Fortunately, the girls end up adapting well and eventually make new friends. Having said that, whether the audience finds Totoro real or not, his existence in the film definitely alleviates some of the heavy stuff that Satsuki and Mei are going through.
Trivia (24) The film is partially autobiographical. When Hayao Miyazaki and his brothers were children, his mother suffered from spinal tuberculosis for nine years, and spent much of her time hospitalized. It is implied, yet never revealed in the film, that Satsuki and Mei's mother also suffers from tuberculosis.
And, one of the reasons why anime is so big around the world is because Japanese producers deliberately exported their work since the days of Tezuka. They did this precisely because not enough people were watching their animes in Japan. (This sort of exposes the idea that all Japanese people love anime, no?)
FYI, in Japan, families often bathe together, with parents bathing with a child of the opposite sex up until puberty, and parents bathing with a child of the same sex long after that child is grown. This is seen as a family time of bonding, and has nothing to do with sex.
The movie also lives and breathes with the Shinto belief that everything has a spirit, giving everything in the fields and forests a life of its own. Totoro was well-received when it first leaped and bounded into theaters in 1988, with critics praising its dreamy backdrops and childhood nostalgia.
1 Grave of the FirefliesThe ending of this film is by far the saddest and most emotionally taxing out of all the Ghibli films, if not also one of the saddest films ever made.
5 The Father Doesn't See The Tree Growing Right Next To HimAfter planting the acorns that they received from Totoro, Satsuki and Mei wake up in the middle of the night to see him and two smaller spirits dancing around the area the acorns were planted in.
Tatsuo Kusakabe is the father of the two protagonists, Mei and Satsuki Kusakabe, in the Studio Ghibli film, My Neighbor Totoro. He is a secondary character, and is married to Yasuko Kusakabe.
| Tatsuo Kusakabe |
|---|
| Voice Actor (Streamline): | Greg Snegoff |
There is no concrete evidence that all the films exist in the same world, though minor characters do cross over. For example, the soot sprites who appear in the first act of My Neighbor Totoro, later appear in Spirited Away.
A well-known cartoon character around the globe, Totoro, is an adorable chinchilla in Hayao Miyazaki's animated movie "My Neighbor Totoro". In the movie, Totoro is a gentle, gray and giant rat; however, in reality, the chinchilla is a furry little creature that you can hold in one palm.
1 Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro)Fans of Studio Ghibli would be hard-pressed to find a more memorable character than the studio's official mascot, Totoro. The timeless classic, Totoro/My Neighbor Totoro, alludes to the relationship between Shintoism and nature, represented in Totoro, the spirit of the forest.
When two girls move to the country to be near their ailing mother, they have adventures with the wondrous forest spirits who live nearby. Two young girls, 10-year-old Satsuki and her 4-year-old sister Mei, move into a house in the country with their father to be closer to their hospitalized mother.
Totoro shows Satsuki and Mei while growth and change may not always be pleasant, it does make one stronger, like a single sapling slowly giving life to a sprawling forest. And even when it is pleasant, growth and change take time, a lesson we learn in the mirroring of the girls' garden and their mother.
Parents need to know that My Neighbor Totoro is a fine pick for the entire family. Totoro himself might look and sound a bit odd, but he's quite sweet and gentle. The protagonist girls have an ill mother with an unnamed disease, but the moments in the hospital aren't sad or depressing.
Totoro exists as a metaphor to explain some of the mysteries of the world through the eyes of a child. Totoro, the king of the forest. Totoro is far and away the film's most interesting — and adorable — device: he is nature personified in a giant, fuzzy, cat/rabbit-like Snorlax.
Chihiro was primarily motivated by a purpose – rescuing her parents. Help others on their purposeful journey to the destination. When you help people around you with your generosity and tenacity, people feel the gratitude to help you back even if you don't ask for it.
