The River Spirit is assumed to be the spirit of a very large and powerful river in the Human World. He is also generous, leaving a great amount of gold pieces on the ground as a tip to the Bathhouse workers for their service to him.

He is shown to be very energetic once freed of his polluted burden and displays a hefty amount of gratitude to Chihiro, who freed him, by giving her a famous type of medicine as thanks. It is known that he is a very rich and powerful spirit with much influence in the Spirit Realm. Not much of the River Spirit's personality is made apparent in the film.

After being relieved of all the human-made trash that had clogged up his body, the unnamed River Spirit was freed from all the gunk he was carrying and revealed himself to be a grand spirit. However, Yubaba notes that he didn't seem like a stink spirit and ordered Chihiro Ogino to wash him in the Big Tub. In his first introduction in the film, the River Spirit is shown to be a disgusting, grimy, muck-infested spirit mistaken to be a 'stink spirit' by many. By his appearance, he is an extremely old river god, evident by the countless wrinkles on his face, white-colored eyebrows and the thinning amounts of facial hair and lack of teeth, the River Spirit is revealed to have a water-based, dragon-like body in his original form with multiple, wiry, avian legs.

Body found near river spirit casino