A 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film, re-released in English by Walt Disney Pictures in 2006, awaits cartoon fans on Disney Channel (Astro Channel 615) at 9am tomorrow.
My Neighbour Totoro is written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli.
The film, which features the voice talents of Dakota and Elle Fanning, Tim Daly, Lea Salonga and Frank Welker, tells the story of two young daughters of a professor and their interactions with friendly wood spirits in postwar rural Japan.
The film won the Animage Anime Grand Prix Prize and the Mainichi Film Award and Kinema Junpo Award for Best Film in 1988.
It also received the Special Award at the Blue Ribbon Awards in the same year.
The movie and its titular character, Totoro, have become cultural icons. My Neighbour Totoro ranked 41st in Empire magazine’s The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema in 2010 and Totoro was ranked 18th on Empire’s 50 Best Animated Film Characters list.
Set in 1958 Japan, university professor Tatsuo Kusakabe and his two daughters, Satsuki and Mei, move into an old house to be closer to the hospital, where their mother Yasuko is recovering from a long-term illness.
Satsuki and Mei find that the house is inhabited by tiny animated dust creatures called susuwatari — small, dark, dust-like house spirits seen when moving from light to dark places. When the girls become comfortable in their new house and are happy, the soot spirits leave the house to drift away on the wind. It is implied that they are going to find another empty house — their natural habitat.
One day, Mei sees two white, rabbit-like ears in the grass and follows the ears under the house. She discovers two small spirits which lead her through a briar patch and into the hollow of a large camphor tree. She meets and befriends a larger version of the same kind of spirit, which identifies itself by a series of roars that she interprets as Totoro.
She falls asleep atop the large Totoro but when Satsuki finds her, she is on the ground in a dense briar clearing.
Despite her many attempts, Mei is unable to show her family Totoro’s tree. Her father comforts Mei by telling her that it is the “keeper of the forest” and that Totoro will reveal himself when he wants to.
One rainy night, the girls are waiting for their father’s bus and grow worried when he does not arrive on the bus they expect him on.
As they wait, Mei eventually falls asleep on Satsuki’s back and Totoro appears beside them, allowing Satsuki to see him for the first time.
Set in a period that is both modern and nostalgic, the film creates a fantastic, yet strangely believable universe of supernatural creatures coexisting with modernity.
A great part of this comes from its evocative backgrounds, which give each tree, hedge and twist in the road an indefinable feeling of warmth that seems ready to spring into sentient life.
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