8 FACTS ABOUT ‘MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO’ YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO KNOW

“Do you like spirits mummy? Even fuzzy ones?” – Mei

1. On its original release in Japan in 1988, the film was double-featured with Grave of the Fireflies. This was because Studio Ghibli believe Grave of the Fireflies was too big a financial risk to have as a stand-alone release

   

2. There is a Totoro plush toy that makes an appearance in Toy Story 3

   

3. The film is considered to be partly autobiographical. When Miyazaki and his siblings were children, his mother suffered from spinal tuberculosis. This resulted in her spending much of her time in hospital – such as how Satsuki and Mei’s mother suffers from the same disease and spends the duration of the film in hospital. Miyazaki has even said before that the film would have been too painful for him to make if the two children were boys instead of girls

   

4. There’s a geographical error in the movie. When Satsuki and Mei are waiting for the bus in the rain, the stop sign reads ‘Maezawa-gyo’ in some scenes while in other scenes the sign has ‘Shichikokuyama-gyo’ written on it

   

5. My Neighbour Totoro was not a big success when it hit the theatre. It wasn’t until two years later when the movie began to receive high praise

   

6. ‘Satsuki’ means ‘May’ in Japanese while Mei is pronounced as ‘May.’ And Studio Ghibli decided to release the film in May…

   

7. The film has been through two English adaptions – one in 1993 and one in 2005. The first adaption did not satisfy Miyazaki as he felt it didn’t do the film justice, so it was redone in 2005

   

8. The movie was the first animated film to win Picture of the year at the Japanese Academy Awards