Spirited Away took the world by storm with its theatrical release and won Best Animated Feature at the 2003 Academy Awards. However, before the global acclaim and accolades, Spirited Away wasn’t always easy to bring to American audiences and it certainly wasn’t straightforward. A lot of hard work and advocacy came from American partners of Hayao Miyazaki.

One of them was John Lasseter, the former Chief Creative Officer of Pixar, who played a huge part in convincing Walt Disney Pictures to buy the rights and took personal responsibility for the English dub.

Haku and Chihiro from Spirited Away. [Credit: Studio Ghibli]

According to Hayao Miyazaki, the creative office had heavily advocated for Spirited Away to come to an American audience. The act obviously paid off as Spirited Away became the first hand-drawn, Japanese anime and non-English-language animated film. The two became admirers of each other through this partnership.

Lasseter’s...