My Neighbor Totoro

1988. Animated. Written and Directed by Hayao Miyazaki.

Brady and I watched the first twenty minutes of My Neighbor Totoro several months ago but stopped it at bedtime to continue later. Brady was never interested in going back and I finally decided - and had time - to watch it on my own. I can see why he lost interest. I had a hard time getting through those first twenty minutes again. It is a rather mediocre start as the two main characters, sisters who move to a new home with their father to prepare for mother's return from the hospital, are quite frankly annoying to begin with. This is especially true of the youngest sister, Mei, who echoes everything back. Mei on her adventures discovers three forest spirits of varying size including the very large Totoro. The movie does improve as it goes and the characters become more enjoyable. Brady (who ended up watching the end with me) and I agreed on our favorite part: there is a very cool cat bus that appears a few times to transport first Totoro and later the girls that is a wonderful fantasy creation. I liked the film. It has charm and grace, but it falls well below the rest of Miyazaki's work that I have seen.

My grade: B