April 16, 1988
My Neighbor Totoro
(Redirected from
My Friend Totoro)
*from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
My Neighbor Totoro (Japanese:
Tonari no Totoro), known as
My Friend Totoro in English, is a 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The film, which stars the voice actors Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto, and Hitoshi Takagi, tells the story of two young girls (Satsuki & Mei) and their interactions with friendly woodland spirits in post-war 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. [1]
In 1988, Streamline Pictures produced an exclusive English-language dub for use on transpacific flights by Japan Airlines. This dubbed version, which featured the voices of Lisa Michelson, Cheryl Chase, Greg Snegoff and Frank Welker, had a theatrical release in the United States in 1990 and Europe in 1991, and was released on VHS and laserdisc in the United States in 1991. [2]
My Neighbor Totoro was critically acclaimed in Japan, amassing a large following soon after its release, although reception to the English dub, titled
My Friend Totoro, was more lukewarm at the time of its release in the United States. Still,
My Friend Totoro was a moderate success internationally, and was the second-highest-grossing animated film of 1990. The movie and its titular character, Totoro, have since become cultural icons.
My Neighbor Totoro ranked #50 in
Empire magazine’s “The 100 Best Films of World Cinema” in 2010, the highest-ranking animated film on the list. The film is considered one of the most beloved and well-made animated films of all time [citation needed]. The character of Totoro has made multiple cameo appearances in several Studio Ghibli films and video games, and is recognized as one of the most popular characters in Japanese animation.
Contents
1. Plot
2. Cast
3. Production
4. Release
5. Critical reception
6. Cultural impact
Plot
In 1958 Japan, university professor Tatsuo Kusakabe and his two daughters, Satsuki and Mei (spelled “May” in the English dub), move into an old house to be closer to the hospital where the girls’ mother Yasuko is recovering from a long-term illness. Satsuki and Mei find that the house is inhabited by tiny animated dust creatures (called “dust bunnies” in the English dub). [3] When the girls become comfortable in their new house and laugh with their father, the dust creatures leave the house, drifting away on the wind. It is implied that they are going to find another empty house as their habitat.
One day, Mei sees two white, rabbit-like ears in the grass and follows them under the house. She discovers two small rabbit-like creatures who lead her through a briar patch and into the hollow of a large tree. She meets and befriends a larger creature, 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 patch of briars. Despite her many attempts, Mei is unable to show her family Totoro’s tree. Her father comforts her by telling her that Totoro must be the “keeper of the forest,” and that Totoro will come back 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 time. 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. He only has a leaf on his head for protection from the rain, so Satsuki offers him the umbrella she had taken along for her father. Totoro is delighted at the gift, and in return, he gives her a bundle of seeds. A giant bus-shaped cat halts at the bus stop, and Totoro boards it, taking the umbrella with him. Shortly after, the girls’ father’s bus arrives.
The girls plant the seeds. A few days later, they awaken in the middle of the night to find Totoro and the two rabbit-like creatures dancing around the planted seeds. The girls join them, whereupon the seeds sprout, and then grow and combine into an enormous tree. Totoro takes the girls and the two creatures for a ride on a magical flying top. In the morning, the tree is gone, but the seeds have indeed sprouted. It is left ambiguous as to whether or not the girls were dreaming.
The girls find out that a planned visit by their mother has to be postponed because of a setback in her treatment. Satsuki, disappointed and worried, tells Mei the bad news, which Mei does not take well. This leads to an argument, ending in Satuski angrily yelling at Mei and stomping off. Mei decides to walk to the hospital herself to bring some corn (changed to a bouquet of flowers in the English dub) to her mother.
Mei’s disappearance prompts Satsuki and the neighbors to search for her. Eventually, Satsuki returns to the giant tree and pleads for Totoro’s help. Happy to be of assistance, he summons the Catbus, which carries her to where the lost Mei sits. Having rescued her, the Catbus then whisks her and Satsuki over the countryside to see their mother in the hospital. The girls perch in a tree outside of the hospital, overhearing a conversation between their parents, and discovering that she has been kept in the hospital by a minor cold and is otherwise doing well. They secretly leave the ear of corn (bouquet in the English dub) on the windowsill, where it is discovered by the parents, and the girls return home on the Catbus.
In the end credits, Mei and Satsuki’s mother returns home, and the sisters play with the other children, with Totoro and his friends watching them unnoticed from a distance.
Cast
Character name … Japanese voice actor … English voice actor
Satsuki Kusakabe (older daughter) … Noriko Hidaka … Lisa Michelson [4]
Mei (May) Kusakabe (younger daughter) … Chika Sakamoto … Cheryl Chase [5]
Tatsuo Kusakabe (father) … Shigesato Itoi … Greg Snegoff [6]
Yasuko Kusakabe (mother) … Sumi Shimamoto … Alexandra Kenworthy [7]
Totoro … Hitoshi Takagi … Frank Welker [8]
Kanta Ogaki (local boy) … Toshiyuki Amagasa … Kenneth Hartman
Kanta’s grandmother … Tanie Kitabayashi … Natalie Core
Catbus (Neko-bus) … Naoki Tatsuta … Frank Welker [9]
Mrs. Ogaki (Kanta’s mother) … Hiroko Maruyama … Melanie MacQueen
Mr. Ogaki (Kanta’s father) … Masashi Hirose … Steve Kramer
Kanta’s Aunt … Reiko Suzuki … Edie Mirman
Production
Art director Kazuo Oga was drawn to the film when Hayao Miyazaki showed him an image of Totoro. Oga’s experience with
My Neighbor Totoro jump-started the artist’s career. Oga’s conscientious approach to
My Neighbor Totoro was a style that the
International Herald Tribune recognized as “[updating] the traditional Japanese animist sense of a natural world that is fully, spiritually alive”.
Oga’s work on
My Neighbor Totoro led to his continued involvement with Studio Ghibli. The studio assigned jobs to Oga that would play to his strengths, and Oga’s style became a trademark style of Studio Ghibli.
The storyboard depicts a small town in Japan as the setting, with the year being 1958; Miyazaki stated that the year was not exact, and the team worked on a setting “in the recent past”. The film was originally set to be an hour long, but throughout the process it grew to respond to the social context, including the reason for the move and the father’s occupation.
Miyazaki has stated that Totoro is “only an animal. I believe he lives on acorns. He’s supposedly the forest keeper, but that’s only a half-baked idea, a rough approximation.” The character of Mei was modeled after Miyazaki’s niece.
Release
After writing and filming
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) and
Castle in the Sky (1986), Hayao Miyazaki began directing
My Neighbor Totoro for Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki’s production paralleled his colleague Isao Takahata’s production of
Grave of the Fireflies. Miyazaki’s film was financed by executive producer Yasuyoshi Tokuma, and both
My Neighbor Totoro and
Grave of the Fireflies were released on the same bill in Japan in 1988. The dual billing was considered “one of the most moving and remarkable double bills ever offered to a cinema audience”.
In 1990, Tokuma Japan Communications’ U.S. subsidiary released the first English-language version of
My Neighbor Totoro, with the title
My Friend Totoro. Because of his disappointment with the result of the heavily edited English version of
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Miyazaki initially refused to allow any changes to the film. He would not let any part of the movie be edited out, all the names had to remain the same (with the exception being Catbus), the translation had to be as close to the original Japanese as possible, and no part of the movie could be changed for any reason, cultural or linguistic. [10] However, after seeing how popular anime had become in the United States, Miyazaki eventually relented on some of his demands, a decision he would later say he “regret(ted) massively”. Several dialogue and cultural changes were made to the dub, such as removing the Catbus' exposed genitals [11], and editing the corn that Mei delivers to her mother to a bouquet, thought by the producers to be more familiar to American children as an item to bring a sick person. The dub was produced by John Daly and Derek Gibson, with co-producer Jerry Beck. The songs in the dub are sung by Emmylou Harris. [12]
My Friend Totoro was released in American theaters in October 1990, to relatively little advertising. However, largely due to word-of-mouth, the film soon became popular [citation needed], spending nine weeks in theaters and grossing around $41 million, becoming the second-highest-grossing animated film of 1990 [13] and the highest-grossing anime film in America for almost a decade.
Critical reception
Upon its release in Japan,
My Neighbor Totoro received high praise from film critics. In a retrospective report from Anime News Network in 2013, Carl Kimlinger summed up
Totoro as “a gentle and affirming masterpiece that is as heartwarming as it is visually enchanting”. Film review site
Rotten Tomatoes reported that 83% of critics gave positive reviews to the film, with an average rating of 7.2 out of 10. [14]
The English dub was met with much more mixed response in the United States, with most critics praising the animation style, but criticizing the lack of plot and the unfamiliarity of some the depicted Japanese culture to American audiences, especially children. In one of the more negative reviews, Leonard Klady of the entertainment trade newspaper
Variety wrote, “Obviously aimed at an international audience, the film evinces a disorienting combination of cultures that produces a nowhere land more confused than fascinating.” In a more positive review, Stephen Holden of
The New York Times described
My Friend Totoro as “very visually handsome”, and believed that the film was “very charming” when “dispensing enchantment”. Despite this, Holden also wrote, “Too much of the film, however, is taken up with stiff, mechanical chitchat.” [15]
In one of the most positive reviews, Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times, who gave the film four stars, called it “one of the lovingly hand-crafted works of Hayao Miyazaki”, stating “
My Friend Totoro is based on experience, situation and exploration – not on conflict and threat … It is also rich with human comedy in the way it observes the two remarkably convincing, lifelike little girls. It is a little sad, a little scary, a little surprising and a little informative, just like life itself. It depends on a situation instead of a plot, and suggests that the wonder of life and the resources of imagination supply all the adventure you need.” [16] In 1993, on their weekly television series
At the Movies, Ebert and his co-host Gene Siskel gave the film “two thumbs up”.
Phillip E. Wegner makes a case for the film being an example of alternative history, citing the utopian-like setting of the anime. [17]
Cultural impact
My Neighbor Totoro set its writer-director Hayao Miyazaki on the road to success. The film’s central character, Totoro, is as famous among Japanese children as Mickey Mouse is among American children, or Winnie-the-Pooh is among British ones. [citation needed] Totoro was used as a mascot by the Japanese “Totoro Hometown Fund Campaign” to preserve areas of
satoyama in the Saitama Prefecture. The fund was started in 1990 after the film’s release, and has since raised millions of dollars to preserve the Japanese habitats.
Totoro has made cameo appearances in multiple Studio Ghibli films, including
Kiki’s Delivery Service and
Tanukis. Additionally, various other anime series and films have featured cameos, including one episode of the anime series
Kare Kano. Totoro has also had cameo appearances in various non-Japanese works, including as a stuffed toy in an episode of
The Simpsons.
A main-belt asteroid, discovered on December 31, 1994, was named
10160 Totoro after the film’s central character. [18]
In 2009, a velvet worm species
Eoperipatus totoro, recently discovered in Vietnam, was named after
Totoro, due to its resemblance to the Catbus from the film. [19]
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[1] Aside from the name change to the English dub, this is all as OTL.
[2] The dub is as OTL, but it was never widely distributed in the U.S., where
Totoro didn’t have a theatrical release until Disney’s redubbed 2006 version hit theaters. Here, with the “All Things Asian” fad in its latter days, the dub is released—somewhat hastily—to theaters in the early ‘90s.
[3] Although the dust sprites in the film look nothing like actual bunnies, the dub writers simply can’t resist using the familiar English phrase “dust bunnies” to describe the creatures ITTL.
[4] Michelson also provided the voice of the titular character in the English dub of
Kiki’s Delivery Service. IOTL, she was tragically killed in a car accident in 1991, which is butterflied away ITTL.
[5] Chase is perhaps best-known as the voice of Angelica Pickles from
Rugrats IOTL. OTL’s Disney dub featured Dakota and Elle Fanning as the voices of Satsuki and Mei, respectively.
[6] Snegoff, a prominent voice actor in his own right, was also married to Lisa Michelson up until her untimely death IOTL. IOTL’s ‘06 dub, Mr. Kusakabe was voiced by Tim Daly, who played the Superman to Kevin Conroy’s Batman in the DC Animated Universe IOTL.
[7] Kenworthy is the mother of Greg Snegoff. She also provided voices in
Robotech and
Kiki’s Delivery Service IOTL.
[8] Totoro’s American voice actor in the OTL Streamline dub has unfortunately been lost to time. Here, just enough butterflies flap for the well-known Welker to be brought in to do the growls and roars of Totoro. Welker also voiced Totoro in the 2006 dub IOTL.
[9] Carl Macek, the controversial co-founder of Streamline Pictures and creator of the equally controversial
Robotech, provided the voice of the Catbus in OTL’s Streamline dub. Because Welker is brought in to voice Totoro ITTL, he’s also recruited to provide the Catbus’s chatterings—a role he also provided in OTL’s Disney dub.
[10] This happened IOTL as well, and perhaps because of it,
Totoro remained largely unknown outside of Japan until the Internet became prominent. However, there was a straight-to-video release of the dub in 1993, which unfortunately didn’t sell that well.
[11] No, seriously, there is a
brief shot of the Catbus' balls in the film.
[12] The country-folk singer would be working on her album
Brand New Dance in 1990 IOTL, which may or may not be butterflied away. Contemporary Christian singer Sonya Isaacs sang all the songs in OTL’s 2006
Totoro dub. The singer from the OTL Streamline dub has been lost to time, sadly.
[13] At just over $47 million,
The Rescuers Down Under was the highest-grossing animated film of 1990 IOTL (and most likely TTL), with
Jetsons: The Movie coming in a distant second at $20 million.
[14] Compared to 94% giving positive reviews and an average score of 8.4 out of 10 IOTL.
[15] These two reviews of the ’93 dub come word-for-word from OTL.
[16] This comes verbatim from Ebert’s four-star review of the 2006 dub. I feel that Ebert, who gave a three-and-a-half-star rating to
The Black Cauldron, of all things, would be especially enthralled by
Totoro ITTL.
[17] Given the nature of this website, I simply
had to keep this OTL Wikipedia quote in the article ITTL.
[18] Aside from the
Simpsons cameo, all this is as OTL.
[19] Adorably, this is also as OTL, except the creature wasn’t discovered until 2013 IOTL. Butterflies which will be touched upon later bring about the worm’s discovery earlier ITTL - and there's also a connection to the WWF that makes it happen.
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And with that, we see more knock-on effects of the “All Things Asian” fad—for better, and for worse. Confession time: I've never seen
My Neighbor Totoro, so if there are any fans of the film reading this, hopefully I did it justice.
Coming up: we head back to wrestling, and see that while children in Japan are watching this film on April 16th, children in America could well be staying up late to watch
Saturday Night's Main Event, where Ricky Steamboat will defend his WWF Title against...well, you'll have to read to find out!