A Movie You Might Have Missed #77 — My Neighbor Totoro

It's been 11 years since I began this series highlighting movies I wished more people knew about. I'm rerunning it from the beginning because I still think these are movies you might have missed. 

As a fun update for this movie, I will soon be showing pieces of it to my 2-year-old grandson. Way back in 2004 when I first reviewed this film, he was so far in the future that I never could have imagined the joy and fun he brings. Hopefully, he'll love this movie as much as his mother did. 

 

Way back in 2004 I reviewed this film. That was before I had an entire series about movies you might have missed so I thought I'd be sure this was brought to mind. These days you might have heard of the film because filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki is now known more outside of Japan than he used to be. Specializing in animated films for children, Miyazaki is a masterful storyteller whose talent transcends national culture. 

Also, the people who were young enough to be babysitters in 2004 are now adults with kids of their own. And the kids they were showing this to are also grown. So anime isn't such a foreign concept now as it was then.

Here is my original review which captures a bit of our family's film culture.

Ok, your kids might have seen this but chances are if they have it is because you know my kids. Thanks to Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z my girls got attached to Japanese animation (anime) when they were little. Then they moved on to kids' manga (Japanese graphic novels) which is where Sailor Moon, etc. actually began.

Anime usually doesn't have much of a U.S. following, except among true movie lovers, because they don't follow the expected pattern. For one thing, they are animated but aren't produced by Disney (or Dreamworks or Pixar). For another, they tend to show in art houses which also are unfamiliar to a lot of folks.

We heard of My Neighbor Totoro and were surprised to find it available for rental. Eventually we had to buy our own copy, which my daughters now take with them when baby sitting. This delights the kids and annoys the parents because then their children start pestering them to buy the movie.

My Neighbor Totoro is a charming, original story by a famous Japanese filmmaker. It is the story of two young girls and their father moving to a new home in the forest. The girls go exploring and come across Totoro, a giant forest spirit.

Check out the reviews at Amazon for the full story.

I've seen some cultural warnings about possible misunderstandings also which never occurred to us when we originally watched it, such as:

... there are a couple of scenes that are perfectly innocent in Japanese culture -- like the dad sitting in the bathtub with both little girls-- that may raise some eyebrows/questions in American culture. Please be assured there's nothing sexual about the scene, it is 100% innocent and acceptable in Japan for adults to bath with their younger children (the girls in this movie are 9 and 4 I believe), but American culture is a little different so I thought I'd put a heads up here.

There are other differences but we found that part of the charm as a window into another world. We've enjoyed many of Miyazaki's films but this is a real delight.