This Friday I watched the animated movie Spirited Away for the second time, but because I first saw it a number of years ago I remembered very little about the plot. Overall, I thought the movie was really interesting as it incorporated many different themes throughout the story which made it a pleasure to watch. One thing in particular that stood out to me, both when I first watched it and now, was the scene of the supposed stink-spirit coming for a bath. I don’t know what a stink spirit is supposed to look like, but this character was a unit of a spirit that was dripping with sludge and reeked of something awful. However, after getting into the bath and being thoroughly washed off, the main character, Sen (Chihiro) thought she felt a thorn in his side. This actually turned out to be the handle of a bicycle, and has the bathhouse staff pulled it out, they removed an absurd amount of garbage and pollution to reveal a majestic river spirit. This was an really eye-opening way to symbolize the impact that pollution is having on our freshwater ecosystems, and show how once-beautiful rivers and streams are being destroyed by pollution and littering. Unfortunately though, unlike in the film, our polluted rivers can’t be fixed so easily, and much more effort is needed if we are to preserve the remaining streams and waterways we have. I thought that this scene was really important, not only for character development, but also to show the effects of pollution in a new way so that people may become more aware of the environment. Hopefully this scene makes people think more about how they could be contributing to environmental destruction like it did for me, and  challenges them to try and become more active in preserving our ecosystem.