MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO 30TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION
1988 Out Now Dual Format Extras Featurettes, Textless opening/closing credits, Storyboards
Art cards, notebook, Art Of book, poster, stickers, tote bag… about the only thing that’s missing from this bumper anniversary package is a stuffed Totoro. Hankering for one? You’re not the first. When the film was shown on Japanese TV a year after its (middling) theatrical run, postcards coveting Totoro toys had to be carried in “10 three-ton trucks”, according to producer Toshio Suzuki. Merch has continued to sell like hot cakes down the decades; Studio Ghibli’s barrel-bellied mascot is a globally recognised animation icon.
Ironic, then, that he’s not in his own film that much. Turns out it’s all E.T.’s fault. Writer/director Hayao Miyazaki originally intro-ed his titular forest spirit in the opening scene, but Suzuki advised him to adopt a Spielbergian approach and defer the full reveal, teasing a leg here, a tail there.
A little Totoro, it turns out, goes a long way. Limiting him to a handful of scenes – most memorably a rainy wait for a bus – preserves the film’s sense
of magic, mystery, ambiguity. But
My Neighbour Totoro’s big talking point isn’t whether the characters’ close encounters are imaginary. It’s how real those characters are.
For a long time during development (which ran over a decade), Miyazaki’s plot centred on one heroine, Satsuki. In the end, he added a kid sister, Mei; the plot pivots on the pair’s escapades around their new home in late-’50s rural Japan. Playful, fractious, loving, lived-in, the girls’ sibling dynamic is as rich as the one in Grave Of The Fireflies (double-billed with Totoro on initial release), only a lot less harrowing.
“Entertainment [in the late ’80s] was all about guns, action and speed,” says Miyazaki on the (previously released) extras. “I wanted the movie to be peaceful, tranquil and innocent.” Mission accomplished on all counts, though there’s also an undertow of anxiety – the girls’ mum is being treated for tuberculosis; the new house makes horrendous sounds when the wind rises; and the climax is built upon a desperate missing-person search, Miyazaki conjuring chest-clenching dread with a shot of a floating sandal.
Still, sweetness prevails, and not in any remotely icky fashion. Remarkably for a kids’ adventure, it’s a film that doesn’t have, and doesn’t need, a villain, or even any obstructive adults. Everybody’s nice, including the surly boy clearly nursing a crush on Satsuki. It sounds so twee as to induce a Totoro-sized yawn, yet it plays out with such beguiling nuance that you’ll be flashing your gnashers like a Catbus (also not included).