My Neighbor Totoro is the fourth of Miyazaki’s 11 films as writer/director

Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, perhaps best known for his work with Studio Ghibli, has gained popularity around the world for his creative and imaginative animated feature films. While they were originally released in Japanese, all of them have been dubbed into English with prominent voice actors and Hollywood stars. For the next several weeks, I’ll be reviewing the English-dub versions of each of Miyazaki’s 11 films as writer and director.

Last week, I tackled Ponyo (2008).

This week: My Neighbor Totoro (1988) and Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989).

Synopsis: While their mom is in the hospital, sisters Satsuki and Mei (voiced by Dakota and Elle Fanning, respectively) move with their dad (voiced by Tim Daly) into a old house in the country. The sisters soon discover and befriend the nearby forest spirits, one of whom is named Totoro (voiced by Frank Welker). Together, they have all sorts of adventures — some fun, some dramatic.

Spoiler-free review: This is another Miyazaki film I’d seen before, and while it was only once several years ago, I feel like I enjoyed it more the first time around. Maybe getting older has turned me into a curmudgeon, but the film didn’t hold as much charm for me as it did the first time. Or maybe it was because I watched it so close to Kiki’s, which does similar things but — in my opinion — does them better. (I’ll talk about that more below.) Anyway, the movie doesn’t really have a through plot, but it’s really more episodic. Like Ponyo, a lot of time is spent with tiny children, which can be a bit much sometimes. And, like The Wind Rises, some of the movie is dedicated to the everyday tasks of these characters; but unlike that movie, there’s more fantasy elements to draw you back into the narrative. I love the character designs for all the forest spirits, and I think the voice cast is solid even though it’s small. (There’s like six human characters in the movie, and two of them don’t talk very much.) Really what bolsters this movie is the charm of its fantastical elements. I think younger kids would enjoy it, although adults might get a bit bored. Overall, it’s not not worth watching, but I’d recommend other Miyazaki movies before suggesting you watch this one.

Letter grade: B-

Full review and critique: (Warning: here be spoilers!)

So, as stated, I think that everything this movie does, Kiki’s does better.

Both of them have more episodic than through plot lines, but I think the setup for Kiki’s draws you more into the story and keeps up a more engaging and more consistent pace. In Totoro, the movie only seems to get interesting when the forest spirits and soot sprites are running around. (Which, by the way, it looks like Studio Ghibli reused the soot sprite design for Spirited Away.) I think what really hurts this movie is the lack of actual conflict and drama. I understand that it’s a kid’s movie, but Kiki’s episodic plots had conflict. “Would she get the package delivered on time? Would she make it back through the rain to go on her date? Would she find a way to get her powers back? etc.” Here, though, the most dramatic thing that happens in the first two-thirds of the movie is whether Mei was making up Totoro or whether Satsuki would be able to see him, too.

The movie picks up dramatically in the final act when Satsuki and Mei find out their mom can’t come home from the hospital, they get into a fight and Mei runs off. Satsuki runs all over the freakin’ countryside looking for her sister, and there’s some drama as to whether Mei fell into a pond and drowned. She didn’t, but jeez, what a dark turn that takes, pretty much out of nowhere! Asking Totoro for help finding her is set up well; and the payoff to using the Cat Bus to find her and then clandestinely visiting their mom at the hospital works. The whole third act is much better than the initial two-thirds, although I will acknowledge there’s some important setup and atmosphere-building that happens earlier in the movie.

Looking at its positives, though, as I said, the character designs for the forest spirits are really cool and the voice cast is solid. Additionally, I also think that — out of all of Miyazaki’s filmography — this is the movie that tackles environmentalism the best. I know that’s a bit weird to say. But hear me out:

Environmentalism is a huge recurring theme among Miyazaki’s films. Several of his films touch on living in harmony with nature, not polluting the environment, and being good stewards of the earth. I’ll certainly say that none of his films stray into Ferngully territory where it gets reduced down to “humans bad, nature good.” Still, there are a few times where it’s dealt with a bit awkwardly. Spirited Away is maybe my foremost example of this, where it’s shoe-horned in that Haku is the spirit of a river that has been destroyed and/or polluted because of human development.

Here, though, rather than coming across as preachy or judgmental, Totoro takes a different approach by instead getting kids excited about growing and stewarding the land. The scene where the sisters wake up and see Totoro and his friends outside trying to help the seeds grow is such a well-done scene; and overall, I feel like the movie helps kids understand that it’s important to preserve the forest because the creatures that live there — be they spirits or actual animals — are our neighbors. And we want to be good neighbors. I wonder whether, after younger kids saw this movie, they wanted to go out and plant seeds and see their gardens grow, just like Satsuki and Mei did. And, again, this angle is a major part of the movie but it doesn’t feel like some kind of grand opus about the greed of man destroying the nature around him (in the way that Princess Mononoke does). It’s integral but never feels cliche to me, and I really appreciate that.

Thus, My Neighbor Totoro is definitely more worth your time than Ferngully or some piece of mediocrity like Ice Age is. But still, I would say it’s in the lower half of Miyazaki’s filmography as writer/director.

Next week: Princess Mononoke (1997).