My neighbor Totoro

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Anime movie
title My neighbor Totoro
Original title と な り の ト ト ロ
transcription Tonari no Totoro
Tonari no Totoro title (green) .jpg
Country of production JapanJapan Japan
original language Japanese
Publishing year 1988
Studio Studio Ghibli
length 86 minutes
Age rating FSK 0
Rod
Director Hayao Miyazaki
script Hayao Miyazaki
production Toru Hara
music Joe Hisaishi
synchronization

My Neighbor Totoro ( Japanese と な り の ト ト ロ , Tonari no Totoro ) is a Japanese anime film from 1988. It was directed by Hayao Miyazaki , who also wrote the screenplay, and was produced by Studio Ghibli .

action

Replica of Satsuki's and Mei's house

The Tokyo professor Tatsuo Kusakabe moved to the countryside in Matsuo with his two daughters Satsuki and Mei in 1958 so that he could be near his wife, who was recovering from a serious illness in a hospital. On arrival, the two girls explore the old house and discover 'soot men' who live in unoccupied houses. The 'grandmother' - an old woman from the neighboring farm - explains to them that the soot men are peaceful spirits who will soon leave the house because it is inhabited again. Satsuki gets to know Kanta of the same age, the grandson of the 'grandmother'.

After the three of them have moved into the house, Mei meets Totoro, a forest spirit, while playing in the forest. Mei likes the huge creature right away and wants to show it to her family, but the way to get there has disappeared.

When Satsuki is at school, the grandmother shows up with Mei because Mei really wanted to see her. Mei is allowed to spend the rest of the class in Satsuki's class. On the way home it starts to rain heavily. While the two girls take shelter at the side of the road, Kanta comes by, gives them his umbrella and runs away. In the evening, the girls want to pick their father up at the bus stop. While they are waiting there, Totoro appears and stands next to them, also waiting. Satsuki lends him an umbrella, for which Totoro thanks him with a bunch of nuts before he gets into a twelve-legged bus cat ( Nekobasu ) and drives away . The girls plant the nuts in the garden so that trees can grow there. One night Totoro appears and turns the nuts into a gigantic tree. Then he flies across the valley with the girls. The next morning the gigantic tree has disappeared, but the nuts have sprouts.

A little later the family received a telegram saying that the mother could not leave the hospital as planned. Mei is devastated, and Satsuki becomes melancholy. Weeping, she falls into the arms of her grandmother, because she is afraid that her mother will die. Mei, who overhears everything and recently had a serious argument with her sister about it, wants to bring her mother a corn on the cob. The grandmother had previously told her that anyone who eats her vegetables will get well quickly. Mei goes alone to the hospital kilometers away and gets lost. When her disappearance is noticed, all of the neighbors look for her.

Satsuki asks Totoro for help, who immediately calls the bus cat. This is what the completely disturbed Mei finally finds. The bus cat is touched and takes the girls to the hospital. From a tree they watch how their father is already talking to their mother, who will soon be released. He finds the cob on which "For Mama" is written. In the end, the bus cat brings the two girls back home, where the neighbors are happy that Mei is well.

Totoro

Bus shelters in Saiki with figures of Satsuki, Mei and Totoro
Painting at the bus shelter: the bus cat, Totoro and Satsuki in the top of a huge tree (scene from the film)

A totoro is a friendly being that is only seen by children and cannot speak, but can understand everything. Several of these beings appear in the film. A small white totoro that can make itself invisible for a short time and a slightly larger blue totoro collect acorns when they are first spotted by Mei. Mei pursues the two of them and finds the big Totoro, who looks like a cross between an owl and a cat and who is taking a nap. As nature and forest spirits, Totoros have special skills. For example, you can let trees grow through a ritual or fly balancing on a top. Another being of importance is the twelve-legged cat bus, a lively mixture of bus and cat that can take its passengers to any location.

Film music

The composer of the score is Joe Hisaishi . The following list refers to the soundtrack released by Wasabi Records in 2012 .

  1. Hey Let's Go (Sanpo) Opening Theme
  2. The Village In May (Gogatsu No Mura)
  3. A haunted house! (Obake Yashiki!)
  4. Mei and the Dust Bunnies (Mei To Susuwatari)
  5. Evening Wind (Yûgure No Kaze)
  6. Not Afraid (Kowakunai)
  7. Let's Go to the Hospital (Omimai Ni Ikô)
  8. Mother (okasan)
  9. A Little Monster (Chiisana Obake)
  10. Totoro
  11. A Huge Tree In the Tsukamori Forest (Tsukamori No Taiju)
  12. A Lost Child (Maigo)
  13. The Path of the Wind (Kaze No Torimichi)
  14. A Soaking Wet Monster (Zubunure Obake)
  15. Moonlight Flight (Tsukiyo No Hikô)
  16. Mei Is Missing (Mei Ga Inai)
  17. Cat Bus (Nekobasu)
  18. I'm So Glad (Yokattane)
  19. My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari No Totoro) Ending Theme
  20. Hey Let's Go - With Chorus (Sampo - Gasshô Tsuki)

synchronization

In the German version, Satsuki is called Saki throughout. Another deviation concerns the child protection god Jizō : With a short supplication, he becomes Jesus .

Inez Günther directed the dialogue .

role Japanese speaker ( seiyū ) German speaker
Satsuki (Saki) Noriko Hidaka Maresa Sedlmeir
Mei Chika Sakamoto Paulina Rümmelein
Totoro Hitoshi Takagi Gerhard Jilka
father Shigesato Itoi Philipp Brammer
mother Sumi Shimamoto Christine Stichler
grandmother Tanie Kitabayashi Monika John
Kanta Toshiyuki Amagasa Moritz Günther
Teacher Machiko Washio Inez Günther
Ryoko Yuuko Mizutani Ulrike Jenni

publication

Tonari no Totoro was seen by the producers as a great financial risk and therefore initially only shown in double screenings from April 16, 1988 with the anime The Last Glow- Worms , which was created at the same time . Ultimately, however, the film turned out to be very successful, and the Silhouette Totoros became the trademark of Studio Ghibli .

The film was first broadcast on German television on May 4, 2007. In Universe Anime film as a German-language DVD was released on September 17 as a limited collector's edition, on 15 October 2007 as a normal version as well as on 22 March 2013 at Blu-ray .

Since the rise in awareness and popularity of the film in Japan, there have also been numerous merchandise for Totoro, including mechanical music boxes with melodies (mainly the opening and ending theme) that appear in the film.

reception

Akira Kurosawa , who in turn is admired by Miyazaki, described the figure of the cat bus as one of the most beautiful creations in cinema.

“ My neighbor Totoro is the classic Japanese children's film. With its straightforward narrative, its soulful portrayal of the child's world of experience and its heartbreaking characters, the work is an ode to the magic of nature and a song of praise for the imagination. A film that knows how to inspire people across generations with its disarming cuteness and brings your own childhood days back to life. "

- filmstarts.de

“In his anime classic from 1988, Hayao Miyazaki succeeds very sensitively in telling of the fears of two children. He combines real and fantastic worlds and also allows Japanese traditions to flow in, which also give young viewers an impression of the Shinto religion and rural life in Japan. Above all, however, the film impresses with the loving relationship between the two siblings of different ages. "

- Top video news

Awards

In 1988 the film received an award in the Best Film category at the Mainichi Eiga Concours . In the same year he received the Ōfuji Noburō Prize and a special prize at the Blue Ribbon Awards . At Kinema Jumpō 1989 he was also awarded in the Best Film category and the Audience Award.

Trivia

In several Japanese and non-Japanese films and series there are reminiscences of the film or the character of Totoro. For example, in the anime series Kare Kano, the three Totoros have a brief appearance in the episode “The Beginning of Holidays”. In Toy Story 3 , a totoro appears in the form of a plush toy. Episode 10 of the 14th season of the American animation series South Park (Mysterion rises - Mysterion strikes back) contains Totoro quotes: Cartman (as Mei) and the Dark Lord Cthulhu (as Totoro) parody the encounter scene between Mei and Totoro. There is also a parody of Totoro's theme song .

The velvet worms -Art Eoperipatus totoro is named after the movie because their body shape reminded their discoverers to the Katzenbus from the film.

The box office income in Japan was around 1.1 million US dollars.

Web links

Commons : My Neighbor Totoro  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ discogs.com: Joe Hisaishi - My Neighbor Totoro (Original Soundtrack) accessed June 17, 2016
  2. ↑ Recording of the Arte broadcast from April 8, 2010 at 0:07:02 (Saki / Satsuki) and 0:42:55 (Jizō / Jesu). For Arte charisma, see also: Power of the imagination! on arte.tv (accessed June 1, 2016)
  3. ↑ synchronkartei.de (accessed on June 1, 2016)
  4. ↑ My neighbor Totoro. Animexx.de, accessed December 8, 2013 .
  5. ^ Helen McCarthy: Drawing on the Past . In: Sight & Sound . Volume 24, No. 6 . BFI , June 2014, ISSN  0037-4806 , p. 26 ("His respect for Kurosawa Akira is well documented, and was returned: Kurosawa regarded Miyazaki's Catbus character in My Neighbor Totoro as one of the finest creations in cinema.").
  6. ↑ Ulf Lepelmeier: My neighbor Totoro on filmstarts.de
  7. ↑ MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO . Top video news. Publisher: Children's and Youth Film Center on behalf of the BMFSFJ .
  8. ^ The Totoro Legacy. Retrieved June 16, 2017 ("… a loving recreation of the scene where little Mei meets King Totoro, substituting the horrible Cartman and the terrible Cthulhu.").
  9. ^ Gwen Pearson: A Velvet Worm Named for Totoro . Wired, October 21, 2014
  10. ↑ My Neighbor Totoro (2017) - Box Office Mojo. Accessed July 31, 2019 .