Have you ever wondered where (the hell) was Chihiro? Why she was stuck in a strange place, and why her parents turned into pigs? Well, this quote might help you:
(…) if Hades and Fairyland are often confounded. Both are equally the realm of the supernatural. We may therefore inquire whether eating is forbidden to the chance sojourner in the place of the dead equally as to the sojourner in Fairyland, if he wish to return to the upper air.
From The Science of Fairy Tales (1891, Edwin Sidney Hartland)
