My Neighbor Totoro - 1988
The world of Nausicaa is scarred by reminders of an earth-altering war. Isolated between toxic jungles and endless deserts are shattered nations, still warring with one another. Within the toxic jungles are hordes of behemoth insects, most notably the Ohmu. Large beetle creatures, Ohmu are enraged at the cruelty of man and often stampede, capable of destroying cities.
Tucked away in near the sea, on the outskirts of the toxic jungle, is the Valley of the Wind. When a fleeing aircraft from a militaristic nation crashes in the valley carrying an evil weapon, Nausicaa and her valley are caught in the endless struggle between power-hungry man and the resilience of nature.
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The opening credits (pictured right) are a history of her world, as well as a prophecy of its salvation.
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"A girl bursting with vitality, seemingly growing up basking in sunshine... In a family whose mother is absent, she is filling the role of homemaker."
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"Satsuki has no trouble changing schools and makes friends right away. But because her father... is deficient in his ability to master the realities of daily life and her little sister, she has been forced to exercise forbearance." - Miyazaki 1987
"Mei is a bold, happy girl, without any dark shadows in her personality. She runs after her older sister and imitates her. But if she comes across something interesting she becomes obsessed with it and forgets the way home or the time, upsetting her older sister."
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"With initial shyness and tendency to few words, she seems to be even more observant than Satsuki." - Miyazaki 1987
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Totoro is a forest spirit that inhabits the largest tree of the village. He is accompanied by several smaller, similar spirits. It is implied that Totoro and the other spirits are the physical manifestations of trees. He aids the sisters in finding their way home.
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"Since he lives as the lord of the forest, Totoro can hear the joyous voices of the plants." - Miyazaki 1987
Other characters include the forest spirits (smaller Totoros) that accompany the titular beast; the girls' mother and father; Catbus, a cheshire-esque mode of transportation; and Kanta, a boy that lives on the farms just outside the girls' home.
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"Japan's original forests and woods are actually dark. When you enter into them, there's something scary and exciting. It feels like an animal might be lurking just out of sight... the gods are in the darkness. They may come out into the light at times, but they are usually deep in the forest or mountains." - Miyazaki 1987
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This is a story about a nature god's emergence into the world of humans and the fearful awe man feels in the face of nature. The dark greens show the countryside that Mei and Satsuki move to. Most of the other colors (blues, blacks) are the sky at various times of day And Miyazaki is "always aware of the light."
"Over one-forth of the running time consists of the last sequence when the sun goes gradually from midday to the west, then sunset, then dusk and night."
Below is a "smoothed" version, in which the vertical pixels are averaged out.
"The setting for the story is actually taken from many places. It is a combination of the area near Seijo Sakuragaoka where Nippon Animation is located, the area surrounding the Kandagawa River where I grew up, and the landscape of Tokorozawa where I live now. And the art director Kazuo Oga-san is from Akita (right) in the north, so it looks a bit like Akita as well. So I didn't have a specific location in mind." (Miyazaki 1987) This conglomeration of sites and intimate familiarity with them allowed Miyazaki and his team of artists to not create fictional locations, but to depict real ones beautifully.
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"When a holy spot is created, the gods drop onto it. That is why, in the shrines that are closest to their original form that still exist in Okinawa (left), though there are altars in the shrines, the image of the god is just a tree or stone" Totoro is the spirit of nature, somewhere between the spiritual and corporeal. Miyazaki modeled Totoro after a famous Japanese ghost, the star of the childen's manga and anime Obake no Q-taro (Q-taro, the Ghost) by Fuijiko Fuijo.
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A "prototype" Totoro was also created for the 1972 children's animated film by Miyazaki and Isao Takahata, Panda! Go, Panda! In this story, a young girl finds a young panda snoozing on her doorstep, and befriends the tiny bear and its father, PapaPanda. There are noticeable visual and narrative similarities between the films, immediately recognizable from the titular characters' facial structure and the opening sequence.
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Miyazaki stated that when he was a child, another young boy disappeared: people thought she fell into the nearby river. "The parents jumped into the river and the entire neighborhood was all upset. It was a filthy river, a drainage ditch, but everyone joined in an exhaustive search. Then, the child appeared out of nowhere; he had just been playing somewhere else. This sort of thing happens. Suddenly, ordinary life just flies out of the window."He seems to have drawn inspiration from this real life event to create My Neighbor Totoro.
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In the girls' back yard is a giant camphor tree, which Miyazaki seemed particularly enthralled by. This is a mixture of a typical camphor (which grows quite large) and the Redwoods of California, whose forest Miyazaki was fascinated by.
