Tag: my neighbor totoro

Continuing the run of Ghibli movies, I watched My Neighbor Totoro. I’d heard a lot about this movie, and of course the totoros are all over Ghibli’s advertising, but the movie itself was rather underwhelming. Two little girls move to the countryside with their dad, run around for an hour, have a fight, run around for another 30 minutes, the end.

The mythical “totoro” creatures themselves only show up a few times in the film, and only the big one plays any sort of important role. It was a decent watch, but probably one of those things I’d have to be 6 years old to truly appreciate. Actually I know a trio of sisters aged between 9 and 4, and the dynamic between the oldest and the youngest is pretty much like that between Satsuki and Mei in the film. I was impressed they managed to capture that interaction so accurately, but beyond that, yah, nothing special.

Next is Kiki’s Delivery Service. According to a Studio Ghibli special I watched, Hayao Miyazaki spent a whole day staring at women in skirts as research (ahem, ahem) for this movie, so let’s see how it turned out.