the question
from “what happens next?” to “how did anyone decide this should look like that?”

![Chihiro and her parents stand on a deserted street lined with colorful, ornate
buildings in Spirited Away.](https://i0.wp.com/tacobout.online/wp-content/uploads/
2026/10/chihiro003.jpg?resize=1920%2C1038&ssl=1)

The finished film gives those rooms and streets a life of their own. The book goes
back to the drawings that built them.

![Hayao Miyazaki at the 2008 Venice Film Festival.](https://i0.wp.com/tacobout.online/
wp-content/uploads/2026/10/body-miyazaki.jpg?resize=356%2C500&ssl=1)

[VIZ has a preview and edition details](https://www.viz.com/manga-books/art-book/art-of-spirited-away/product/4743).
Try that first. Choose this for an interest in drawing, environments or filmmaking;
skip it if what you want is a new story. The book includes the script, so it is 
better saved until after the film if you want to avoid plot details.

The linked edition is the English-language Studio Ghibli Library hardcover, ISBN**
9781569317778**. Check that number rather than treating every cover with Chihiro
on it as the same book. Apparently even a trip to a spirit bathhouse benefits from
checking the paperwork.

**The Art of Spirited Away**

English-language Studio Ghibli Library hardcover · VIZ · 240 pages · ISBN 9781569317778.

For the drawings, environments and decisions behind the finished film.

[View on Amazon (paid link)](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1569317771?tag=schweg-20)

For the finished film, here is [GKIDS’ official trailer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDUFP7EeXLE).
[Spirited Away on Trove](https://trove.schweg.xyz/movies/88-spirited-away-2001) 
keeps the film alongside the rest of the collection.

Image credits: featured photograph, [Ghibli Museum exterior](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ghibli_Museum_-_GhibliMuseum864.jpg),
lumoplank, [CC0](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/); [Hayao Miyazaki at the 2008 Venice Film Festival](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hayao_Miyazaki.jpg),
Thomas Schulz, [CC BY-SA 2.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/). 
Images resized for display; no other changes. The museum is contextual photography,
not a location depicted in the book or film; the portrait is editorial, not an endorsement.

Additional image: _Spirited Away_ film still, © 2001 Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli,
NDDTM, via [Studio Ghibli’s official still gallery](https://www.ghibli.jp/works/chihiro/).
This is a finished-film image, not a page from the book. Resized for display; no
crop.