In the music video she made for “Chihiro,” the singer wanders through darkened corridors with locked doors. Nat Wolff plays the character she eventually meets, and their interactions are alternatingly violent, loving, and quixotic because he might disappear.
For Eilish, it’s a surrealistic portrayal of a dream state, made even clearer by the vision of her sinking into an unending ocean of water, akin to the cover of Hit Me Hard and Soft, the album from which “Chihiro” is from.
Eilish recently revealed to a reporter that Chihiro, the main character in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, served as inspiration for the song Hit Me Hard and Soft. “The song is loosely based on that movie, which is one of my favorites,” said Eilish. “It’s a combination of her perspective and mine.
The graphics in the film are some of the greatest ever; all that Studio Ghibli junk is incredible. There are several images of the train in the water after the disaster, and it resembles an ocean with a rail track.
I had just finished seeing Spirited Away, and Finneas had created that rhythm. I adore that film. I have watched that so many times.” Eilish, who just appeared on the cover, will launch a North American tour in support of the record in late September.
Her tour dates extend until mid-December. Hit Me Hard and Soft opened at number two on the Billboard, just behind Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Department, and Eilish had her best-ever sales week.
