Gravity Falls channels Spirited Away for Halloween

There are few shows I have fallen in love with faster than Gravity Falls. In fact, I knew I was going to like the show just by the many, many GIFs sent to me before I even watched the first episode. It’s still early in its first season, but I absolutely adore this show. It’s clever as hell, effortlessly hilarious, unafraid of being ridiculous and it features the dulcet tones of Ms. Kristen Schaal. Seriously, Schaal has a voice made for cartoons and her character Mabel is everything I wish I could be (“I’m legalizing everything!”). But the other great aspect of the show is the wide array of pop culture references, often hidden within the show so that only fans of that show/movie/etc. will notice and get really excited they got a shout-out. Hence this week’s episode.

Despite Gravity Falls being set in the summer, I don’t think the writers could pass up making a Halloween episode for the show all about creepy legends. Hence Summerween, which is just like Halloween except it fits with the premise of the show. Mabel does point out that the holiday seems forced … until she’s reminded it means free candy and then she’s A-OK with it! So, a sinister masked creature called the Summerween Trickster promises to eat the Mystery Twins and their friends unless they get 500 pieces of candy before the melon lanterns go out. Our brave young heroes don’t make their goal (thanks to Dipper being embarrassed about trick-or-treating) and the creature goes after them. It’s during the beginning of the chase that I noticed how much the Trickster looked and moved like No Face from Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. For one, the Trickster had become long and lumpy. For another, he started moving on all fours. Oh, and the whole wanting to eat people thing. I wondered if it really was a deliberate nod to Miyazaki or if I was just imagining it … until the creature changed into this:

Now let’s take a look at the original:

Oh yeah, it’s deliberate.

But why Spirited Away? Just a couple of weeks ago Gravity Falls did a very literal homage to Street Fighter and other arcade games. After that, I was expecting an episode filled with classic scary movie references. Except for one Friday the 13th-esque shot early in the episode, there really weren’t any, so I was especially surprised that this nod to Studio Ghibli was so prominent in the episode. Granted, it’s definitely one of Miyazaki’s more disturbing characters, but it’s not exactly Halloween-y. On the other hand, I admire the hell out of this show for daring to take a pop culture reference and running with it in a way no one could possibly expect. What I’ve learning is that just like Dipper and Mabel, we never quite know what we’ll find next in Gravity Falls. And that’s half the fun.