My Neighbor Totoro<\/em>, I was blown away. Again. It was then that I decided that Miyazaki is God, incapable of making a film that I don\u2019t love even when it features a subject that normally bores me to tears. <\/p>\nThe setting is the Japanese countryside shortly after World War II. (Wikipedia says 1958.) University professor Tatsuo Kusakabe has moved to a rural area with his daughters Satsuki (11 years old) and Mei (4 years old), to be near his wife\/their mother who is recovering in a tuberculosis sanatorium. The movie is told from the girls\u2019 standpoint, focusing alternately on their joyful adaptation to rural life, Satsuki\u2019s making friends with neighborhood children and starting in the local school, Mei\u2019s discovery of the fantasy nature characters (which she accepts as natural since she\u2019s only 4 years old), and then Satsuki\u2019s seeing them, too. The dramatic climax is the children\u2019s mistaking their mother\u2019s delayed release from the hospital to believe that she has gotten worse and is dying; and while their father and the audience know the truth, the children\u2019s anguish and terror are heartfelt and convincingly portrayed \u2013 as is the potential danger that 4-year-old Mei, who runs away to find the hospital, may become lost, injured, or drown in a rice paddy. The happy ending is delightful. This is another movie that I have probably seen a dozen times, and I am ready to see it again.<\/p>\n
![\"totoro-260\"](\"http:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/totoro-260.jpg\")
I am cynically amused by its reviews. Wikipedia reports that \u201cThe 1993 translation was not as well received as the 2006 translation\u201d, but the article makes it clear that the 1993 reviews (of its American theatrical release by Troma Films\/50th Street Films, that May) were of the film itself, not its 1987 dialogue translation by Carl Macek. “[A]dequate television technical craft”, \u201c[a] vapid storyline”, and \u201ca disorienting combination of cultures that produces a nowhere land more confused than fascinating\u201d are not critiques of the quality of the dialogue, but of the basic plot and of the animation. Miyazaki demanded that the film itself not be altered in any way from the Japanese original version. When My Neighbor Totoro<\/em> was rereleased (with a new translation and dubbing) by Walt Disney Home Video in March 2006, the same film was hailed as \u201cbeguiles from beginning to end\u201d, and has since placed on one “The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema” list; on another list as #3 of the greatest animated films of all time; and on practically every anime fan\u2019s list of the Top Ten anime features. The difference: the film critics\u2019 perception of Troma vs. the Disney name. Also, Hayao Miyazaki was much more prestigious in America by 2006 than in 1993.<\/p>\nOne of Wikipedia\u2019s statements is incorrect, though. When Mei meets the giant totoro, it \u201cidentifies itself by a series of roars that she interprets as \u2018Totoro\u2019.\u201d No; what Mei says is that she recognizes it (or \u201chim\u201d) as the \u201ctotoro\u201d from her picture book. One of the many summaries of the film clarifies that this is Mei\u2019s mispronunciation of \u201ctroll\u201d. This could be a reference to Miyazaki\u2019s earlier visit to Sweden when he tried and failed to make an animated adaptation of Astrid Lindgren\u2019s Pippi Longstocking, since trolls are popular in Scandinavian children\u2019s literature and picture books. Much of Miyazaki\u2019s reference art from that visit ended up in his Kiki\u2019s Delivery Service<\/em>.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>As I said, I thought that Laputa<\/em> is a perfect boys\u2019 adventure film, which is what I like. So when I first read in the anime magazines that Miyazaki\u2019s next feature would be a gentle young girls\u2019 fantasy, my reaction was, \u201cOh, well. Little girls deserve a movie, too. I\u2019m sure that it will be excellent, even if I won\u2019t care for it.\u201d<\/p>\n