There is evidence in the film that can lead people to believe Chihiro and Haku can be a couple, However, there are some who disagree that they had any sort of romantic element. On SparkNotes, it states the interaction between Chihiro and Haku is simply like a brother and sister relationship.
But at the end of the story, Haku is inherently a being whose home is the otherworld as much as Chihiro inherently belongs to the human world. This means that he's also the person that she cannot take with her when she leaves.
Haku was originally the spirit of the Kohaku River and knows Chihiro because he once saved her from drowning. When the river was destroyed and filled in with apartments, he no longer had a home and went to the spirit world, where he became Yubaba's apprentice.
Haku first appears as a boy of about sixteen, but he is actually a lost river spirit that also can take the form of a white dragon. In his guise as a white dragon his appearance suggests a river: flowing and graceful. As Haku, however, he is not always so composed, and he exhibits both bravery and real sadness.
HAKU Explained | [Spirited Away] | Studio Ghibli Lore
Why does Yubaba have a giant baby?
Yubaba has a giant baby because everyone has a grating weakness they find difficult to manage. Whatever Zeniba's seal represents, Yubaba wants it because she's greedy and grasping for power.
He takes an interest in her new servant, a human named Chihiro Ogino, because of her actions and sincerity. Chihiro sees him out in the rain, and not knowing who he is, allows him inside the Bathhouse. No-Face follows Chihiro around the Bathhouse, even stealing several Bath Tokens for her.
By the end of the film Sen addresses both Zeniba and Yubaba as “Granny,” which suggests not only that both twins are wise in their own way, but that they are merely two sides of the same coin.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean a sequel is in the works, but seeing as Haku is actually the spirit of the river from near Chihiro's childhood home, the two friends could be reunited if Chihiro revisits that same river one day.
"Bleeding from the inside" means bleeding internally; since Haku swallowed the seal it is inside of him and it's causing his internal organs to hemorrhage. The "paper birds" are Shikigami, spirits trapped in paper created by Zeniba.
This would explain why Chihiro doesn't remember Haku, as the pain her parents suffered could mean they no longer talk about him, so Chihiro grows up not knowing she ever had a brother.
She soon spots Chihiro and yells at her, stating she is the human everyone is looking for. Kamaji then lies, telling her Chihiro is his granddaughter, and asks Lin if she can take her to see Yubaba to get a job. Lin immediately demurs, saying she is not going to risk her life.
It's this mystery at the center of Spirited Away that makes Chihiro's silence to the question “Where have you been” so emotional. The “you” in question is paralyzingly emotional because Chihiro left herself behind long ago, amidst the hard work and trials of the bathhouse — she left the Chihiro she knew behind.
Not looking back is a huge theme in the movie, said Haku to Chihiro as she leaves the spirit world and goes back to the human world. When folklore and myths have characters entering the underworld, or dealing with spirits in general, there is usually a dire warning to not look back.
Over time, he begins to love her, as well. When he is near Yubaba, he behaves indifferent or cold to Chihiro so as to not arouse suspicion that they are friends.
However, Haku fell in the river and drowned, sacrificing his life to save her. Haku then became the guardian spirit of the river known as “Nigihayami Kohakunushi,” which translates to “God of the Swift Amber River."
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.
As the main antagonist of the film, Yubaba is extremely overbearing, intimidating and authoritarian. Like many other workers of her infamous bathhouse, Yubaba obsesses greedily over gold and is shown to be willing to view gold as a priority over her own family (especially Zeniba, whom she expresses hatred for).
Hidden in the fantastic, escapist narrative of Hayao Miyazaki's Oscar-winning movie Spirited Away, is an allegory about the horrors of capitalism and society's toxic obsession with work. Even two decades after the movie's release, it is still eerily relevant to our contemporary hustle work culture.
In Spirited Away, one message holds itself above all others: never forget who you are. Yubaba controls her employees by stealing their names and providing them with new ones. This act seems to make them forget their initial motivations in life, among other things, making them the perfect puppets for Yubaba to control.
Arriving at Yubaba's quarters, Sen finds Haku unconscious. The paper bird that has been hiding on Sen's back seems to turn into Yubaba, but actually it's her twin sister, Zeniba. Zeniba has followed Haku because he stole her gold seal.
No-Face (顔無し, Kaonashi, lit. "Faceless") is a character in Spirited Away. He is shown to be capable of reacting to emotions and ingesting other individuals in order to gain their personality and physical traits.
All of No-Faces' defining features are human, albeit distorted. This could explain why Chihiro catches No-Face's eye and why he was the only one able to detect her on the bridge.
