{"id":987,"date":"2026-07-15T14:41:42","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:41:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=987"},"modified":"2026-07-15T14:41:42","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T14:41:42","slug":"revisiting-the-quiet-joy-of-my-neighbor-totoro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=987","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting the quiet joy of \u201cMy Neighbor Totoro\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Throughout July, The Swell is celebrating the lasting cultural inspiration of animator Hayao Miyazaki and the legendary films he created with Studio Ghibli. As part of GKIDS\u2019 annual Studio Ghibli Fest, which kicked off in June, you can enjoy theatrical re-releases of some of his most famous works.<\/em><\/p>

Read more If Letterboxd sells out to Netflix, the people lose<\/a><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t value peace enough. By \u201cwe\u201d I mean Americans, connoisseurs of bareknuckle fight nights and gunplay and blowing things up, just to show the world we\u2019re happy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But that sweeping generality about serenity\u2019s devaluation could easily apply to any culture, Hayao Miyazaki might say. I\u2019m just guessing this based on what happened when he and producer Toshio Suzuki tried to sell \u201cMy Neighbor Totoro\u201d back in 1987. Studio suits rebuffed them. Why? Because who would watch a movie about two little girls who befriend a gentle forest creature and . . . that\u2019s it? No perils or tragedies? No thanks.<\/p>\n

So Suzuki struck a deal with Shinchosha Publishing Co. to release \u201cTotoro\u201d in a double feature with a Studio Ghibli adaptation of \u201cGrave of the Fireflies,\u201d which follows struggling survivors of World War II\u2019s fire bombings. What an upbeat lead-in, right?<\/p>\n

Suzuki wagered schools would bring history classes to view \u201cFireflies,\u201d a story where Something Happens, then stay to watch \u201cTotoro\u201d as a kind of palate cleanser. All these decades later, I understand the calculus but remain baffled by that reasoning. Depression triggers are terrible bait regardless of whether there\u2019s candy after the tears. Sure enough, Suzuki said in a DVD feature interview, \u201cMy Neighbor Totoro\u201d ended up with the worst box office of all of Studio Ghibli\u2019s films.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n(\u00a91988 Hayao Miyazaki\/Studio Ghibli)<\/span><\/p>\n

Totoro\u2019s real launch into pop culture\u2019s stratosphere came a year later, when NTV brought his namesake movie to a broader audience, exploding its fandom beyond Japan. Even that was remarkable. Although Japanese popular culture had a mainstream presence in the U.S., most of us associated it with, say, Nintendo games or after-school cartoons like \u201cVoltron\u201d and all their associated ruckus.<\/p>\n

Miyazaki designed \u201cTotoro\u201d as a contrast to all that. First, he insisted that 10-year-old Satsuki and 4-year-old Mei have loving relationships with the adults in their lives \u2013 especially their father, a university professor who brings them to a crumbling house in the countryside to be closer to their hospitalized mother.<\/p>\n

As they acclimate to rural life, they\u2019re embraced by a community that takes care of each other and the world around them, including the kind, furry giant who Mei names Totoro.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

People still marvel at Miyazaki\u2019s handcrafted backgrounds and his painstaking dedication to balancing its feather-light score with the melodies of flowing water or the gentle crunch of a child\u2019s footfalls on grass and gravel. But Mei\u2019s first meet-cute with her giant friend Totoro is what got me: she plops on his round belly as he sleeps, waking him up with her laugh as he yawns with a mouth big enough to swallow her whole. But Totoro would never harm Mei. That would break the spell Miyazaki weaves in every frame leading up to that moment.<\/p>\n

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\u201cTotoro is where my consciousness begins,\u201d Miyazaki once said. \u201cIt explains how my mind works.\u201d<\/p>

Read more MAGA influencers exploit Graham Platner scandal to win back men<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In the late 1980s \u2013 and certainly today, much more so \u2013 urban living distanced millions of people from their close connection to nature . . . and their parents. America had its latchkey generation and, along with that, a growing sense that the world is a dangerous place, especially its wilder parts.<\/p>\n

Among the many culturally specific details that distributors feared would be misconstrued by Americans, the sight of a small child tumbling into a troll\u2019s nest in the woods without any element of threat must have been low on their list.<\/p>\n

Yet that\u2019s precisely what made my first viewing of \u201cTotoro\u201d so unforgettable: Mei and Satsuki\u2019s safety was never in doubt. Their father doesn\u2019t dismiss their brush with the forest\u2019s spirits as juvenile fantasy, either. Instead, he tells them that trees and people used to be good friends. By rekindling that relationship, the sisters (who are voiced by Dakota and Elle Fanning in the 2005 English language version) gain a huge and adorable new neighbor.<\/p>\n

All that said, there were parts of the spirit world that I wasn\u2019t entirely on board with. The Catbus is the movie\u2019s second most popular mascot, but let\u2019s be real \u2014 it looks like something out of acid nightmare. The thing\u2019s Cheshire feline grin even made Satsuki a little nervous. Only when it reappeared later to give the girls a ride to the hospital did I drop my guard.<\/p>\n

Today we take the hallowed status of \u201cMy Neighbor Totoro\u201d for granted. In Japan, he\u2019s a beloved figure on par with any Disney character. Pixar affirms this by incorporating a Totoro cameo into \u201cToy Story 3.\u201d Sulley from \u201cMonsters, Inc.\u201d is said to have been inspired by Totoro, which Studio Ghibli winked at in 2021 by tweeting a version of the rainy bus stop scene that inserted him and his buddy Mike into the frame.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n

(\u00a91988 Hayao Miyazaki\/Studio Ghibli)<\/span> Still from \u201cMy Neighbor Totoro.\u201d \u00a91988 Hayao Miyazaki\/Studio Ghibli<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cTotoro is where my consciousness begins,\u201d Miyazaki once said. \u201cIt explains how my mind works.\u201d Deep observers of his catalog also view it as his most biographical feature, citing how closely Satsuki and Mei\u2019s bucolic retreat resembles a chapter in the filmmaker\u2019s childhood when his own mother was gravely ill.<\/p>\n

But to me, it\u2019s a calm establishment of Miyazaki\u2019s genius, acknowledged by its ranking on many best film lists, including one compiled by the late Akira Kurosawa \u2014 the only animated title he included on a list of 100 movies.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy Neighbor Totoro\u201d is a gateway into a pastoral ideal that still exists in living memory, reviving parts of our imagination that maturity has stifled into dormancy.\u00a0 And for 86 minutes, it assures us that some of the greatest cinematic treasures are also blissfully conflict-free.<\/p>

Read more At the World Cup, Messi\u2019s quiet leadership outshines MAGA\u2019s noise<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To understand the heart of Hayao Miyazaki, start with this masterpiece <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[4,1167,1311,132,58],"class_list":["post-987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-commentary","tag-hayao-miyazaki","tag-my-neighbor-totoro","tag-the-swell","tag-tv"],"yoast_head":"\nRevisiting the quiet joy of \u201cMy Neighbor Totoro\u201d - Relocation Across America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/relocationacrossamerica.com\/?p=987\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Revisiting the quiet joy of \u201cMy Neighbor Totoro\u201d - 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