Here's a nice, and rather lengthy, appreciation of Spirited Away by Steven Den Beste, who has only recently been introduced to anime. Spoilers abound, so don't read it if you haven't seen it (like there's anyone reading this blog who falls in that category). I'd just like to call attention to the way the theme as laid out by Den Beste here:
What she (and we) feared at the beginning didn't turn out to be so formidable after all. A lot of strange and really scary creatures, like an grumpy ugly old man with eight arms, or a huge white creature in an elevator, didn't turn out to be so bad after all. That which is strange, perhaps even ugly, isn't necessarily evil. There is good out there, but you can only find it if you're willing to look.
gets a masterful little coda in the final scene in the movie, when Chihiro tells her parents about the formerly scary prospect of starting her new school: "I think I can handle it."