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Arrietty, Arrietty Clock, fairy tale, Ghibli Studio, Hayao Miyazaki, Karigurashi no Arrietty, moé, Shawn, Shou, The Borrowers, The Secret World of Arrietty, Walt Disney
As expected from the creators of Spirited Away, The Secret World of Arrietty is another Studio Ghibli gem that would impeccably transport its viewers to the fantasy world. This movie has a highly sophisticated touch of moéness, attention to detail, simple yet endearing plotline, adorable characters, and superb musicality. And by the end of the movie, I felt like I magically travelled back in time where I used to believe that small people or the Borrowers exist.
The film is based on Mary Norton’s novel The Borrowers. Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli managed to produce a charming and refreshing piece by laying out some of its signature anime features. Unlike the book, the story particularly focused on the 14 year old Borrower named Arrietty. Her family lives a very modest lifestyle and only “borrow” what’s necessary to survive. In order to stay safe, they must not be seen by the Beans or humans. If they get spotted, the Borrowers must leave and look for a different place.
However, what I truly enjoyed about this movie is how it unleashed my inner childhood and reminded me my fascination with fairy tales and everything that’s cute. I love how Miyazaki didn’t incorporate monsters and magical powers, but instead used Arrietty’s classy kawaii-ness and the enchantment of their small world.
By the end of the film it made me wonder, how come we get all moé and charmed whenever we see something cute and why having our own small world is like a dream? It may seemed so simple but it’s fascinating how these infinitesimal thoughts can unleash big ideas.
Now that I’m writing this, it’s funny to admit that my sudden expression if I like somebody or something is always you’re so cute or kawaii-yo. This is something that I carry over since I was a young girl. My objects of desire always allured me to keep them by myself—like hide them in my pockets. Thus, the thought of something cute gives us that towering and dominating feeling. And just like Shou, these things give us something that we can protect and treasure
Further, whenever we feel embarrassed don’t we just all want to hide or disappear? On the flip side, it might be inappropriate for me to say but don’t we love and find it cute whenever we embarrassed somebody—not in a bad way of course, but embarrassed enough for them to blush and say hazukashii-yo—then afterwards all we want to do is say hnggg and hug them.
Aside from that, I remembered when I was a kid I was so fixated with castle sands, doll-houses, puzzles, and stars. For instance, I love the fact how doll-houses can be so intricate yet occupy only minimum space. I enjoy looking at them as I get absorbed by the world that I could fully see. Hence, the idea of nearsightedness or closely focusing and everything graspable can fascinatingly spellbind us with the exquisiteness of microcosm.
As matter fact, nearsightedness inspired Mary Norton to write her novel. She admitted that as a child she used was to be myopic and this wasn’t diagnosed until she went to boarding school. Norton also confessed recalling her life before glasses made it easier for her to imagine a race of tiny people, living close at hand and among the ants.
Now come to think of it, when we were kids, it’s so easy for us to believe that we are bigger than the stars and they are just within our reach—a simple thought but huge in concept. For most, we can see how ideal the world is—everything cute and fancy.
This conquering feeling is what exactly brought me back in time when I used to see the world quite differently and used to pay attention to things close at hand. Plus, I came to a realization that our childhood selves are just like Arrietty—Borrowers avoid everyone, especially humans, except they’re own race—at some point of our lives—we tend to avoid everyone yet we’re so immensely curious to find out how this big world works.
Lemmas and Submodalities 
It’s like the Borrowers and Thumbelina all in one movie. DAMN IT, THEY HAD BETTER GET THIS MOVIE ON MY CONTINENT!
Do you live in North America? I thought Disney was bringing it very sooN~!
I’m Aruban. So no, we didn’t get it yet and I don’t know if we ever will.
I’m hoping that they will also release it there, it’s a wonderful,classy and gorgeous anime. I thought Walt Disney films always have World Preview.
Well hopefully the Caribbean will get enough common sense to show it here.
Because of the nature of the Borrowers’ size, it’s understandable that anime fans and lovers of cute in general would consider Arrietty moe, though i don’t think that was the intention of the author, or of the movie producers. I view the Borrowers as formidable survivors and hunters, who would cringe at the idea of a human picking them up and coddling them in the name of protection. Likewise, when you describe Arrietty as one who avoids everyone, I don’t find that necessarily true. She only avoids the humans because of the countless cruel stories that she has heard. She seems to love her home, and the stories usually result in their people having to leave. When Spiller comes along, she easily speaks to him out of her hunger to interact with others of their kind.
The discussion of the author’s change in eye sight affecting her views of the wonders of the world around her was very interesting to me because I am extremely near-sighted and have been since a very young age. I constantly fantasize about waking up with crystal clear vision, easily spotting the whorls and grain in my wood ceiling. Until then, I’m doomed to designer glasses chosen to distract form the thickness of the lenses, and likewise thick and irritating contacts. Someday, maybe, I’ll be able to see the sparkle in the little things, like Arrietty :)
Because of the nature of the Borrowers’ size, it’s understandable that anime fans and lovers of cute in general would consider Arrietty moe, though i don’t think that was the intention of the author,
Yes, it’s never the intention of the author. Mary Norton is British and this novel is published in 1952. I only happened to describe it as sophisticated moé because I was truly impressed by how cute and intricate the details are and how Miyazaki made a western novel/film as his own masterpiece catering to the anime fans. And yes, I definitely agreed how you described the Borrowers. However, I chose to divert my post from their nature because there are already a lot of write-ups which described the characteristics of the Borrowers. I’d like to explore more on the simple fact and what made this animation magical and appealing.
I chose cuteness (quality of appearance and size) as my theme because in children’s world almost everything is described as cute and fancy. It was highly regarded that children associate size to power. Say for instance, children can feel insecurity towards “big people” because they lack in size. Thus, in their world they also seek something that they can overlook and take care. Overtime, this ideology circulated in fairy tales, it’s either a child is in a world bigger than her—like Arrietty, or a in a world smaller than him—like Shou.
Likewise, when you describe Arrietty as one who avoids everyone, I don’t find that necessarily true.
I’m sorry but I believed I said “tend to avoid everyone” simply because that’s how the Borrowers were depicted. They avoid any type of contacts except of their own kind. In addition, I also mentioned that Arrietty is full of curiosity–which is why she’s able to befriend with Shou—which she’s highly forbid by her race.
But I admit, that I have a flaw on my statement and I apologize if I was vague. I should’ve expanded my definition instead of using the word “everyone”. I just thought that it’s already obvious that Arrietty are not avoiding their own race.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
“how come we get all moé and charmed whenever we see something cute and why having our own small world is like a dream?”
Hmm… I think that in a warped way people look at pets the same way. Not to say that pets are nearly as smart as Arrietty but in a way its the bond we try to create with something we aren’t quite able to understand. The ability to communicate in a dialogue with a pet rabbit for instance is lost on most people. We don’t speak the same language. It may seem harder to understand with Arrietty and Shawn. A humans attitude toward a pet usually seems to entail some expectation that the human is somehow more intelligent and that the human is looking at the rabbit, for example, as a simpler being. Weirdly, this is the relationship that I saw between Arrietty and Shawn. Shawn was taking the role of the parent or guardian while Arrietty seemed to fit the role of a daughter or a pet. Which is unusual because they seemed to be a similar age? Ah roles in a relationship can be so confusing.
Sorry about the rambling. :)
The idea of pets and everything cute is one of the properties (psychology) of children’s fairy tales. From what I read, Say for instance, Shou wanted to befriend a Arrietty. Then we also noticed that Arrietty is presented very cutely (small and pretty). So the idea behind this is children are usually treated as Arrietty, until overtime children are also imagining and creating their own world wherein they can act like adults to somebody. From there, the picture of small and big people come into life. So I’m not surprised with how you viewed Arrietty as pet.
Since you mentioned pet, I also read that the property of wanting to be kept and wanting to keep is another social phenomenon behind fairy tales. They’re making these stories so ideal to humans.
And please, no worries about the rambling. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I haven’t actually seen this movie yet, but I’d like to. Just looking at what I’ve seen, everything appears so magical, despite there not appearing to be much magic there at all.
I never thought all that much about my feelings toward cuteness. Seeing something cute and wanting to take it home is just something that came natural to me.
There’s really nothing “magical” in a sense that you’ll get glitters and sparks, but it’s magical in a sense that it’s believable urban legend–something that you hear when you were a kid. That’s why I believed that the cuteness of this film is one of the things that made it really magical.
The movie sounds really cute :3 Can’t wait to go see it!
I highly believe you’ll like it. Enjoy.
“don’t we love and find it cute whenever we embarrassed somebody”
That totally reminded me of my school days, except I was the one getting embarrassed, it was horrible. A lot of girls treated me like this cute little thing that they could play around with, which really hurt my pride.
But back to the movie, I also thought it was wonderful how it brought me back to my childhood when I believed that anything was possible and that everything was within my reach. I think people find moe so irresistable because it’s ingrained into them. If people didn’t find things like babies cute, then there would probably be a lot less kids around.
A lot of girls treated me like this cute little thing that they could play around with, which really hurt my pride.
That kind of a feeling is one of the–said to be–roots of having small people as characters in children’s fairy tales. Assuming that children are already feeling so much insecurity in the real world, hence when brought up to their world, they feel less insecure (Shou). Or, the insecurity is being overwhelmed by the power of smallness (Arrietty).
I believe bringing back its viewers to their childhood state is the best charm of this film. It doesn’t really have that mind-blowing experience but the feel good immersion is there.
Hm, I’ve heard of the movie and I think it’s time to download it and watch it. The same feelings of childhood happiness I got them from Totoro as well, though there we talk about a huge panda-rabbit-whatever :)
Oh I know the sweet mischief of teasing someone, although I’m not sure how much I enjoy it myself; it depends what is said I guess. I have to confess that I feel kinda lucky I can blush. I’m aware that especially boys find that cute and it proved quite the charm with my loved one lol.
As for the terms you use, I prefer tenfolds ‘kawaii’ rathen than ‘moe’. I’ m not sure, if that’s because I can’t seem to like the style of what’s usually moe or the mainstream memes and cliches or perhaps the fetish side it has which somehow hides sexual vibes…
Now about the favoritism to small things… I can’t really remember to have such feelings. I’ve always got fascinated by pretty, cute, fluffy or intricate things, but I can’t recall having a thing for miniatures. Sure I liked fairies, though it wasn’t for their size. It’s very interesting how you put it, that children need to tend to smaller things as adults do to them, but I also believe it has to do with a process of indentifying with ‘small people’ that resemble them.
I prefer tenfolds ‘kawaii’ rathen than ‘moe’.
Same here. But when I was writing the post kawaii isn’t exactly encompasses the same layers as the word “cute” has. I felt like kawaii is just like the physical face-value state but not the actual “small” size, that’s why I used moe. I’m not really familiar with these memes, I just want to use these because to incorporate how Miyazaki anime-ize a Western novel.
but I also believe it has to do with a process of indentifying with ‘small people’ that resemble them.
Totally agreed with this, you just managed to verbalize something that I couldn’t put into a simple sentence. Thanks, ayame. ^^
Me and my girlfriend had the pleasure of seeing this a few days ago. I really enjoyed it. I went in expecting it to be good. The woman who sold us tickets even told us how high of ratings it got online. The movie was really everything I was expecting.
For some weird reasons at certain points in the movie I felt a love story would somehow develop between Sean and Arrietty. That is probably just me though.
I’m glad that you and your girlfriend found some time and enjoyed the film. When I watched the film a lot of couples are also watching since it’s on a Valentine’s Week.
I find it rather interesting and unusual that “moe” or “cute” is being used to describe a character in a Ghibli film. Miyazaki has actively criticized the moe aesthetic and decried that “otaku culture” that reveres it. Obviously, there is a distinct difference between Arrietty and say… Fortune Arterial, but until now I have never seen any female Ghibli character that I would describe as “cute”.
Arrietty is just plain adorable, in a totally innocent way. It goes a long way in endearing her to the audience. As great as Ghibli films are, it’s cool to see there are still new kinds of characters they are trying out.
I didn’t know that Ghibli criticized moe. Maybe if I knew that, I would research more on what actually moe means. I always thought that these are cute anime girls but not necessarily fetishized–kind of similar to kawaii but cuter. Anyway, that’s good to know, next time I’ll be more aware with the slangs and memes that I’m using.
“However, what I truly enjoyed about this movie is how it unleashed my inner childhood and reminded me my fascination with fairy tales and everything that’s cute.”
Totally agreed. In fact, I read The Borrowers when I was young, and this is soooo nostalgic. Ghibli has an uncanny ability to bring up that warm feeling.
We might be able to extend this idea of hiding away cute stuff and fascination with doll houses into an innate human nature to possess… and more cynically, our insatiable want for the ideal world… Lots of it. I wonder~
p.s. “hazukashii-yo”
Oh you~ ^ ^ I want to hide you away.
Cynicism, interesting. Though I don’t disagree with you, sometimes I wonder if humans are really naturally possessive or are only acting like that because we experience fear and insecurity—small people vs large people comparison.
p.s. “hazukashii-yo”
Oh you~ ^ ^ I want to hide you away.
You know you’re being cruel and charming at the same time. >///<
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