Things get crazier and crazier, though at a natural pace, until a giant cat bus (you really have to see it to believe it) arrives to reunite the girls with their mother. On the way we get a signature moment of Miyazaki wit when Totoro first reveals himself to Satsuki as she and Mei are waiting in the rain for their father at a bus stop, and promptly jumps up to drench her with water.
I don't want to give away too much for anyone who's never seen this or just wants to rediscover the movie again, but from there it turns into one of Miyazaki's trippiest rides, and it's a thoroughly fun one to take.
There's a genuine goofy charm to their first encounter, as Mei lays on the stomach of a sleeping Totoro and tries to figure out just what in the world she's encountered.
just let the delightfully odd realm of Totoro unfold around you as it does for young Mei.Īfter spying a pint-size, semi-translucent version of Totoro (there are, since Miyazaki is ever the prankster, three of them), Mei follows it through a thicket of trees and down a hole where she finally encounters the giant version of Totoro, who most closely resembles a big cat, but really just looks so odd that he can be just about anything you want him to be. It can be troubling if you think about it too much, and even more so in Ponyo, but don't. Dad, voiced by Tim Daly, is benevolent but aloof, happy to keep his nose buried in books while his daughters explore their new environment.
Unlike most of Miyazaki's movies, Totoro has a definite time and place, rural Japan in the 1950s, and he and his animators turn the landscape of rice patty fields and wooded areas into an enchanting place to visit.Īs the movie opens, 10-year-old Satsuki and her 4-year-old sister Mei, voiced with wide-eyed enthusiasm by Dakota and Elle Fanning in the Western version (yes, really), arrive with their father at their new home in the countryside, and of course immediately find it to be full of wonders, including the susuwatsari, soot sprites that disappear once the girls become comfortable in their new surroundings.Īnd this odd living arrangement (mom, it turns out, is recovering in a hospital from a long-term illness) just about perfectly captures how Miyazaki views the role of adults and children in the world.