An Unforgettably Charming Nostalgic Anime Masterpiece About 1950s Japan and the Forest Spirits That Dwelt Within Its Woods.
Set in 1958 Japan, a young professor, Tatsuo Kusakabe, moves his daughters, Satsuki and Mei, to a rural home so they can live closer to the hospital where their mother is being treated. As the girls settle into country life, they discover that whimsical creatures, resembling animal-like forest spirits, live nearby. Soon, first the younger Mei, and then the older Satsuki, stumble upon a giant and powerful, yet kind and caring, master of the forest, whom Mei dubs Totoro.
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The word “Totoro” is a distortion of the Western word “troll” by Japanese children’s pronunciation. Such creatures are unknown in Japanese folklore. Miyazaki created Totoro by combining the appearances of a raccoon dog, a cat, and an owl.
The Making of a Classic
Following the successful release of “Castle in the Sky” in 1986, Studio Ghibli released two animated films simultaneously two years later: Isao Takahata’s war drama “Grave of the Fireflies” and Hayao Miyazaki’s nostalgic fairy tale “My Neighbor Totoro.” This wasn’t a display of animators’ overconfidence. On the contrary, Ghibli’s bosses doubted that a cartoon about “two girls and a forest monster in the countryside” would attract the attention of Miyazaki’s fans, who loved him as the creator of fantastic blockbusters. Therefore, “Totoro” was released as an integral addition to “Grave of the Fireflies,” based on a well-known novel and considered important for school moral education. Japanese children went to see “Grave” in entire classes, and they were happy that the double feature included not only one of the saddest Japanese cartoons but also one of the most joyful.
For Hayao Miyazaki, “My Neighbor Totoro” is partly autobiographical. As a child, he lived in the area of Japan where the film takes place, and his mother suffered from tuberculosis for a long time and was hospitalized.
Now, it’s difficult to see “Grave” and “Totoro” not only in one sitting but also in one list, as they are creations of different directors in different genres. It’s a pity because these films only benefit from comparison, as they depict the same country with a ten-year gap, and both films center around two very close children. But if “Grave” depicts wartime hell and the temporary disintegration of society into family “molecules,” “Totoro” shows a paradisiacal, idyllic country that you want to move to in order to experience the warmth, responsiveness, and community (there’s no other way to put it) of its residents.
In the Disney dub of “My Neighbor Totoro,” the main characters are voiced by sisters Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning.
The Magic of Totoro
To demonstrate how much kinder “Totoro” is than even related books and cartoons, consider the scene in which Mei, bubbling with excitement, tells her father and sister that she saw Totoro. Typically, such scenes end with friends and relatives ridiculing the little heroes and accusing them of an overactive imagination. Tatsuo, however, while unable to refrain from laughing at the flustered girl, quite seriously tells his daughter that she was lucky to see the master of the forest, thanks to whom their region thrives. And he takes the girls to the shrine so that they can all thank Totoro for existing. What a heartfelt and unexpected scene! Considering that Tatsuo is not a superstitious peasant but a university scientist. However, he is a Japanese man of the 1950s, not an American of the 2010s, who would rather die than take his daughters to a Christian church.
The title character of the film lends his name to the asteroid 10160 Totoro, discovered in 1994 by Japanese astronomer Takao Kobayashi.
The Absence of Conflict
Understandably, in such a blissful world, there are no conflicts, and even the serious illness of the girls’ mother (apparently tuberculosis – which is why the hospital is far from the city) only begins to affect the mood of the heroines and create dramatic situations at the very end of the film. This has always been the main stumbling block for critics evaluating “Totoro.” Can a film with so much good that there is almost no room for evil be considered a masterpiece of Japanese animation? After all, the basis of narrative art is conflict, struggle, overcoming, and not the universal harmony that permeates the film from the first to the last frame.
To answer this question, we need to remind ourselves that conflict in art is not an end but a means, a means of understanding people and the world. For example, “Star Wars” is primarily a story about how Luke understands himself and transforms from a naive youth into a Jedi master. The war between the Republic and the Empire is needed to provide context, drive, and drama for this understanding. And just as documentary films do not need to construct conflicts to tell exciting stories, so too feature films do not have to oppose Good and Evil if they can captivate viewers in other ways. And if the director manages without “conflict crutches,” then he is all the more worthy of respect and the title of genius.
A World of Wonder
Miyazaki succeeded perfectly. And not only because of the appearance of the amazing Totoro, who has become a symbol of Studio Ghibli and all Japanese animation. If you list all his scenes, it turns out that Totoro is a significant but secondary character, whose main “appearances” occur in the final episodes of the film. Unlike the also charming, flying, and helping Karlsson from Astrid Lindgren’s books (which Miyazaki adores, by the way), Totoro does not utter a word and does not push the main characters into the background. He is not the essence of the picture but only the most bizarre part of the world that the girls learn when they find themselves in “real,” traditional Japan of rice fields, houses with sliding walls, ancient shrines, caring neighbors… And forest spirits.
The picture both explores this world along with Satsuki and Mei, looking at it with the admiring eyes of restless girls, and closely, with adult kindness and tenderness, watches the little ones themselves. One of whom tries with all her might to replace her sick mother and take care of her younger sister, and the other is still so naive that she is not at all frightened when she finds a sleeping, huge, and clawed Totoro (an adult might die of fright from such an encounter).
If desired, one can consider Miyazaki’s movement from “Nausicaä” to “Totoro” as an evolution of his skill in depicting girls and young women. If Nausicaä appears as an idealized superheroine, and Sheeta in “Laputa” is a valiant and noble princess capable of human weaknesses, then Satsuki and Mei are absolutely believable as real children, without any pretense of saving the world. And this is even more captivating than the girls’ exciting flights on Totoro’s back and inside the “Catbus” – a magical cat-werewolf, on which only forest spirits usually travel. At least, when an adult watches the film. For children, Totoro and Catbus are probably more interesting than their peers running around the new house or their trips to nature. This is the charm of “Totoro” and the skill of its creator – viewers of any age will find something in the cartoon that will conquer and enchant them. And at the end of the picture, you can even worry a little. In addition, a shock dose of happiness according to Miyazaki’s recipe is an excellent antidote to the depression that life or more somber art sometimes plunges you into. And if you want not to rejoice but to cry… For this, there is “Grave of the Fireflies,” which will be discussed later.
Finally, it should be said that the animation and graphics of the film are beyond praise (it was at this moment that the words “Studio Ghibli cartoon” finally became synonymous with the words “luxurious and impeccable image”), and Joe Hisaishi’s wonderful music supports the action throughout the film, and not just in individual scenes, as in “Nausicaä” and “Laputa.” Of all the creators who worked on Miyazaki’s films, the composer added the most in the interval between “Nausicaä” and “Totoro.” In just a few years, he has become one of the “behind-the-scenes masters” of Japanese cinema – and not only animation.