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EspañolMY NEIGHBOR TOTORO
(Redirected from Tonari no Totoro)
, or '''My Neighbour Totoro''' on UK DVD box titles, is a 1988 film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The movie won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1988.
Troma Films, under their 50th St. Films banner, produced a 1993 dub of the film co-produced by Jerry Beck. It was released on VHS and DVD by Fox Video. Troma's and Fox's rights to this version expired in 2004.
An ani-manga version of ''My Neighbor Totoro'' was published in English by Viz Communications starting on November 10, 2004.
The film was re-released by Disney on March 7, 2006. It features a new dub cast. This DVD release is the first version of the film in the United States to include both Japanese and English language tracks, as Fox did not have the rights to the Japanese audio track for their version.
;
:An 11-year-old girl. Satsuki is Mei's older sister. Satsuki is the traditional name of the fifth month of the Japanese calendar, the equivalent of the English May.
;
:Satsuki's four-year-old sister. Her name deliberately echoes her sister's, may being the fifth month, reflecting the fact that the story originally featured one girl, who was then divided into an older and younger sister. The widely-distributed promotional image for the film of a girl standing next to Totoro at a bus stop reflects the earlier conception with a single child.
;
:The girls' father, who works in the archaeology and anthropology departments of a Tokyo university.
;
:The girls' mother, recovering from an unnamed illness (confirmed by Miyazaki as being tuberculosis[1]) at Shichikokuyama Hospital, which is noted for its tuberculosis treatment program. Miyazaki's mother had tuberculosis when he was a boy.
;
:A grey and white, friendly forest spirit at least three meters tall. ''Totoro'' is Mei's mispronunciation of ''torōru'', the Japanese pronunciation of ''troll'' as a loanword. There are two similar, smaller creatures in the film, also referred to as ''totoro''; the big grey Totoro is named "Ō-Totoro", or "Miminzuku", the middle is "Chū-Totoro", or "Zuku", and the smallest is "Chibi-Totoro", or "Mini". These names do not appear in the film itself, but are used in ancillary materials.
;
:A preteen boy of their village, ambivalent towards Satsuki. This character resembles Miyazaki in his fondness for cartoons and airplanes.
;
:Kanta's grandmother, who sometimes takes care of the girls.
;
:A house cat that undergoes a metamorphosis into a passenger bus, based on the Japanese belief that if a cat grows old enough, it gains magical shape-changing powers, and is called a ''bake neko''. [2] ''Bake neko'' are mentioned in several Ghibli films.
In the 1950s, a Tokyo university professor and his two daughters move into an old house in rural Japan, so as to be closer to the hospital where his wife is recovering from an illness. The daughters find that the house is inhabited by tiny animated dust creatures called ''soot sprites'', which their father rationalizes as ''makkurokurosuke'' — an optical illusion seen when moving from light to dark places. (These creatures are referred to as "dust bunnies" and "soot spirits" in the 1993 English dub; in the Disney version, they are variously called "soot gremlins" or "soot sprites". In the English subtitles of the first Japanese-language version to find its way to America, they were "Black Soots".)
When Mei, the younger daughter, plays outside the house, she sees two white rabbit-like ears in the grass (reminiscent of The White Rabbit from ''The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland''), and upon following this creature she discovers two small magical creatures, which lead her through a briar patch (once again alluding to Lewis Carrol's rabbit hole), and into the hollow of a large Camphor Laurel tree. There she meets and befriends a large version of the same kind of spirit, which identifies itself by a series of roars she interprets as "Totoro". Her father later tells her that this is the "keeper of the forest".
One rainy night, while the girls are waiting for their father's bus, Satsuki encounters Totoro herself for the first time. Since he is looking rather forlorn with only a leaf on his head for protection against the rain, Satsuki offers him the umbrella she had taken along for her father. Totoro is delighted at both the shelter and the sounds made upon it by falling raindrops. The girls receive in return a bundle of nuts and seeds. A bus-shaped giant cat halts at the stop, and Totoro boards it, taking the umbrella.
The girls plant the seeds, but they don't sprout for a few days. One night, they awaken at midnight to find Totoro and his two miniature colleagues engaged in a ritual dance around the planted nuts and seeds. The girls join in, whereupon the seeds sprout and then grow into an enormous tree. Totoro then takes his colleagues and the girls for a ride on a magical flying top. In the morning, the girls find that there is no tree in their yard, but that the seeds have indeed sprouted.
The final encounter with Totoro in the film occurs when Mei, distraught when she learns that their mother's visit home has been canceled due to an apparent worsening of her condition, (a suspicion which proves to be unfounded), sets off on foot to the hospital and gets lost. Desperate to find her sister, Satsuki returns to the camphor laurel tree and pleads for Totoro's help. Delighted to be of assistance, he summons the Catbus, which rescues Mei and whisks her and Satsuki over the countryside to see their mother in the hospital. When the Catbus departs, it fades away from the girls' sight in a manner reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat.
The closing credits feature scenes of Satsuki and Mei playing with other human children, with Totoro and his friends as unseen bystanders. Miyazaki has asserted that the girls would never see Totoro again, but that the spirits would always be watching over them.
In the film, Mei refers to Totoro as an obake. At another point in the film, Satsuki talks to Mei about what she has just met. Mei says "totoro" and Satsuki asks whether she means a troll. Mei responds in the affirmative and repeats "totoro", which seems to imply that totoro is a childish mispronunciation of the phonetic japanese pronunciation of troll (torōru). This would fit with other features of the film which mix traditional with modern/western influenced elements (eg. the house, the cat-bus, totoro's umbrella). Whether the Westernisation is in the perceptions of the urbanised family who are the main focus of the film remains a moot point because the film is deliberately vague about the distinction between perception and reality.
Many people interpret Totoro as a kami spirit of the Shinto religion.[3] Shinto kami are often guardian spirits of the land, concerned with natural phenomena like wind and thunder and natural objects like the sun, mountains, rivers, trees, and rocks. There are no clearly defined criteria for what should or should not be worshipped as kami, and they have no defined shape.
Totoro's home is in a shinto shrine, which is demarcated by a shimenawa rope around his tree, and a torii on the path leading to the shrine.
''My Neighbor Totoro'' was released by Studio Ghibli as a double feature with Isao Takahata's ''Grave of the Fireflies'' in August, 1988. There are two theories for this: one was that ''Totoro'' would not be successful. Another theory is that ''Grave of the Fireflies'' was believed to be too depressing for audiences by itself, and thus needed a lighter animation to accompany it. The late Yoshifumi Kondo provided character designs for both films.
In 1993, Fox released the first English-language version of ''My Neighbor Totoro'', produced by John Daly and Derek Gibson (the producers of ''The Terminator'') with co-producer Jerry Beck. Fox and Troma's rights to the film expired in 2004. Disney's English-language version premiered on October 23, 2005; it then appeared at the 2005 Hollywood Film Festival. The Turner Classic Movies cable television network held the television premiere of Disney's new English dub on January 19, 2006, as part of the network's salute to Hayao Miyazaki. (TCM aired the dub as well as the original Japanese with English subtitles.) The Disney version was released on DVD on March 7, 2006.
As is the case with Disney's other English dubs of Miyazaki films, the Disney version of ''Totoro'' features a star-heavy cast, including Dakota and Elle Fanning as Satsuki and Mei, Timothy Daly as Mr. Kusakabe, Pat Carroll as Granny, Lea Salonga as Mrs. Kusakabe, and Frank Welker as Totoro and Catbus. The songs for the new dub retained the same translation as the previous dub, but were sung by Sonya Isaacs.
★ Miyazaki made a 13-minute "sequel" to the film, "Mei and the Kittenbus", that has not yet been distributed or broadcast. It is shown exclusively in the Ghibli Museum and initially was only shown for a short time [2]. It reappears at intervals there, most recently from October through mid-November 2006. [3].
★ Totoro also made a brief cameo appearance during a scene in ''Pompoko'', another Studio Ghibli film.
★ In the first Digimon Movie, "Digimon Adventure (The Movie)", there is a Totoro object that can be seen during the bubbles scene. This scene was shortened in the English version and the Totoro cannot be seen.
★ Episode XXXIII of ''Samurai Jack'' has Jack encountering an annoying creature whose design is clearly influenced by the big Totoro. The episode also includes an artifact called the Crystal of Cagliostro, an apparent allusion to Miyazaki's earlier film ''The Castle of Cagliostro''.
★ The character of Totoro made a cameo appearance in one episode of the Gainax TV series ''Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo'' (''His and Her Circumstances''), which was likely director Hideaki Anno's way of paying tribute to Miyazaki. (Anno worked as a key animator on ''Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind'' in 1984 and considers Miyazaki a mentor.) In fact, Gainax reportedly invited the animator who did the original key animation for Totoro to work on that scene, although they never revealed the animator's name. In addition, one ''KareKano'' character, Tsubasa Shibahime, is a huge Totoro fan.
★ Totoro has made three cameo appearances on Comedy Central's ''Drawn Together''. He is a student in "Foxxy vs. the Board of Education", a Japanese businessman in "A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special", and a wedding guest in "Freaks & Greeks".
★ The Pokemon Snorlax may have been based on Totoro. His baby evolution, Munchlax, may be based on the smaller version of Totoro seen in the film also.
★ Appa from was strongly inspired by the Catbus from ''My Neighbor Totoro.
★ In Neil Gaiman's '', Delirium blows bubbles into a number of impossible shapes, one of which is Totoro holding an umbrella.
★ Sometimes in Code Lyoko as seen in Yumi's room , there is a Totoro doll.
★ In Kare Kano the girls say they have seen a Totoro on the street. They want just to play a joke to a childish member of the group.
★ In Kiki's Delivery Service Mei and Chu-Totoro are painted on the bedroom windows. She also has a stuffed toy that resembles Totoro on her bed. Also if you look hard while Kiki is zooming through the crowds near the beginning of the film you can see a girl who looks just like Mei.
★ Chu-Totoro and Chibi-Totoro can be seen on a dollmaker's bench in Whisper of The Heart.
★ In Ne-yo's music video for his song Sexy Love, in the scene where he and his girlfriend are on the roof, in the background you can see a spray painted Totoro.
★ The Cartoon Network short, "Buy One Get One Free" (aired as part of the What a Cartoon show), is a short about a cat who is tempted into throwing a party in his owner's apartment. In one shot, a cat resembling Totoro can be seen at the party.
★ The main Totoro has become a mascot for Studio Ghibli, gracing the studio's logo at the start of their films.
★ There is a real park in Higashimurayama, Tokyo and Tokorozawa, Saitama named Hachikokuyama which was used as the inspiration for the mountain where Satsuki and Mei's mother was hospitalized.
★ Matsugo, the area where Mei and Satsuki live, is a real district of Tokorozawa, Saitama.
★ When the Catbus is about to take Mei and Satsuki to the hospital, the destination sign displays several real locations in Tokorozawa. In the final display, the final character of 七国山病院 appears upside-down.
★ Asteroid 10160 has been named "Totoro" by Takao Kobayashi. The name was approved by the International Astronomical Union.
★ The 2005 World Expo in Japan featured a "Totoro" house, a recreation of Satsuki and Mei's house in the movie.
★ Ken Jennings, the winner of the most games in the history of the TV game show ''Jeopardy!'', carries a small plush "Totoro" figure in his pocket for good luck.
★ "Kaze no Tōrimichi", one of the main themes in the soundtrack of ''Totoro'', appears in a rearranged version as "Tororo-kun Is My Neighbor" in the Nintendo 64 game ''Goemon's Great Adventure'', where it is played in the Mokeke Forest stage.
★ The Catbus is definitely male - when it jumps from the power lines toward Mei, its testicles are clearly visible, much like those of the male tanuki in ''Pom Poko''.
★ Pat Carroll, the voice of Granny in the Disney dub, was also the voice of Ursula in the animated Disney film ''The Little Mermaid''.
★ The type of flute played by the "Totoros" is called an ''Ocarina''
★ Executive producer: Yasuyoshi Tokuma
★ Producer: Toru Hara
★ Original story, screenplay written and directed by: Hayao Miyazaki
★ Music composer: Joe Hisaishi
★ Supervising animator: Yoshiharu Sato
★ Art director: Kazuo Oga
★ Color design: Michiyo Yasuda
★ Color design assistant: Nobuko Mizuta
★ Camera supervisor: Hisao Shirai
★ Editor: Takeshi Seyama
★ Audio director: Shigeharu Shiba
★ Recording & sound mixing engineer: Shuji Inoue
★ Sound effects: Kazutoshi Sato (E&M Planning Center)
★ Dialogue editor: Akiyoshi Yoda
★ Recording & mixing studio: Tokyo TV Center
★ Japanese theme song performance: Azumi Inoue
★ Production manager: Eiko Tanaka
★ Production desk: Hirokatsu Kihara, Toshiyuki Kawabata
★ Film development laboratory: Tokyo Laboratory
★ Production: Studio Ghibli
The movie stars the following voice actors:
★ My Neighbor Totoro Soundtrack Collection
★ Mei and the Kittenbus
★
★
★ ''My Neighbor Totoro'' at Nausicaa.net
★ Synopsis & Media at the FilmFantastic Film Festival
★ Transcript of ''My Neighbor Totoro''; a comparison of the Fox English dub with a more literal translation of the original Japanese
★ DVD Image Comparison: contains stills comparing the quality of the Japanese and American DVDs
★ Journal of Religion and Film: Shinto Perspectives in Miyazaki's Anime
★ Wikimapia satellite image of Totoro house at World Fair ExpoAichi 2005
★ となりのトトロ (''Tonari no Totoro'')
1. http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/totoro/faq.html#mother – Retrieved on 2006-10-30
2. [1]
3. Helen McCarthy, Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation, p 120-1, ISBN 1-880656-41-8
, or '''My Neighbour Totoro''' on UK DVD box titles, is a 1988 film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. The movie won the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize in 1988.
Troma Films, under their 50th St. Films banner, produced a 1993 dub of the film co-produced by Jerry Beck. It was released on VHS and DVD by Fox Video. Troma's and Fox's rights to this version expired in 2004.
An ani-manga version of ''My Neighbor Totoro'' was published in English by Viz Communications starting on November 10, 2004.
The film was re-released by Disney on March 7, 2006. It features a new dub cast. This DVD release is the first version of the film in the United States to include both Japanese and English language tracks, as Fox did not have the rights to the Japanese audio track for their version.
| Contents |
| Characters |
| Plot |
| Totoro and Shinto |
| Release history |
| Other appearances |
| Trivia |
| Credits |
| Cast |
| See also |
| External links |
| References |
Characters
;
:An 11-year-old girl. Satsuki is Mei's older sister. Satsuki is the traditional name of the fifth month of the Japanese calendar, the equivalent of the English May.
;
:Satsuki's four-year-old sister. Her name deliberately echoes her sister's, may being the fifth month, reflecting the fact that the story originally featured one girl, who was then divided into an older and younger sister. The widely-distributed promotional image for the film of a girl standing next to Totoro at a bus stop reflects the earlier conception with a single child.
;
:The girls' father, who works in the archaeology and anthropology departments of a Tokyo university.
;
:The girls' mother, recovering from an unnamed illness (confirmed by Miyazaki as being tuberculosis[1]) at Shichikokuyama Hospital, which is noted for its tuberculosis treatment program. Miyazaki's mother had tuberculosis when he was a boy.
;
:A grey and white, friendly forest spirit at least three meters tall. ''Totoro'' is Mei's mispronunciation of ''torōru'', the Japanese pronunciation of ''troll'' as a loanword. There are two similar, smaller creatures in the film, also referred to as ''totoro''; the big grey Totoro is named "Ō-Totoro", or "Miminzuku", the middle is "Chū-Totoro", or "Zuku", and the smallest is "Chibi-Totoro", or "Mini". These names do not appear in the film itself, but are used in ancillary materials.
;
:A preteen boy of their village, ambivalent towards Satsuki. This character resembles Miyazaki in his fondness for cartoons and airplanes.
;
:Kanta's grandmother, who sometimes takes care of the girls.
;
:A house cat that undergoes a metamorphosis into a passenger bus, based on the Japanese belief that if a cat grows old enough, it gains magical shape-changing powers, and is called a ''bake neko''. [2] ''Bake neko'' are mentioned in several Ghibli films.
Plot
Ō Totoro, or Big Totoro, flying Satsuki and Mei around the countryside.
In the 1950s, a Tokyo university professor and his two daughters move into an old house in rural Japan, so as to be closer to the hospital where his wife is recovering from an illness. The daughters find that the house is inhabited by tiny animated dust creatures called ''soot sprites'', which their father rationalizes as ''makkurokurosuke'' — an optical illusion seen when moving from light to dark places. (These creatures are referred to as "dust bunnies" and "soot spirits" in the 1993 English dub; in the Disney version, they are variously called "soot gremlins" or "soot sprites". In the English subtitles of the first Japanese-language version to find its way to America, they were "Black Soots".)
When Mei, the younger daughter, plays outside the house, she sees two white rabbit-like ears in the grass (reminiscent of The White Rabbit from ''The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland''), and upon following this creature she discovers two small magical creatures, which lead her through a briar patch (once again alluding to Lewis Carrol's rabbit hole), and into the hollow of a large Camphor Laurel tree. There she meets and befriends a large version of the same kind of spirit, which identifies itself by a series of roars she interprets as "Totoro". Her father later tells her that this is the "keeper of the forest".
One rainy night, while the girls are waiting for their father's bus, Satsuki encounters Totoro herself for the first time. Since he is looking rather forlorn with only a leaf on his head for protection against the rain, Satsuki offers him the umbrella she had taken along for her father. Totoro is delighted at both the shelter and the sounds made upon it by falling raindrops. The girls receive in return a bundle of nuts and seeds. A bus-shaped giant cat halts at the stop, and Totoro boards it, taking the umbrella.
The girls plant the seeds, but they don't sprout for a few days. One night, they awaken at midnight to find Totoro and his two miniature colleagues engaged in a ritual dance around the planted nuts and seeds. The girls join in, whereupon the seeds sprout and then grow into an enormous tree. Totoro then takes his colleagues and the girls for a ride on a magical flying top. In the morning, the girls find that there is no tree in their yard, but that the seeds have indeed sprouted.
The final encounter with Totoro in the film occurs when Mei, distraught when she learns that their mother's visit home has been canceled due to an apparent worsening of her condition, (a suspicion which proves to be unfounded), sets off on foot to the hospital and gets lost. Desperate to find her sister, Satsuki returns to the camphor laurel tree and pleads for Totoro's help. Delighted to be of assistance, he summons the Catbus, which rescues Mei and whisks her and Satsuki over the countryside to see their mother in the hospital. When the Catbus departs, it fades away from the girls' sight in a manner reminiscent of Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat.
The closing credits feature scenes of Satsuki and Mei playing with other human children, with Totoro and his friends as unseen bystanders. Miyazaki has asserted that the girls would never see Totoro again, but that the spirits would always be watching over them.
Totoro and Shinto
In the film, Mei refers to Totoro as an obake. At another point in the film, Satsuki talks to Mei about what she has just met. Mei says "totoro" and Satsuki asks whether she means a troll. Mei responds in the affirmative and repeats "totoro", which seems to imply that totoro is a childish mispronunciation of the phonetic japanese pronunciation of troll (torōru). This would fit with other features of the film which mix traditional with modern/western influenced elements (eg. the house, the cat-bus, totoro's umbrella). Whether the Westernisation is in the perceptions of the urbanised family who are the main focus of the film remains a moot point because the film is deliberately vague about the distinction between perception and reality.
Many people interpret Totoro as a kami spirit of the Shinto religion.[3] Shinto kami are often guardian spirits of the land, concerned with natural phenomena like wind and thunder and natural objects like the sun, mountains, rivers, trees, and rocks. There are no clearly defined criteria for what should or should not be worshipped as kami, and they have no defined shape.
Totoro's home is in a shinto shrine, which is demarcated by a shimenawa rope around his tree, and a torii on the path leading to the shrine.
Release history
The DVD Cover for Disney's 2006 release of ''My Neighbor Totoro''.
''My Neighbor Totoro'' was released by Studio Ghibli as a double feature with Isao Takahata's ''Grave of the Fireflies'' in August, 1988. There are two theories for this: one was that ''Totoro'' would not be successful. Another theory is that ''Grave of the Fireflies'' was believed to be too depressing for audiences by itself, and thus needed a lighter animation to accompany it. The late Yoshifumi Kondo provided character designs for both films.
In 1993, Fox released the first English-language version of ''My Neighbor Totoro'', produced by John Daly and Derek Gibson (the producers of ''The Terminator'') with co-producer Jerry Beck. Fox and Troma's rights to the film expired in 2004. Disney's English-language version premiered on October 23, 2005; it then appeared at the 2005 Hollywood Film Festival. The Turner Classic Movies cable television network held the television premiere of Disney's new English dub on January 19, 2006, as part of the network's salute to Hayao Miyazaki. (TCM aired the dub as well as the original Japanese with English subtitles.) The Disney version was released on DVD on March 7, 2006.
As is the case with Disney's other English dubs of Miyazaki films, the Disney version of ''Totoro'' features a star-heavy cast, including Dakota and Elle Fanning as Satsuki and Mei, Timothy Daly as Mr. Kusakabe, Pat Carroll as Granny, Lea Salonga as Mrs. Kusakabe, and Frank Welker as Totoro and Catbus. The songs for the new dub retained the same translation as the previous dub, but were sung by Sonya Isaacs.
Other appearances
★ Miyazaki made a 13-minute "sequel" to the film, "Mei and the Kittenbus", that has not yet been distributed or broadcast. It is shown exclusively in the Ghibli Museum and initially was only shown for a short time [2]. It reappears at intervals there, most recently from October through mid-November 2006. [3].
★ Totoro also made a brief cameo appearance during a scene in ''Pompoko'', another Studio Ghibli film.
★ In the first Digimon Movie, "Digimon Adventure (The Movie)", there is a Totoro object that can be seen during the bubbles scene. This scene was shortened in the English version and the Totoro cannot be seen.
★ Episode XXXIII of ''Samurai Jack'' has Jack encountering an annoying creature whose design is clearly influenced by the big Totoro. The episode also includes an artifact called the Crystal of Cagliostro, an apparent allusion to Miyazaki's earlier film ''The Castle of Cagliostro''.
★ The character of Totoro made a cameo appearance in one episode of the Gainax TV series ''Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo'' (''His and Her Circumstances''), which was likely director Hideaki Anno's way of paying tribute to Miyazaki. (Anno worked as a key animator on ''Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind'' in 1984 and considers Miyazaki a mentor.) In fact, Gainax reportedly invited the animator who did the original key animation for Totoro to work on that scene, although they never revealed the animator's name. In addition, one ''KareKano'' character, Tsubasa Shibahime, is a huge Totoro fan.
★ Totoro has made three cameo appearances on Comedy Central's ''Drawn Together''. He is a student in "Foxxy vs. the Board of Education", a Japanese businessman in "A Very Special Drawn Together Afterschool Special", and a wedding guest in "Freaks & Greeks".
★ The Pokemon Snorlax may have been based on Totoro. His baby evolution, Munchlax, may be based on the smaller version of Totoro seen in the film also.
★ Appa from was strongly inspired by the Catbus from ''My Neighbor Totoro.
★ In Neil Gaiman's '', Delirium blows bubbles into a number of impossible shapes, one of which is Totoro holding an umbrella.
★ Sometimes in Code Lyoko as seen in Yumi's room , there is a Totoro doll.
★ In Kare Kano the girls say they have seen a Totoro on the street. They want just to play a joke to a childish member of the group.
★ In Kiki's Delivery Service Mei and Chu-Totoro are painted on the bedroom windows. She also has a stuffed toy that resembles Totoro on her bed. Also if you look hard while Kiki is zooming through the crowds near the beginning of the film you can see a girl who looks just like Mei.
★ Chu-Totoro and Chibi-Totoro can be seen on a dollmaker's bench in Whisper of The Heart.
★ In Ne-yo's music video for his song Sexy Love, in the scene where he and his girlfriend are on the roof, in the background you can see a spray painted Totoro.
★ The Cartoon Network short, "Buy One Get One Free" (aired as part of the What a Cartoon show), is a short about a cat who is tempted into throwing a party in his owner's apartment. In one shot, a cat resembling Totoro can be seen at the party.
Trivia
Pavilion reproduction of Satsuki & Mei’s House in Japan.
★ The main Totoro has become a mascot for Studio Ghibli, gracing the studio's logo at the start of their films.
★ There is a real park in Higashimurayama, Tokyo and Tokorozawa, Saitama named Hachikokuyama which was used as the inspiration for the mountain where Satsuki and Mei's mother was hospitalized.
★ Matsugo, the area where Mei and Satsuki live, is a real district of Tokorozawa, Saitama.
★ When the Catbus is about to take Mei and Satsuki to the hospital, the destination sign displays several real locations in Tokorozawa. In the final display, the final character of 七国山病院 appears upside-down.
★ Asteroid 10160 has been named "Totoro" by Takao Kobayashi. The name was approved by the International Astronomical Union.
★ The 2005 World Expo in Japan featured a "Totoro" house, a recreation of Satsuki and Mei's house in the movie.
★ Ken Jennings, the winner of the most games in the history of the TV game show ''Jeopardy!'', carries a small plush "Totoro" figure in his pocket for good luck.
★ "Kaze no Tōrimichi", one of the main themes in the soundtrack of ''Totoro'', appears in a rearranged version as "Tororo-kun Is My Neighbor" in the Nintendo 64 game ''Goemon's Great Adventure'', where it is played in the Mokeke Forest stage.
★ The Catbus is definitely male - when it jumps from the power lines toward Mei, its testicles are clearly visible, much like those of the male tanuki in ''Pom Poko''.
★ Pat Carroll, the voice of Granny in the Disney dub, was also the voice of Ursula in the animated Disney film ''The Little Mermaid''.
★ The type of flute played by the "Totoros" is called an ''Ocarina''
Credits
DVD case cover for ''My Neighbor Totoro'' from the original 20th Century Fox release. The Walt Disney Company has issued a re-release with a new voice cast.
★ Executive producer: Yasuyoshi Tokuma
★ Producer: Toru Hara
★ Original story, screenplay written and directed by: Hayao Miyazaki
★ Music composer: Joe Hisaishi
★ Supervising animator: Yoshiharu Sato
★ Art director: Kazuo Oga
★ Color design: Michiyo Yasuda
★ Color design assistant: Nobuko Mizuta
★ Camera supervisor: Hisao Shirai
★ Editor: Takeshi Seyama
★ Audio director: Shigeharu Shiba
★ Recording & sound mixing engineer: Shuji Inoue
★ Sound effects: Kazutoshi Sato (E&M Planning Center)
★ Dialogue editor: Akiyoshi Yoda
★ Recording & mixing studio: Tokyo TV Center
★ Japanese theme song performance: Azumi Inoue
★ Production manager: Eiko Tanaka
★ Production desk: Hirokatsu Kihara, Toshiyuki Kawabata
★ Film development laboratory: Tokyo Laboratory
★ Production: Studio Ghibli
Cast
The movie stars the following voice actors:
| Character | Original Japanese version | Streamline English version | Disney English version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Satsuki Kusakabe | Noriko Hidaka | Lisa Michelson (Deceased) | Dakota Fanning |
| Mei Kusakabe | Chika Sakamoto | Cheryl Chase | Elle Fanning |
| Professor Kusakabe | Shigesato Itoi | Steve Kramer | Timothy Daly |
| Mrs. Kusakabe | Sumi Shimamoto | Alexandra Kenworthy | Lea Salonga |
| Kanta | Toshiyuki Amagasa | Kenneth Hartman | Paul Butcher |
| Nanny | Tanie Kitabayashi | Natalie Core | Pat Carroll |
| Totoro | Hitoshi Takagi (Deceased) | Hitoshi Takagi | Frank Welker |
See also
★ My Neighbor Totoro Soundtrack Collection
★ Mei and the Kittenbus
External links
★
★
★ ''My Neighbor Totoro'' at Nausicaa.net
★ Synopsis & Media at the FilmFantastic Film Festival
★ Transcript of ''My Neighbor Totoro''; a comparison of the Fox English dub with a more literal translation of the original Japanese
★ DVD Image Comparison: contains stills comparing the quality of the Japanese and American DVDs
★ Journal of Religion and Film: Shinto Perspectives in Miyazaki's Anime
★ Wikimapia satellite image of Totoro house at World Fair ExpoAichi 2005
★ となりのトトロ (''Tonari no Totoro'')
References
1. http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/totoro/faq.html#mother – Retrieved on 2006-10-30
2. [1]
3. Helen McCarthy, Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation, p 120-1, ISBN 1-880656-41-8
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