Yubaba

The owner (head) of the bathhouse "Aburaya," an enigmatic old witch. She has a disproportionately large head, with eyes as big as a human face, and a two-head-tall body, giving her an inhuman appearance. She is greedy, loud, and cunning. However, she dotes on her son, Bou, and speaks in a sweet voice unimaginable from her usual demeanor. When she realized Bou was missing due to Haku's statement, she was so agitated that she breathed fire at Haku. She uses various magic in the story, including contracts that take away names to control people, moving objects without touching them (she can also float herself), transforming into a bird to fly, generating ropes from her hands, and attacking with magic bullets from both hands. Initially, she refused to hire Chihiro, who wandered in from the human world, but partly due to Bou being in the next room, she reluctantly hired her, half-amused by her persistence, and took her name, renaming her "Sen." Before taking her name, she looked at the contract and said, "What a luxurious name." At dawn, when the bathhouse closes, she wraps herself in a black cloak, transforms into a bat-like figure, and flies away with Yubird, returning in the evening when the bathhouse opens. She uses a bug (a black slug-like bug, referred to as a "curse bug" in some materials) to control her apprentice Haku, making him commit misdeeds like stealing the witch's contract seal from Zeniba. Despite her arrogant nature, she has the capacity and spirit of a manager. She praised Chihiro for cleaning the river god and bringing in a lot of gold sand, and admonished the employees who disliked approaching the rotten god to follow Chihiro's example. She usually stays in her room on the top floor and doesn't show herself to guests, but if there's an unruly guest, she will personally intervene, saying, "Even if they're a customer, I won't allow it," and handles guests like the rotten god and Kaonashi herself, not leaving everything to the employees. She presented Chihiro, who returned from Zeniba's place, with a riddle: "If you can identify your parents among the pigs, I'll set you free." She prepared dummy pigs transformed by employees, but when Chihiro correctly identified them, the contract disappeared, and she reluctantly admitted defeat, allowing Chihiro to return to the human world. When Chihiro thanked her, she turned her face away but quietly watched her leave the bathhouse.