49 Fun Facts About My Neighbor Totoro

Who wrote and directed My Neighbor Totoro?

Hayao Miyazaki. He was turned down when he first pitched the idea in the early 1980s, and it reached the screen only once it was sold to its backers as half of a double bill.

Totoro was its director's follow-up to which film?

Castle in the Sky. After that fantasy of sky pirates and a floating island, the director set his next story in the Japanese countryside of the 1950s, before television had reached its homes.

What is the family name of Satsuki and Mei, the sisters in My Neighbor Totoro?

Kusakabe. Early concept paintings, and even the film's best-known poster, show the family with only one daughter; she was later split into big sister Satsuki and little Mei.

What is the father's job in My Neighbor Totoro?

University professor. He travels in to a university in Tokyo, which is why his daughters are waiting at a country bus stop on the rainy night his bus home runs late.

Why does the family in My Neighbor Totoro move to an old country house?

To be near the mother's hospital. The story echoes its director's own childhood: his mother was ill with spinal tuberculosis for years and spent the first of them in hospital.

In My Neighbor Totoro, what are the soot sprites called in Japanese?

Susuwatari. The name means roughly 'travelling soot': Granny says the sprites only haunt empty houses, and the same creatures turn up again hauling coal in Spirited Away.

In My Neighbor Totoro, what kind of giant tree does Totoro live inside?

Camphor. The giant tree stands in an old Shinto shrine, ringed by a sacred straw rope, and the girls' father takes them there to bow and thank the forest's guardian for looking after Mei.

What does Satsuki lend Totoro as they wait at the rainy bus stop?

Her father's umbrella. Totoro is so delighted by the patter of raindrops on it that he leaps into the air to shake a whole shower down from the trees.

What does Totoro give Satsuki in return for her kindness at the bus stop in My Neighbor Totoro?

A bundle of nuts and seeds. The girls plant them in the garden, and a few nights later Totoro arrives at midnight to help the patch burst into a towering tree.

What is Totoro wearing on his head to keep off the rain when Satsuki first sees him?

A large leaf. It is the giant's only shelter from the downpour, and seeing him dripping beneath it is what prompts Satsuki's act of kindness at the bus stop.

What does Totoro take Satsuki and Mei riding on after their midnight dance in the garden?

A magical flying top. The biggest Totoro sets it spinning and everyone hops aboard for a ride across the countryside; by morning the giant tree has vanished, but real sprouts have come up.

In My Neighbor Totoro, what is Mei carrying when she gets lost?

Fresh corn. Mei means the ear as a present for her mother, and at the end the girls leave it on a windowsill for their parents to find, without ever showing themselves.

In My Neighbor Totoro, what discovery makes the villagers searching for Mei fear the worst?

A child's shoe in a lake. Satsuki is fetched to look at it and sees that it isn't her sister's, then runs to beg Totoro for help.

Which film shared the original 1988 double bill with My Neighbor Totoro?

Grave of the Fireflies. Each film was thought too risky to release alone, so a tragedy about two children in wartime Japan shared its ticket with a gentle countryside fantasy.

Who composed the score for My Neighbor Totoro?

Joe Hisaishi. He built the stage name from Quincy Jones: the characters for 'Hisaishi' can also be read 'Kuishi', close to the Japanese for Quincy, and Joe comes from Jones.

Satsuki, the elder sister in My Neighbor Totoro, has an old Japanese name for which month?

May. Satsuki is an old Japanese name for the fifth month and Mei is the English word in Japanese form, a leftover from early plans in which the sisters were one girl.

The name Totoro comes from little Mei's garbled version of the Japanese word for which storybook creature?

A troll. Mei can't quite manage 'tororu', the Japanese for troll, and Satsuki asks whether she means the one in their picture book of the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

What colour is the smallest of the three Totoros in My Neighbor Totoro?

White. Mei spots the little white one in the garden first, and chasing it and its blue companion is what leads her into the hollow where the big grey Totoro sleeps.

Which real child did the director of My Neighbor Totoro use as his model for four-year-old Mei?

His niece. She grew up to marry an animation artist, who revealed in a 2011 interview that his wife had been the model for Mei.

Totoro's first English dub was made as in-flight entertainment for which carrier?

Japan Airlines. For four years the only way to hear Totoro in English was aboard one of its flights; the same dub finally reached American cinemas in 1993.

Which Hollywood studio produced Totoro's star-cast English dub in the mid-2000s?

Walt Disney Pictures. The studio had to wait for the licence on the older English dub to run out in 2004, so its own version did not reach DVD until 2006.

Which real-life sisters voice Satsuki and Mei in Totoro's 2000s English dub?

Dakota and Elle Fanning. Elle's first screen job had been playing a younger version of Dakota's character in I Am Sam; here the two finally got to play sisters.

Which veteran voice actor supplies Totoro's roars in the 2000s English dub of My Neighbor Totoro?

Frank Welker. Totoro has no lines, only roars, grunts and yawns, and the job went to an animal-noise specialist best known as the voice of both Fred and Scooby in Scooby-Doo.

Shigesato Itoi, the Japanese voice of the father in My Neighbor Totoro, is best known abroad for creating which Nintendo game?

EarthBound. Itoi was known as an advertising copywriter, not an actor, when he voiced the girls' father, and a year later he released the first game in the series Japan calls Mother.

Which US channel showed My Neighbor Totoro in January 2006 as part of a nine-film tribute to its director?

Turner Classic Movies. The home of old Hollywood gave January 2006 over to nine animated films in tribute to the director, at a time when they had hardly been seen on American television.

By 2018, which source had earned My Neighbor Totoro over a billion dollars, far more than its cinema run?

Licensed merchandise. The film took only a few million dollars on its first run in Japanese cinemas, yet Totoro toys and goods had brought in more than $1.1 billion by 2018.

In which country did My Neighbor Totoro finally reach cinemas in December 2018, thirty years after its release in Japan?

China. Long-running political tension with Japan was blamed for the wait, and when it opened Totoro became the first Studio Ghibli film ever given a cinema release there.

What does Satsuki and Mei's father do in the bath to chase away their fear of the creaking old house?

Burst out laughing. He tells the girls that laughing makes fear run away, they join in, and the soot sprites slip out of the house that very night.

In which magazine's 2012 critics' poll of the greatest films was My Neighbor Totoro the highest-placed animated film?

Sight & Sound. No animated film made the British magazine's top 100 in 2012, when Totoro led them at joint 154th; in the 2022 poll it climbed to joint 72nd.

Which Chicago film critic included My Neighbor Totoro in his 'Great Movies' series?

Roger Ebert. He praised it as a children's film with no villains and no fight scenes, one that 'depends on a situation instead of a plot'.

Which revered Japanese film director included My Neighbor Totoro among his hundred favourite films?

Akira Kurosawa. The maker of Seven Samurai allowed one film per director on his list of a hundred favourites, and Totoro sits on it beside The Godfather Part II and the original Godzilla.

Totoro's popularity with Japanese children has been likened to that of which British storybook character?

Winnie-the-Pooh. One American critic took the comparison further, noting that Pooh's world, like Totoro's, was first written without a single villain.

What role has Totoro played for Studio Ghibli since the film's release?

Mascot and official logo. The studio took his outline as its emblem, and he has since slipped into several of its later films in cameo.

What kind of object was named 10160 Totoro?

An asteroid. Astronomer Takao Kobayashi found it on the last night of 1994, and its naming citation laments that 'the woods and darkness where Totoro lives are rapidly disappearing from the earth'.

The velvet worm Eoperipatus totoro was named for its likeness to which My Neighbor Totoro character?

The Catbus. It bounds along on twelve legs, and the scientists who named the species wrote that the many-legged worm resembled Totoro's ride.

What does Japan's Totoro Hometown Fund raise money to do?

Buy woodland. Since 1990 the trust has been buying up plots in the Sayama Hills outside Tokyo, the countryside that inspired the film, to keep them from being built over.

At which American animation studio was a 2008 charity auction of Totoro-inspired artworks held?

Pixar. Artists at the studio led the 2008 sale of some 200 donated works, and two years later a Totoro soft toy turned up among the toys in Toy Story 3.

What is the short sequel to My Neighbor Totoro about Mei called?

Mei and the Kittenbus. The director wrote and directed the 13-minute short himself, and even lent his voice to an elderly cat spirit big enough to carry a crowd of Totoros.

For which attraction's cinema was the Totoro sequel short originally made?

The Ghibli Museum. Its basement Saturn Theater seats only about 80, and the short has never come out on home video, though it now also plays in rotation at Ghibli Park.

Which famous British theatre troupe staged My Neighbour Totoro in London in 2022?

Royal Shakespeare Company. It had Jim Henson's Creature Shop, makers of the Muppets, build the giant Totoro puppets, then kept them out of publicity photos so as not to spoil the surprise.

At which London venue did the Totoro stage show premiere in 2022?

The Barbican Centre. The show came back there for a second season in 2023, then transferred to the West End's Gillian Lynne Theatre in 2025.

Whose record for one-day ticket sales at the Barbican did the stage show break?

Tickets went on sale on 19 May 2022.

Which Ghibli Park area holds a replica of Satsuki and Mei's house?

Dondoko Forest. The house is older than the park around it: it was built for the 2005 World Expo on the same site and stayed when the theme park opened in 2022.

Which Japanese publisher, a founding backer of Studio Ghibli, financed Totoro?

Tokuma Shoten. Founder Yasuyoshi Tokuma bankrolled the film as executive producer, although his firm had turned the idea down when it was first pitched in the early 1980s.

In Totoro, what brings the girls urgent news about their mother?

A telegram. It says only to get in touch, so Satsuki has to run to a neighbour's house to use the telephone and call her father at work.

Which shy neighbour boy helps Satsuki search for Mei?

Kanta. Too bashful to say much to Satsuki at first, he ends up pedalling off on a bicycle to help look for her missing sister.

Which US distributor reissued My Neighbor Totoro on Blu-ray and DVD in October 2017?

GKIDS. The New York distributor had just taken over Studio Ghibli's North American home-video catalogue, and in 2019 it struck the deal that put the films on a streaming service for the first time.

When the lost Mei is finally found in My Neighbor Totoro, she is sitting beside a row of what?

Jizo statues. Jizo is the guardian of children and travellers in Japanese Buddhism, so the little roadside figures are a fitting place for a lost girl to wait.

What instruments do Totoro and his small companions play high in a tree at night in My Neighbor Totoro?

Ocarinas. Their low hooting drifts over the house at night, and after the midnight dance the two girls sit on a high branch and play along with them.