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Chihiro was traveling by train to the sixth station in _Spirited Away_
([YouTube video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pznqTTkurvw)). When the train
passed the second station, there was a little girl waiting at the station.

![the girl waiting at the train station](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uCcbpl.png)

Out of curiosity, I visited Google for some hints and was surprised to see
some people say that the little girl's name is Setsuko from _Grave of the
Fireflies_. She was waiting for her older brother.

Is the girl waiting at the train station in _Spirited Away_ , Setsuko from
_Grave of the Fireflies_?


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2016-01-17T12:49:01.430
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spirited-away
Is the girl waiting at the train station in Spirited Away from Grave of the Fireflies?


I've tried searching around (in English) for people with this theory: I only
managed to find one or two results that mentioned this when searching either
for `spirited away train station girl` or `spirited away train station
setsuko`.

That aside, the girl at the station doesn't _obviously_ look like Setsuko.
Setsuko generally looks rather small and (slightly) chubby, in a very childish
way. (After all, Setsuko is only four-years-old or so.) This is the case even
at the end of the film, where Seita and Setsuko look over Kobe in spirit form:
the characters look the same age as they were at their deaths.

![Setsuko](https://i.stack.imgur.com/nrE3Il.jpg)

Meanwhile, the girl at the train station is somewhat taller and older in
appearance. This girl also doesn't have Setsuko's hair (at least not overtly)
and isn't wearing the sort of clothes we'd usually associate with Setsuko.

Absent such obvious markers, fan commentary, or any statements (e.g. in the
form of art-book trivia) by the producers, I would conclude that this most
likely _isn't_ Setsuko.


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2016-02-08T20:16:05.160
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I believe that it's Mei's sister from _My Neighbor Totoro_ , Satsuki.

I've noticed the movies may be linked because it mentioned that Chihiro loses
her pink shoe in the river, Satsuki finds a shoe in a river thinking it was
Mei's when really it could've been Chihiro's from when she was drowning. She's
also seen at a bus stop waiting with Totoro when their father is supposed to
be on the train.

![Satsuki from My Neighbor Totoro](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Q4YHFm.png)


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2018-06-24T05:37:37.620
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answer


Spirited Away is a criticism of Japanese consumerism and the loss of personal
integrity in compassion for others. Most of the spirits on the train are
salarymen who had worked their lives away and who now are arriving at their
afterlives with no one waiting to greet them. Following the interpretation of
"My Neighbor Totoro" that Totoro is actually a children's spirit guide to the
afterlife, I think this is Satsuki from that film, possibly waiting for the
arrival of her father. The shoes that Satsuki found and that Chihiro lost also
connect the films through water.


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