As I continue my journey of watching the Studio Ghibli movies it continues to amaze the sheer quality of these movies. This particular one is quite possibly the most joyous ones I’ve watched.
From the very beginning of the movie it emanates a kind of joy that only children seem to be able to. Our two main characters, Satsuki and Mei are two young children who are so excited by everything. Their new house, their neighbors, the spirits inhabiting their new space. I couldn’t help but smiling ear to ear as I watched these two run around the house.
From the Wikipedia page:
The film explores themes such as animism, Shinto symbology, environmentalism and the joys of rural living
Wikipedia page for My Neighbor Totoro
I love the way that characters in this movie deal with animism. Tatsuo, Satsuki and Mei’s dad at no point dismisses any of the talk of the spirits inhabiting their spaces and in fact teaches his daughters about paying respects to the local forest spirit, Totoro.
Speaking of Totoro, they themselves are a joy to watch interact with our other characters, for example, their reaction to raindrops falling on the umbrella given to them is one of my favourites. It is just so fun and it is no surprise that this particular scene is the one chosen for the movie’s poster and Totoro became the mascot/logo character for Studio Ghibli.
This movie also reminded me of Action Button’s review of Boku No Natsuyomi mainly in the theme of certain kind of idyllic and utopian idea of Japanese rural living. I highly recommend giving that video a watch, its quite good.
All in all, I am really that I watched this movie and that I am watching the Studio Ghibli movies. So far I haven’t watched a bad one of these yet, which by itself an impressive feat.