I was just watching Spirited Away again today and I know that one of the problems with anime titles in the US, especially one like SA, is that we can't understand all of the meaning, especially if it is based on Japanese mythology. I haven't had any problems enjoying anime films, even with the 'lack of understanding.' Anyway, one scene in SA got me wondering what it meant while I was watching it today. It is the scene when Sen gives Haku the herbal cake and he coughs up the seal and the black thing. Then Sen squashes the black thing and gets that freaked out look on her face. Then Kamaji says something like 'Totally gross." Sen kind of hop-turns on one foot and puts her hands together, then Kamaji splits her two hands with his, and she is fine. To me it seems like something that some teenage girls would come up with if they saw or did something gross. I was just wondering if anyone knows what it really means. Thanks!

-CM-

Anyone? Theories, ideas, a guess?

-CM-

IIRC, she only had one shoe on, but the thing with her hands was that it was to drive away the evil spirits or something like that. kamaji explained it i think.

She was unclean due to what she had done.

"Totally gross" is not the literal translation... Kamaji says something like "you are now unclean".

The last part was to try to do a symbolic cleansing.

An american equivalent? We clap at the end of presentations, we put our hands over our hearts for pledges, we stand at attention...

Well when I saw it, the film was completely in Japanese with no English subtitles! Disney sent the wrong print to the theater. As of yet I have not had the opprotunity to see it subtitled or dubbed in English. So I couldn't even begin to tell you the significane of just about any scene.

Cool, thanks everyone. I was beginning to give up on this question. The symbolic cleansing makes sense.

-CM-