Type: Movie
Rating: Any Age
Runtime: 86 min
Directed By Miyazaki Hayao
Produced By Studio Ghibli
Year Produced: 1988
The To Aru Kagaku no Home Theater Miyazaki Marathon... and then some... continues, despite public protest!
This is a "festival" where I sit down at spend about a week and a half watching all of the Miyazaki movies that I want to. I didn't mention this last time, but I don't have any particular interest in Ponyo.
What's still to come are:
Thursday - Kiki's Delivery Service (1989)
Friday - Porco Rosso (1992)
Saturday - Whisper of the Heart (1995)
Sunday - Princess Mononoke (1997)
Monday of Next Week - Spirited Away (2001)
Tuesday of Next Week - Howl's Moving Castle (2004)
I've already reviewed Kaze no Tani no Nausicaa and Laputa: Castle in the Sky, so if you're interested in that, then check it out... back there.
Set in the Japanese countryside (assumability the rice farming area), the story is about the Kursakabe family, consisting of two daughters Satsuki and Mei (older and younger), their father Tatsuo, and their mother Yasuko who's staying in a hospital in the city because of her weak constitution. I'm guessing that moving out to the country-side was for their mother's health because Tatsou is a archeology teacher at a university, and the commute sounds hellish.
All of their earthly possessions are right there.
Either way, the Kurasakabe family loads all of their earthly possessions onto one of those... cars, I guess, I actually don't know what they are, but I've seen them in pictures.
Have you ever seen one of these in real life? The shrine... not...
They arrive at their new home which... looks like Luigi's Mansion on a clear day (an obscure reference to an old Gamecube game which is strangely a lot of fun to play). Though I can't complain, I've lived in worse.
Their new house.
They have a moving day, inspecting the house and discovering many new and interesting things about their new abode. Such as the fact that it's haunted by living soot balls, or "Soot Gremlins".
Cough.
They apparently aren't dangerous, they can just get in you lungs, give you the Black Lung, and kill you (my opinion, I mean... they're balls of soot! That's not a good thing!).
And so they settle into their new life there. Satsuki starts going to a local elementary school, dad goes to teach at university, Mei starts exploring the local property (she's 4) and mom's... sitting all bored in the hospital.
During the course of her investigation, Mei discovers... the creatures on the Ghibli logo.
So they're... Ghiblis?
... I like it.
Mei follows them deep into the forest, and then into a hole in a tree, right out onto...
A big bear.
I don't know about you, but unless you're brain-damaged, you have the general sense that standing on the top of a clawed creature 20 times your size is a bad idea. It's kind of like a basic instinct.
But Mei's not worried at all, and God knows why, because she's not brain-damaged, she's 4... okay, she's... inexperienced with the ways of killer beasts.
Turns out, it's a god, or something along the spiritual path, even better! I think I'll walk on a god's stomach and see what happens.
But Totoro's (that's it's name; Totoro) one of those cool, chillaxed gods/spirits. Not many of those outside Japanese philosophy/mythology (I don't want to offend anyone here).
So now the Kurasakabe's have got a new neighbor; Totoro, hence the title. Miyazaki's sneaky like that. So the rest of the story is about their interaction with the fuzzy Totoro, and about their mother(who's in the hospital, remember?).
Along the way they discover many new and wonderful things about the countryside, their other human neighbors, and ways to get around the "Shoe Custom".
Do you take off your shoes when you go inside? I personally think it's kind of creepy to wear shoes inside, I was raised where you took off your shoes because of the carpets and hard-wood floors. Plus I live in Hawaii, we're a melting pot.
This was a fun movie. Actually it was (and I hesitate to use the word) sweet. I don't like using this word because I usually use it in a different situation (usually applying to girls).
I wouldn't say that it was funny, but I did notice that it had those moments where you smiled without being amused (per sea), hence the "sweet" thing.
It was Miyazaki all over, I mean, he even wrote the ending song; Totori no Totoro, which wasn't bad, just like the opening song.
... And nobody does the "Tough Walk" like Studio Ghibli.
(Since I'm on the topic) The music wasn't bad, but again, not to my taste. It was kind of the music you see in children's movies and stuff, and as I already stated a while back, I'm more into rock/techno music. Don't worry, I'm making a point to review an anime that has my type of music in it presently, though I don't know exactly when I'm getting to it...
Japanese, though the English dub was very good. I don't know what happened (though on a side note, Satsuki and Mei were played by actual sisters I think, people with the same last name at least).
You should probably watch this movie. It appears to be Miyazaki's brain child or something, and it's an experience either way. I mean, would you want to miss...
CATBUS?!
I know I wouldn't.
Coming up next!
Day 4: Kiki's Delivery Service!
Alert!
If you don't like spoilers, or still want to watch the show now, you'd better stop reading!I'll do my best to spoil the story, but I actually did most of that in the review. Since the movie's not that long, there are only a couple more things that happen.
After Mei gets back from meeting Totoro for the first time, she tells everybody about it, and Satsuki decided that she wants to meet the fluffy guy too. Her father tells her that she will if she's lucky.
Later on, Satsuki drops Mei off at a local "Granny's" (not in a weird or perverted way) house. In the middle of school, Granny and Mei show up, after Mei had a temper tantrum.
On the way home from school, they get caught in a rain storm and sit in a road-side shrine for a while. One of their neighbors, a boy named Kanta, walks past (him and Satsuki don't exactly get along), but his natural gentleman instinct kicks in and he leaves his umbrella with them. Kanta's rather inexperienced with girls, and doesn't know how to act specifically nice around them, but at least he gets the idea.
Later that night, it's still raining and Satsuki decides to go to the bus stop and wait for their father with an umbrella. Mei comes along too.
They drop off Kanta's umbrella and head out.
They wait for a while in the rain until the bus comes... and goes. Their father's not on it. So they wait for the next bus... which will be coming approximately at... "Way past your bedtime"...
So they wait... and wait... and then wait some more until Mei's passing out. Satsuki loads Mei onto her back and then... get ready for it... wait some more.
Then from out of the sounds of the forest, there comes the sound of footsteps. Satsuki's in a terrible position, what with a sleeping Mei on her back, and she can't see squat, until a big paw comes walking up beside her. It's Totoro!
... waiting for the bus.
Totoro's just chillin' there, but Satsuki notices that his "hat" is starting to give him some trouble.
Drip, drip, drip.
So Satsuki offers him an umbrella. Totoro takes in and after figuring out how to use it, stands awkwardly next to Satsuki.
There's a Christmas card.
So they stand there for a while longer, Totoro having fun with the large rain drops that fall from the tree until...
CATBUS!!
Holy shit, what the fuck is that?!
My first impression.
It's actually Totoro's exclusive transport to... wherever he's going... which is where, exactly?
Totoro gives them a parting gift, steals the umbrella, and then the catbus takes off. Satsuki and Mei are far too scared of being eaten to stop Totoro or figure out where he's going, not that he'd answer because all he does is roar, pretty much.
The real bus comes and drops off their father, who they inform of their exciting night. They got home and open the package, which is full of acorns, which they later plant (way too close together) in hopes that they will grow into magnificent trees.
... Only they aren't. Not for a long time. Mei's doing her best what with staring at them, but it's not working.
Late one summer, bug-filled night, Satsuki and Mei wake up at the sound of something going on out back near their "planned forest" grounds. It's Totoro and the Ghiblis, come to encourage the acorns. After a ceremony involving the umbrella and a lot of jumping, the ground rumbles, the earth cracks, and the acorns sprout and continue to grow into a magnificent tree.
Now I'm not any kind of environmentalist, and I've lived my entire life out in the country, far away from most of my friends, and had gotten kind of sick of nature at more than a few points of my life, but there was something about that scene that struck a chord in me.
I don't really get it, maybe it was the fact that it was a big tree. I love big trees, the kind of living history ones that you see in national parks and shit. I also like how trees grow. Shrubs and bushes and stuff like that can go screw themselves, and flowers are okay, but trees are excellent.
Eventually, the doctors at their mother's hospital decide that it's okay for her to return home, and they decide that she can stay at the house over the weekend, since they want her to get used to the new house slowly.
Satsuki and Mei go out to Granny's field and help her pick the vegetables that she's grown, vegetables that are good for you and (as Granny says) "will cure their mother if she eats them".
Kanta comes looking for them with a telegram that was given to him to give to them. The telegram is asking them to get in touch with the hospital where their mother is staying.
Satsuki and Mei start to freak out, worrying that something's happened to their mother, so they run all over town trying to find a telephone to call her dad, which they find inside Kanta's uncle's house, I believe.
The telegram was to inform them that their mother had caught a cold, and wouldn't be able to come home that weekend. Mei is seriously disappointed, and she and Sastuki have a fight during which Satsuki yells at Mei and Mei eventually cries.
Back at home, the two are laying around depressed when Granny comes over to keep them company until their father comes home (he's going to the hospital to check on their mother).
Satsuki tells Granny something similar to this has happened before; the hospital says it's a cold, and then their mother ends up in a sick ward for a couple of months.
Mei's watching this, and decides to leave on her own, carrying with her an ear of corn which was picked from Granny's garden.
Because she didn't tell anyone that she was going, Satsuki and Granny can't find her, and then... freak out, running all over the country-side looking for her. They believe that she's gone to the hospital, but the walk would be impossible for a 4-year-old.
Desperate, Satsuki manages to find Totoro and begs him to help her find Mei. Totoro agrees and calls... the police!
... okay...
CATBUS!!
Satsuki gets on and the bus leaps out to go find Mei, which it does, sitting alone next to a bunch of frozen monks. The two girls have a tearful reunion, and then the bus agrees to take them to the hospital to see their mother...
... who's just fine. It was seriously only a cold. Satisfied, the two girls leave the ear of corn and go home to the tune of Totori no Totoro.
The end. It was a pretty good anime, especially since I'm not into Disney any more, I was surprised that a "childish" anime like this one was so good.
What with that all being said, I've just got the last question for you.
Alice in Wonderland, or your worst nightmare?
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