My Neighbor Totoro

The movie stars the following actors (listed in (Disney) English version/(Streamline) English version/Japanese version format):. He loves feminine things, acts delicately, and often holds a hand mirror which he stares into at his reflection and kisses often. Kusakabe's hospital room, carved with the inscription "To Mommy," as the girls and the Totoros watch from a nearby tree, happy that mother seems to be feeling better. Vanity Smurf, though male, is an effeminate and stylish smurf, the epitome of metrosexuality, most of the time wearing a pink flower on his hat. Kusakabe discover Mei's ear of corn on the windowsill of Mrs. Such artistic works served to warn viewers of the ephemeral nature of youthful beauty, as well as the brevity of human life and the inevitability of death. In the movie's final scene, Professor and Mrs. Upon closer examination, it reveals itself to be a young woman gazing at her reflection in the mirror.

When the cat bus finally leaves them it fades into the evening shadows, in the manner of Lewis Carroll's Cheshire cat. An optical illusion, the painting depicts what appears to be a large grinning skull. The movie features the Catbus, a grinning feline bus summoned by Totoro which rescues Mei and whisks her and Satsuki over the countryside to see their mother in hospital. All is Vanity, by Charles Allan Gilbert (1873-1929), carries on this theme. He is delighted to be of assistance, and with his help Mei is quickly found. A young woman holds a balance, symbolizing justice; she does not look at the mirror or the skull on the table before her.[5] Vermeer's famous painting Girl with a Pearl Earring is sometimes believed to depict the sin of vanity, as the young girl has adorned herself before a glass without further positive allegorical attributes. Satsuki finally seeks Totoro's help. A painting attributed to Nicolas Tournier, which hangs in the Ashmolean Museum, is An Allegory of Justice and Vanity.

Satsuki and the villagers get a major scare when a girl's sandal is found in a pond and they begin to fear that Mei has drowned, but Satsuki confirms that the sandal is not Mei's. Behind her is an open jewelry box. Then, Mei gets lost while trying to bring an ear of healthy corn to her mother at the hospital, and a frantic Satsuki runs everywhere searching for her. In his table of the Seven Deadly Sins, Hieronymus Bosch depicts a bourgeois woman admiring herself in a mirror held up by a devil. Satsuki understands why the visit was cancelled, but Mei does not, and a frustrated Satsuki yells at Mei and the girls end up not speaking to each other for several hours. She admires herself in the glass, while we treat the picture that purports to incriminate her as another kind of glass –a window- through which we peer and secretly desire her."^[4] The theme of the recumbant woman often merged artistically with the non-allegorical one of a reclining Venus. Later, Mei and Satsuki are disappointed to learn that their mother's planned homecoming visit that upcoming weekend has been postponed because mother's condition has worsened. Often we find an inscription on a scroll that reads Omnia Vanitas ("All is Vanity"), a quote from the Book of Ecclesiastes.^[3] "The artist invites us to pay lip-service to condemning her," writes Edwin Mullins, "while offering us full permission to drool over her.

This begins a series of encounters as the spirits allow the children to partake in their nightly activities. Other symbols of vanity include jewels, gold coins, a purse, and often by the figure of death himself. When Satsuki gives him her umbrella, he's delighted at both the shelter and the sounds it makes as water hits it. The mirror is sometimes held by a demon or a putto. One rainy night, while the girls are waiting for their father's bus which is running late, they encounter the giant Totoro who is looking rather forlorn with only a leaf for protection against the rain. She attends to her hair with comb and mirror. Mei is enchanted with them and determined to find the King of the Forest. During the Renaissance, vanity was invariably represented as a naked woman, sometimes seated or reclining on a couch.

Not everyone can see the spirits of the forest, only the pure of heart. In secular allegory, vanity was considered one of the minor vices. Her father tells her that this is the "King of the Forest". In Western art, vanity was often symbolized by a peacock, and in Biblical terms, by the Whore of Babylon. Mei names it Totoro. Vanity hungry is spiteful."[2]. Mei discovers a small Totoro, which leads her to find a large forest spirit living in a hollow under a Camphor Laurel by a small jinja. Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that "vanity is the fear of appearing original: it is thus a lack of pride, but not necessarily a lack of originality."[1] One of Mason Cooley's aphorisms is "Vanity well fed is benevolent.

His daughters discover "soot sprites", which their father rationalizes as makkurokurosuke — an optical illusion seen when moving from light to dark places (glossed as dust bunnies in the 1993 English dub; in the Disney version they are called "Soot Gremlins".). In some religious teachings it is considered a sin, likely to cut the sinner off from the grace of God. A university professor from the city and his two daughters move into an old house near a forest, while his wife recovers from tuberculosis in a nearby convalescence home. Vanity (compare Pride) is the excessive belief in one's own abilities or attractiveness to others. It is set during a summer of the 1950s. ^  Edwin Mullins, The Painted Witch: How Western Artists Have Viewed the Sexuality of Women (New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, Inc., 1985), 62-3. The movie is a slow-moving yet fascinating portrayal of Japanese rural life. ^  James Hall, Dictionary of Subjects & Symbols in Art (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 318.

. Essential Vermeer. The DVD release will be the first version of the film in the United States to include both Japanese and English language tracks, as Fox did not have the rights to the Japanese audio track for their version. It features a new dub cast. The film will be re-released by Disney on March 7, 2006.

An ani-manga version of My Neighbor Totoro was published in English by Viz Communications starting on November 10, 2004. Troma and Fox's rights to this version expired in 2004. It was released on VHS and DVD by Fox Home Video. Troma Films produced a 1993 dub of the film co-produced by Jerry Beck.

My Neighbor Totoro (となりのトトロ - Tonari no Totoro) is a 1988 Japanese animated movie directed by Hayao Miyazaki and produced by Studio Ghibli. Frank Welker/Hitoshi Takagi/Hitoshi Takagi: Totoro. Pat Carroll/Natalie Core/Tanie Kitabayashi: Nanny. Kusakabe.

Lea Salonga/Alexandra Kenworthy/Sumi Shimamoto: Mrs. Timothy Daly/Steve Kramer/Shigesato Itoi: Professor Kusakabe. Elle Fanning/Cheryl Chase/Chika Sakamoto: Mei Kusakabe. Dakota Fanning/the late Lisa Michelson/Noriko Hidaka: Satsuki Kusakabe.

The 2005 World Expo in Japan featured a "Totoro" house which was a recreation of the house in which Satsuki and Mei lived in the movie. (TCM aired the dub as well as the original Japanese with English subtitles.). The Turner Classic Movies cable television network held the television premiere of Disney's new English dub on January 19, 2006, as part of the network's January salute to Hayao Miyazaki. The world premiere for the Disney version was on October 23, 2005 after the premiere of Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang.

The Disney version is slated for DVD release on March 7, 2006, but it appeared in the 2005 Hollywood Film Festival and on television prior to this. Fox and Troma's rights to the film expired in 2004. In 1993, Fox released the first english version of "My Neighbor Totoro", produced by John Daly and Derek Gibson (the producers of The Terminator) with co-producer Jerry Beck. It is believed Hayoa Miyazaki made the film because he was tired of good-and-evil conflicts, and decided it was time just to have fun.

In the Disney dub, they are referred to as "Soot Gremlins". In the word "makkurokurosuke" (used when calling the 'Soot spirits' in the Fox dub), makkurokuro would mean "pitch black black" and "suke" is a common element in boys names. In limited stores (in North America and Japan), collectable "My Neighbor Totoro" toys are on sale. In fact, he asserted that the girls would never see the Totoros again (chiefly because he believed that if the girls retreated into the world of the Totoros, they would never return to their own world), but that the Totoros would always be around and watching over them. Pavilion reproduction of Satsuki & Mei’s House in Japan. .

During the closing credits, Miyazaki purposely inserted art of Satsuki and Mei playing with other human children and not with the Totoros. In fact, Gainax reportedly invited the animator who did the original key animation for Totoro to work on that scene, although they never revealed the animator's name. The character of Totoro made a cameo appearance in one episode of the Gainax TV series Kareshi Kanojo no Jijo (His and Her Circumstances), which was likely director Hideaki Anno's way of paying tribute to Miyazaki (Anno worked as a key animator on Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind in 1984 and considers Miyazaki a mentor). In the Japanese version, their father's position in his university is not explicitly given by Satsuki as in the English dub.

Satsuki is the old Japanese name for the month of May, and Mei's name comes from the English name. Satsuki and Mei were both born in the month of May. Ken Jennings, the winner of the most games in the history of the TV game show Jeopardy!, carries a small plush "Totoro" figure in his pocket for good luck. Satsuki and Mei's mother's implied suffering from spinal tuberculosis (also known as Pott's disease) is somewhat autobiographical, as Hayao Miyazaki's mother suffered from the same illness.

Bake neko are mentioned in several Ghibli films. The Cat Bus is a bake neko that saw a bus and decided to become one. The Cat Bus originates from the Japanese belief that if a cat grows old enough it gains magical shape-changing powers and is called a bake neko. Incidentally, the late Yoshifumi Kondo provided character designs for both films.

Another theory is that "Grave of the Fireflies" (directed by Miyazaki's longtime colleague Isao Takahata) was believed to be too depressing for audiences as a stand-alone product, and thus needed a lighter animation to accompany it. My Neighbor Totoro was released as a double feature with Grave of the Fireflies. There are two theories for this: one was that Totoro would not be successful. The main Totoro has become a mascot for Studio Ghibli, gracing the studio's logo at the start of their films. The name Totoro is Mei's mispronunciation of "tororu", Japanese for troll, which she saw in a story book (Three Billy Goats Gruff) and decided was the same kind of creature.

Catbus or Nekobasu - a cat that has become a bus. "Nanny" - Kanta's grandmother, who sometimes takes care of the girls. Kanta - A preteen boy of their village, ambivalent towards Satsuki. Small Totoro (Chibi Totoro) - The white, smallest (about 20 centimeters tall) one, with the power of invisibility.

Looks very similar to King Totoro. Medium Totoro (Chū Totoro) - The blue, medium-size (about 60 centimeters tall) one. Ō in that case means "large" but the English dub calls that Totoro "King Totoro". She tried to say "tororu", the Japanese word for troll.

Mei has a habit of mispronouncing things. King Totoro (Ō Totoro) - The grey, friendly forest spirit who is the largest of the three (at least 3 meters tall); when someone says "totoro", they are usually referring to him. Totoro - 3 Totoro appear in the film:

. Professor Kusakabe - The girls' father.

Mei Kusakabe - Satsuki's younger sister, pre-school age (4 years old). Satsuki Kusakabe - An 11-year-old girl.