Spirited Away(Official Studio Ghibli) is Hayao Miyazaki’s animated feature released in 2001.
This time, I want to consider a persistent rumor about one of the film’s central characters, Haku.
The rumor is that Haku is Chihiro’s deceased older brother.
It may sound far-fetched, but what interests me is that it is not quite as absurd as it first seems. Read that way, parts of Spirited Away become easier to make sense of.
That is not the only possibility, though, so I will explore some alternatives too.
I have no statement from Miyazaki or anyone involved in the production confirming this theory. It is important to keep treating it as a rumor.
*This is a translated version. The original (Japanese) is available here.
- A Deceased Brother—or a Childhood Friend?
A “child’s hand” in the storyboard, Chihiro’s mother’s puzzling manner, and parallels with Kenji Miyazawa’s Night on the Galactic Railroad suggest a reading in which Haku died saving her. They are clues for a theory, not proof. - Haku as the River Spirit
The film identifies Haku as Nigihayami Kohakunushi, the spirit of the Kohaku River. A storyboard note about a hand known to those who have fallen into a river offers another way to read his help. - A Story of Saying Thank You
I see the people who help Chihiro as “mysterious hands.” Perhaps the film is also a way of thanking the unseen support that helped us grow up. - Haku’s Future: A New Beginning at the Bathhouse?
Haku has lost the place he came from. Comparing him with Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke, I want to imagine him finding a place for himself at the bathhouse.
On this pageContents
What Is Haku’s True Identity?
Haku’s name and his memories connect the bathhouse story with Chihiro’s past. The possibilities below consider how those connections shape his identity.
Possibility One: Haku Is Chihiro’s Deceased Brother
Clue One: The Storyboard’s “Child’s Hand”
The first and most important clue is a brief image near the end. Riding Haku in his dragon form from Zeniba’s cottage back to the bathhouse, Chihiro remembers falling into a river as a small child.
A hand reaches toward her in the water, but we do not see another child. From my first viewing, I assumed it was her father’s hand: the sleeve looked rather like his short-sleeved shirt. I can still see it that way, but the storyboard explicitly says “a child’s hand” (子供の手).
Whose hand is it? That is the question.
Taking it to be her brother’s hand is the starting point of this theory. Since the film gives no other indication that Chihiro has a brother, the theory has him die in the river: perhaps while saving her, or while retrieving her shoe. What matters to this reading is that Chihiro was somehow involved in his death, that day in the river.
It sounds a little far-fetched, but it offers an explanation for at least one troubling detail.
Clue Two: Chihiro’s Mother’s Brusque Manner
From the opening of Spirited Away, her mother’s treatment of Chihiro leaves me uneasy. She seems curt, perhaps even dismissive, as though an invisible wall separates them.
Suppose she feels that her eldest son’s death was caused by Chihiro—or that Chihiro can be seen as its cause. Her manner then becomes somewhat easier to understand.
Within this imagined history, her mother would not blame Chihiro wholeheartedly. She and her husband should have been watching; their son should not have had to save his sister. But feelings contain contradictions. Even knowing this, she might find herself unable to treat her daughter as she normally would.
The idea that Haku is Chihiro’s deceased brother thus offers one explanation for her mother’s puzzling behavior.
Clue Three: Night on the Galactic Railroad
Something else falls into place with this reading: Miyazaki had Kenji Miyazawa’s Night on the Galactic Railroad in mind, at least to some extent, when making Spirited Away.
The late sequence in which the train travels across the sea is wonderfully dreamlike. It could be called a homage to Miyazawa’s story. In The Place Where the Wind Returns (風の帰る場所), Miyazaki says:
“…What I wanted to draw more of was the train journey. You fall asleep, and unfamiliar towns pass by. Then you forget which station you’ve reached and rush to the conductor’s compartment, but there’s no conductor. Only the lights of the town receding into the darkness swirl around. This is Night on the Galactic Railroad, you know. (Laughs.)”
The train scene, at least, clearly had Night on the Galactic Railroad in mind. But that story is also a conversation between Giovanni and Campanella, with an important premise: Campanella has died trying to save someone.
If Miyazawa’s story was on Miyazaki’s mind in making Spirited Away, it would not be strange for someone already dead to appear here too. It might even feel natural. Haku is the obvious candidate.
Taking Chihiro’s mother’s manner into account, the theory makes Spirited Away a conversation—and a farewell—between Chihiro and a brother whose existence she never knew. It is a sad thought, but it fits enough pieces together that I would not dismiss it out of hand.
Possibility Two: Haku Is a Deceased Childhood Friend
As a possibility, Haku need not be her brother. With Night on the Galactic Railroad in mind, a friend might fit even better: someone who died trying to save Chihiro.
That would bring them closer to Giovanni and Campanella. We could read their bond as love, rather than specifically sibling love, making Kamaji’s “It’s love” all the more moving.
Her mother’s manner may still seem puzzling. But this version could explain it too.
If her daughter had been involved in another child’s death, dealing with the aftermath would have been exhausting. Perhaps she and her husband spent a long time apologizing. The realities that followed, rather than the relief of her daughter surviving, might then have shaped her treatment of Chihiro.
I have focused on the mother, but the father sees her manner and looks the other way. In this reading, that could suggest something unresolved in him too. A childhood friend’s death might explain that more convincingly than a brother’s.
Possibility Three: Haku Was Always the River Spirit
The Mysterious Hand
So far, I have entertained the deceased-brother rumor. But every clue offered is circumstantial, not conclusive. If I were convicted on evidence like this, I would curse the world. Let’s return to the simplest reading: Haku was always the spirit of the Kohaku River, Nigihayami Kohakunushi.
The clue is the same storyboard used for the brother theory. I have emphasized “a child’s hand,” but now I want to consider the words beneath it:
The note reads: “Anyone who has fallen into a river knows” (川におちたことのある人ならしっている).
I have never fallen into a river, so I cannot say from experience. Still, it is a curious note.
If it were simply a hand extended to someone in the river, people watching could know it too. Yet the note seems to describe something known only to the person who fell in.
Perhaps, then, it is not a real person’s hand, but a mysterious hand that expresses the miracle of surviving a fall into a river.
Weren’t we often saved by such mysterious hands as children? Children seem to find danger irresistible as a form of play, with accidents and narrow escapes following close behind.
Perhaps we are still alive because we too encountered something like the hand Chihiro met in the river. Ordinarily, of course, we call it luck.
Read that way, Spirited Away might be a story of saying thank you to whatever saved us.
Chihiro survives through help from Haku, Lin, Kamaji, No-Face, Zeniba, and others. It all begins with Yubaba giving her work. Lin’s reminder to thank Kamaji might also belong to this story of gratitude. Perhaps all those strange beings represent someone’s “mysterious hand.” Perhaps we too survived thanks to one of the gods resting at the bathhouse.
Rethinking the Mother’s Coldness
If Haku was always a river spirit, does that leave her mother’s manner unexplained? Not necessarily: mothers and daughters like this do exist.
Chihiro being ten may matter too. She is still a child, but she is beginning to assert a sense of self. Her parents may also feel guilty about making her change schools. As first-time parents, they may not have found a comfortable distance from their growing daughter. I would not condemn them too harshly for that.
It is easy to imagine her father struggling with that distance too. Seen this way, neither parent’s behavior is especially mysterious. Perhaps Chihiro senses their difficulties and, through being spirited away, travels somewhere beyond that situation. We do not need a deceased brother to explain their manner.
I have explored the rumor by both entertaining it and questioning it.
The brother theory is fascinating: the pieces fit together so neatly that it can draw you in. Yet I keep returning to the storyboard’s words about those who have fallen into a river. For me, the idea that Haku was always the river spirit feels more convincing than a brother or friend becoming one.
I have lived a fair number of years myself. Perhaps I had a Haku watching over me—or a Campanella from Miyazawa’s story. I feel it may be time for me to think a little more about saying thank you.
What do you think?
Reader poll
An Afterthought: Hoping for Haku’s Future
I have focused on who Haku is, but what happens to him afterward is also worth wondering about.
We can only imagine it. I want to imagine as good a future as possible, starting from two points:
- Even with his name restored, Haku has no home to return to.
- We already know another admirable young man with no home to return to.
This makes Haku’s earlier warning—“Without your real name, you’ll never find your way home”—far more tragic in retrospect. I examine the Japanese wording and English translation of this line in our Spirited Away quotes guide.
The Kohaku River no longer exists; recovering his name does not restore his home. But perhaps the bathhouse is the new place he found after his river was filled in—as if he had been told he was no longer needed. That recalls Ashitaka in Princess Mononoke, who leaves home, travels west without a destination, and eventually finds Irontown.
The ending of Mononoke has its ambiguities, but Ashitaka will live in Irontown and visit San in the forest. It is his new home, and I see him as a fitting successor to Lady Eboshi.
Haku, too, has nowhere to return to and has found a new place in the bathhouse. Perhaps he managed to make a life there afterward. I want to believe he did.
How do you imagine his future?
The images used in this article are from Studio Ghibli Works Still Images.
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I believe the child’s hand is chihiro’s hand – we are seeing her point of view when she is falling into the river. this ties out with the note “anyone who has fallen into a river knows” of course you put your hand out to try and catch your fall, and of course water simply gives way despite this instinct. love all the analysis you’ve written!
Thank you so much! I really love your take on the hand being Chihiro’s. The connection to the instinct of reaching out to catch a fall is a brilliant observation.