Anime and Disney comparison

Joe Osborne

Film covers

Spirited Away

Ten-year old Chihiro and her parents are moving when her father takes a wrong turn. Her father thinks they've found an abandoned amusement park and insists on exploring. Chihiro finds an exquisite bathhouse. Suddenly a boy orders her to cross the river before dark. Spirits begin haunting the park, and when Chihiro returns to her parents, they have become pigs. Chihiro runs to the river, but it has flooded and is impossible to cross. The boy, whose name is Haku, finds her and says he has known her since she was little. He tells her to ask for a job from the bathhouse's boiler-man, Kamaji. Kamaji and the worker Lin send Chihiro to the witch Yubaba, who runs the bathhouse. Yubaba gives Chihiro a job but steals her name. She is renamed Sen, the first character of her name.Haku shows Sen her parents' pigpen. Among her belongings, she finds a goodbye card addressed to Chihiro. Sen realizes that she has already forgotten her name. Haku warns her that Yubaba controls people by taking their names. If she forgets hers like he has forgotten his, then she cannot leave the spirit world.At work, Sen invites a silent masked creature inside. A stink spirit arrives and is Sen's first customer. She discovers he is the spirit of a polluted river. In gratitude for cleaning him, he gifts Sen with a magic emetic dumpling. Secretly, the masked creature tempts a worker with gold, then swallows him. Publically, the creature demands food and begins tipping extravagantly.The next morning, Sen sees paper shikigami attacking a dragon. She recognizes the dragon as Haku transformed. When Haku crashes into Yubaba's penthouse, she runs upstairs. As she passes the masked creature, he offers her a heap of gold, but she refuses it.When Sen reaches Haku, a shikigami that stowed away on her back transforms into Zeniba, Yubaba's identical twin sister. Zeniba turns Yubaba's baby son Boh into a mouse and creates a decoy baby. Haku has stolen a magic gold seal from her, and she warns that it carries a deadly curse. Haku dives to the boiler room with Sen and Boh on his back. As they fall, Sen has a memory of being underwater. She feeds Haku part of the dumpling, and he vomits up the seal and a black slug that Sen crushes. She resolves to return the seal and apologize for Haku.Before she leaves, she confronts the masked creature, who is a monster named No-Face. No-Face has become disgustingly obese, so Sen feeds him the rest of the dumpling. He begins vomiting and angrily chases Sen out of the bathhouse. As he vomits, he returns to a normal size and a gentle demeanor.While Sen, No-Face, and Boh travel to Zeniba, Yubaba is furious at the damage caused by No-Face. She blames Sen for inviting him in and orders that her parents be slaughtered. Haku prods her into realizing that her baby is missing. He proposes to return Boh in exchange for Yubaba freeing Sen and her parents. Sen, No-Face, and Boh arrive at Zeniba's house. Zeniba reveals that Sen's love for Haku broke her curse. The black slug was how Yubaba controlled him. Haku arrives. As he flies her and Boh back to the bathhouse, Sen has another memory of being underwater: When she was little, she fell in the Kohaku River but was washed safely ashore. She realizes that Haku is the spirit of the Kohaku River and tells him his name.To break the curse on her parents, Sen must recognize them from among a group of pigs. She correctly discerns that her parents are not there. Haku takes her to the riverbed, which is dry once more. He says that he can't come with her, and she must not look back, but they will surely meet again.

Alice in wonderland

Troubled by a strange recurring dream and mourning the loss of her beloved father, nineteen-year-old Alice Kingsleigh attends a garden party at Lord Ascot's estate, where she is confronted by an unwanted marriage proposal and the stifling expectations of the society in which she lives. Unsure of how to reply, and increasingly confused, she runs away to chase after a rabbit in a blue waistcoat, and accidentally falls into a large rabbit hole. She is transported to a world called Wonderland, where she is greeted by the White Rabbit, the Dormouse, the Dodo, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee. They argue over her identity as "the right Alice", who it is foretold will slay the Red Queen's Jabberwocky on the Frabjous Day and restore the White Queen to power. The group is then ambushed by the Bandersnatch and a group of playing-card soldiers led by the Knave of Hearts. Alice escapes and flees into the woods.The Knave informs the Red Queen that Alice has returned and threatens her reign, and the soldiers are ordered to find Alice immediately. Meanwhile, the wandering Alice encounters the Cheshire Cat, who takes her to the March Hare and the Hatter. On the way to the White Queen's castle, Hatter relates the terror of the Red Queen's reign, and comments that Alice is not the same as she once was. The Hatter helps Alice avoid capture by allowing himself to be seized instead. Later, Alice is found by Bayard the Bloodhound, who wishes to take her to the White Queen, but Alice insists upon helping the Hatter, so they go to the Red Queen's castle.The Red Queen is unaware of Alice's true identity and therefore welcomes her as a guest. Alice learns that the Vorpal Sword (the only weapon capable of killing the Jabberwocky) is locked away in a case inside the Bandersnatch's den. The Knave crudely attempts to seduce Alice, but she rebuffs him. She later manages to retrieve the sword and befriend the Backhander. The Knave finds her with the sword and attempts to arrest her. Alice escapes on the back of the Bandersnatch and delivers the sword to the White Queen. The Cheshire Cat saves the Hatter from execution, and the Hatter calls for rebellion against the Red Queen. The rebellion is quickly put down by the Jubjub bird. The resistance flees to the White Queen's castle, and both armies prepare for battle. Alice remains unsure about the expectation for her to champion the White Queen, and meets with Absolem the Caterpillar. He reminds Alice of her past visit to Under land (which she mistakenly called "Wonderland" at the time) thirteen years earlier, and helps give her the courage to fight the Jabberwocky and accomplish "What she must to do", while he becomes a pupa.When the Frabjous Day arrives, both the White and Red Queens gather their armies on a chessboard-like battlefield and send forth their chosen champions (armor-clad Alice and the Jabberwocky respectively) to decide the fate of Underland. Encouraging herself with the words of her late father, Alice manages to kill the Jabberwocky. The White Queen then banishes the Red Queen and the Knave to the Outlands, and gives Alice a vial of the Jabberwocky's blood, which will take her home. The Hatter suggests that she could stay in Underland, but she decides that she must go back and promises that she will return.Alice returns home, where she stands up to her family and pledges to live life on her own terms. Impressed, Lord Ascot takes her in as his apprentice, with the idea of establishing oceanic trade routes to China. As the story closes, Alice prepares to set off on a trading ship. Absolem, now a butterfly, lands on her shoulder. Alice recognizes him and greets him before he flutters away.

Character comparison

Alice – Chihiro/Sen/ the hero: the comparison between these two characters is that they are both young girls who are scared of change but get transported to a different world where they face a lot of challenging tasks that they have to overcome and along they way they learn important life lessons that help them when they leave the strange new world.

White rabbit – Haku/ helper: these two characters are similar in the fact that they are both working for the ‘Evil witch’ characters but they also help the main character with there journey and helps them overcome some of there challenges and by the end of the film these characters and the main characters are close friends.

Red queen – Yubaba/ villain: these characters are the ‘Evil witch’ of the film and they are out to stop the main character and put the tasks in place for the main characters to overcome, these characters are there to make life harder for the main characters and to try and make them fail

Character Comparison

Mad Hatter – Kamajii/ dispatcher: these two characters also help the main character overcome one or two of their problems but do so in an unpredicted way, both characters come across as ‘mad’ and act silly all the time but overall they care about the main characters well being and help out I different ways

Cheshire cat – Lin/ the donor: these two characters are like the helper characters but they only appear a handful of times and make the main characters work for their answer in different ways

White queen – Zaniba/ these are the ‘False villain characters’: although these two characters comer across as ‘Evil’ at first we soon realize that they are indeed not only related to the villain characters but are also the complete opposite and even though they're related the the villain characters they still offer help and wisdom to the main character

Story line comparison

New world – both stories have the main character travel to a whole new world where everything is different and nothing seems right, but the main characters over come this problem and learn to adapt to there new surroundings. Both worlds are full of magical and strange beings that soon come to light as being perfectly normal to that world.

Evil queen/witch – both of the stories have a villainess character which is a witch/queen which are put there to make life for the main character hard and difficult to live with.

Helper to get to goal – both of the stories have one or two helper characters which are there to give advice and help to the main character to help them reach their goal of getting back to their own world.

Story line comparison

Scared main character who gets stronger – at the beginning of both films the main charect5er come s across as scared and timid and they look like they could never cope on their own but with persistence throughout the film they grow stronger and wiser and by the end of the film they have learned a lot of life lessons and seem very independent and capable of looking after themselves.

Gains friends along the way – throughout there journey in the new world they gain a lot of friends and collogues that help teach them new lessons and how to overcome obstacles in the main characters path.

Goes on life changing journey – both main characters go on a life changing journey that turns them into a more independent and stronger person that can cope with any situation there faced with.