How ‘Spirited Away’ inspired an animator to create magic in Minecraft

It started with a bathhouse. Five hundred hours later, one fan had transformed his love for a classic anime film into the voxel art of Minecraft.

Freelance animator Alan Becker didn’t expect any reward for embarking on a three-year journey to re-create the world of Studio Ghibli’s beloved Spirited Away in Mojang’s build-anything sandbox game. It wasn’t about money. It wasn’t about fleeting Internet fame. It was a labor of passion, a compulsion to process the powerful emotions the film left him with and express them through art. Becker made it clear that this was something he needed to do.