DON’T REALLY LIKE TOTORO – AND WHY THAT DOESN’T REALLY MATTER

TONY T. - Editor-In-Chief, 3rd Year, Economics and Data Science

5/10

There’s this intangible sense of magic that permeates throughout most Studio Ghibli works as their releases typically feature beautiful backgrounds that really draw audiences into fictional worlds. While I wouldn’t call Ghibli films unrivaled in this regard, their quantity of films featuring this quality in high amounts certainly is. One shining example of this quality is Miyazaki Hayao’s My Neighbor Totoro which is captivating in its depiction of the Japanese countryside. Totoro, like Miyazaki’s subsequent release Kiki’s Delivery Service, is also notable in the more relaxed tone. In spite of some slightly more distressing background plot elements, with the main characters’ mother battling long term disease, My Neighbor Totoro is a very light film that captures the oh-so elusive idea of childhood wonder rather well.

In spite of this, I’ve never really enjoyed it as much as most people have. My Neighbor Totoro is a film that should appeal to me on the surface. Having spent a considerable amount of time in my youth around a similarly sparse Asian countryside, I feel a unique kinship with the particular sort of setting that Miyazaki seems keen on aggrandizing within this film. Beyond that, Totoro is the second anime film I remember ever watching, as my parents possessed a Studio Ghibli DVD collection. In said collection was the first anime film I remember watching, Castle in the Sky, a film I still consider to be among my absolute favorites. My reasoning for that opinion can be found in a previous article I’ve written, but it boils down to that very potent sense of magic present within the aesthetics of Studio Ghibli releases. For what it’s worth, I’ve seen both Castle in the Sky and Totoro upwards of ten times at varying points throughout my life. In most regards, My Neighbor Totoro is a movie which perfectly matches my preferences in regards to a childhood favorite family film.

I find that Totoro suffers in aspects outside of that “Ghibli magic”. Outside of its aesthetics, its mise en scène, I can’t say that Totoro really has much meaningful to say about anything. I should clarify that this is only in regards to my personal view of the film, but Totoro never really breaks past the most basic of themes that a child would understand. That’s perfectly fine for its target demographic, but it just never appealed to me, as I really enjoy media that has particularly strong main themes that

I can continuously ponder upon. I hate to be that one old annoying guy, but Totoro is to me completely serviceable as a family film, yet just doesn’t have much beyond the initial hook for children to make it appealing as an adult. As a child, I enjoyed media that I didn’t understand out of a desire to seem smart. That was obviously shortsighted and immature, but it still illustrates to me Totoro’s relative lack of more significant ideas past a rather lighthearted exploration of a child’s wandering imagination.

This is not to say I detest Totoro. I often find myself in vitriolic rants about why a piece of media is absolutely one of the worst things I’ve ever seen, but that just isn’t the case with Totoro. It’s a film that I find many positives in, particularly from its production aspects. I ultimately cannot say it is really meaningful to me on any deeper level, as I’ve never really found much to contemplate from it. Totoro can really bore me if I view it too soon after a previous viewing, because I kind of feel like I get everything that it’s saying and I don’t find it terribly relevant to my personal experiences. However, on the rare occasion every few years where I do rewatch My Neighbor Totoro, I still find myself at awe at the sheer brilliance in its audiovisual presentation. Ultimately, Totoro has never and will never be a favorite of mine - it simply doesn’t appeal to me personally and I don’t find it to be really ambitious. Yet I find its existence to be a profound statement on behalf of its director, alongside the Studio Ghibli staff, regarding their skill. It speaks to Miyazaki’s talent as a director that even a film that has absolutely nothing to offer to me in narrative or thematic appeal is still entertaining to a certain extent because he had a role in creatng it. My Neighbor Totoro is not and has not ever been something I love, but I’m not the target demographic. It is an absolute masterpiece in regards to what it sets out to be, a family film that embodies the very notion of childhood wonder.