One of the greatest ailments of childhood is being so utterly obsessed with a film, but being so utterly terrified of one of its main characters. Every rewatch is doused in abrasive anxiety building up to the character’s reveal, teeth-chattering fear when they finally appear, and long nights aimlessly reminding yourself that your favorite hero did in fact put a stop to their wicked ways. We all have that character, and mine was Yubaba from Hayao Miyazaki’s 2001 classic Spirited Away.
When a young girl named Chihiro (Rumi Hiiragi) accidentally stumbles into the spirit world, she’s left on a quest to save her parents from the clutches of an evil sorceress named Yubaba (Mari Natsuki). The film is a breathtaking feat of animation brimming with so much heart and bittersweet fondness, but Yubaba is an absolute nightmare of a villain. From her knife-like nails constantly tracing Chihiro’s skin, to her bone-chilling screech commanding you to cower for safety, Yubaba is a walking fright fest — but she’s so good at it it’s hard not to love her.
With age, I’ve become entirely bewitched by her evil extravagance. She’s a wicked witch, a conniving business owner, a fierce fashion icon, a steadfast single mom, and is everything you could possibly wish for from a villainous sorceress. In my humble opinion, Yubaba is currently sitting on a throne towering above the likes of the Wicked Witch of the West, the Sanderson Sisters, and any other magical villainesses you could care to name.
Bigger is always better
What makes a witch? A ghastly signature look. A loyal, but terrifying henchman. A secret, yet not-so-secret lair. And an enemy, usually in the form of a little girl or a perfectly righteous sister. Yubaba boasts all of these qualities, and makes them even better — namely by going over the top in everything that she does.
While other witches hide in a dusty, mucky cottage, Yubaba resides in a seemingly endless, lavish penthouse that’s more or less a live-in treasure chest, filled to the brim with precious jewels, rare antiquities, and exotic gifts. Other witches might be known for their ascetic way of life and appearance, but not Yubaba. With a gorgeous gown adorned with a nice, fat jewel sewed in right where you can’t miss it, and hair so voluptuous it would put Winifred Sanderson to shame, Yubaba oozes decadence. It’s a vital, opulent excess that’s unfortunately missing in the world of witchcraft.
Yubaba’s decadence also extends to her playfully evil persona that sees her going to extreme lengths for the slightest bits of disappointment. Whether it’s turning people into pigs whenever they touch her food, or having an active vendetta against her twin sister just because she’s kind of nice, Yubaba takes the profile of a scorned witch and amps it up by a thousand. Breathing so much drama into all of her decision making which is, dare I say, a lost witchy art form only recently revived by Hocus Pocus 2.
Yubaba’s mystical yet incredibly menacing magic
Beyond her glitz and glamor, Yubaba is also a one-of-a-kind sorceress with magic that speaks to both unimaginable and tangibly real horrors. On the one hand, she dabbles in fantastical frights like telekinesis or turning people into lumps of coal or pigs as if they were Play-Doh — the sheer amount of coal in the bathhouse’s boiler room, and pigs in its barn, suggests that she’s had her fair share of humans annoying her.
On the other hand, Yubaba’s magic is also menacingly multi-faceted in ways that are entirely inspired by the human world. She knows that the scariest thing out there is capitalism, and exercises its systemic horrors by binding people to their jobs in her bathhouse with no way out, stealing their names in the process and forcing them to forget who they are, with only the memory of the worker name she gave them remaining. It’s a system that’s significantly more terrifying than turning into a pig because it’s so real.
Other witches rely on potions that can be counteracted, cages that can be broken, or curses that can be reversed, but Yubaba’s magic is reliant on a vicious cyclical system that continuously feeds itself. Much like the cycle in our own world, there’s no way Yubaba’s chain of command can ever be broken so long as business, and the workers that keep it going, remains intact. That nihilistic reality behind her magic is an unmatched feat of witchcraft.
The gray area of her evil
While Yubaba is terrifying, she’s not your archetypal villain. She’s actually more of a morally gray antagonist. Miyazaki is famously known to not believe in pure good or pure evil, with all of his characters being a mix of both aspects. His antagonists usually have a justifiable motive behind their actions, and if you pay close attention you’ll realize that most of them end up befriending the protagonists or helping them out in a certain way. Yubaba is no exception to that philosophy, which makes her ten times more interesting.
The majority of Yubaba’s motives stem from her being a single mom running a business. She goes to extremes to protect her kid and keep the bathhouse going. And she’s so concerned with the wellbeing of her guests that we see her doing anything for their comfort. When a stink spirit shows up at the bathhouse, it’s all hands on deck, with Yubaba assuming a persona that’s entirely new to us at that point. From helping Chihiro with handling the stink spirit, to hugging her by the scene’s end while gleefully announcing that all sake is on the house tonight, we see Yubaba being a responsible boss with an understanding that hierarchy isn’t always the answer.
Her magic is also bound to different oaths and rules that explain why she acts the way that she does. When she subjects Chihiro to one last test in the film’s finale, it’s not because she wants to torment the girl further: It’s because the spell can only be broken if Chihiro correctly identifies her parents. Or when Chihiro first meets her and asks for a job, Yubaba explains that she’s bound to an oath where she must give work to anyone who asks her. Yes, she’s a witch and a ruthless capitalist, but she’s also subject to the rules of this world.
The gray layers to Yubaba’s character make her so much more of a dynamic witch. While other cinematic crones usually vanish at the hands of a righteous hero, Yubaba is alive and well by Spirited Away’s end because she never was the target in the first place. She’s an obstacle and a menace, but she’s not a pure villain so there isn’t any real reason to banish her. And maybe that’s exactly where her strong suit lies.
Yubaba is a feast of personality. She brings such unique qualities to the witch’s cauldron, and is one of fiction’s most criminally overlooked sorceresses. My eight-year-old self couldn’t stand the sight of her, but my 23-year-old self needs so much more of her. In an alternate timeline where Miyazaki is fond of sequels and spin-offs, I would be the first in line for Yubaba’s origin story. Imagine all the wicked fun.
