#My neighbor totoro characters movie#

Bilingual Bonus: There is a visual version with Mei, who has gotten lost trying to bring an ear of corn to her sick mother, sitting by a row of a statues.She runs herself ragged trying to find her, and finally seeks out Totoro's help when she is starting to lose hope. Big Sister Instinct: Satsuki's kicks in big time when Mei goes missing.Arcadia: The film is an ode to the rural lifestyle.

Animals Lack Attributes: Averted the Catbus has prominent testicles.Animal-Vehicle Hybrid: The Catbus, which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin.All Trolls Are Different: Mei mistakes Totoro for a troll 'Totoro' is even a mispronunciation of the Japanese word for troll, 'Torōru'.

The cat bus also has a Cheshire Cat grin. The allusion further helped that the scenery of the forest areas is drawn a bit more dream-like in Mei's initial explanations then just looks like an overgrown bit of wood when she tries to find it again. She's found after the encounter sleeping on the ground and Satsuki and Kusakabe think it might have been a dream.

Alice Allusion: Mei's first encounter with the Totoros starts with her following the white rabbit-looking one (and the medium blue one) until she falls down the hole where King Totoro is laying.

Advertised Extra: As iconic and beloved a character as Totoro is, and the film bearing his name, as well as most marketing surrounding him, he isn't as featured as one would think in the film, as the film focuses on small vignettes in the girls lives in their new home.

That'd be enough to make any parent cringe.

The film triggers this with the audience when Mei falls asleep on Totoro's stomach mere inches from his enormous maw.

Granny is unable to comfort her when she begins to cry, because both characters know there is a very real possiblity her mother will die.

Satsuki's fear that her mother will die is relatable and, given the nature of her illness, well-grounded in reality.

This goes Up to Eleven when the villagers find a little girl's sandal in the pond and fear that Mei has drowned.

Mei running away from home and getting lost in the climax is something any adult or older sibling can understand.

According to Miyazaki, it's the very time period 'when televisions were yet to be brought to homes'.

#My neighbor totoro characters movie#

The '50s: This movie is set in the fifties.

My Neighbor Totoro contains the following tropes: Even Totoro-with his huge grin, inscrutable expression, and manic eyes-can be a little scary Satsuki refers to meeting him as both the funniest and the scariest day of her life. Miyazaki does not gloss over some of the more frightening aspects of childhood, though: the girls are terrified of their mother dying, a common goat seems monstrous from little Mei's perspective, and the whole village's fright and anxiety when Mei goes missing is almost palpable. Totoro himself became the mascot for Studio Ghibli. Totoro is one of Miyazaki's best known films. The remainder of the film revolves around Satsuki's increasingly desperate search for Mei when all other options are exhausted, Satsuki appeals directly to Totoro for help-and he is more than delighted to be of assistance. Heartbroken, the two girls take out their fear and anger on each other, and Mei eventually sets out for the hospital alone, determined to deliver an ear of corn she believes will make her mother well. At first, Mei is the only one who sees Totoro, but Satsuki soon meets him as well, and the girls have several fantastic encounters with Totoro, interwoven between subplots involving their family and (human) neighbors.īut the girls' seemingly idyllic rural existence is soon shattered when a health crisis forces their mother to cancel a much-anticipated visit home. While pursuing it, she comes upon the den of a much larger forest spirit that she eventually calls 'Totoro'. Along with the usual tribulations of moving-a spooky old house, new neighbors, fitting in at a new school-Mei encounters an odd little creature (Hitoshi Takagi) in the backyard. My Neighbor Totoro (Japanese: Tonari no Totoro, 1988) is Studio Ghibli's second feature film and the fourth animated feature directed by Hayao Miyazaki (the first being The Castle of Cagliostro).Ī little cycle truck putters down a rural road in post-war Japan, carrying four-year-old Mei ( Chika Sakamoto), her older sister Satsuki ( Noriko Hidaka), and their father Tatsuo Kusakabe ( Shigesato Itoi) to a new home in the country to be closer to the rural hospital where the girls' mother Yasuko ( Sumi Shimamoto) is recovering from an unspecified (but potentially deadly) disease.