Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful movie finally getting the treatment it deserves.
Review: Given that I've already given a rave review of MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO for the recently released FOX DVD version, I won't be going too much into detail about the film on this page. However, I will say that the only thing which will be missing from Disney's long-delayed but finally evitable DVD release will be the dated yet extremely well-done English version by Streamline Pictures. Although that dub is hailed, even by longtime Carl Mecak deriders, as an excellent dub (and I agree wholeheartedly), its sound quality was sadly mono, and not as strong as the recent Disney dubs have been. On that level, it might be nice to grab the FOX release as well. That said, I'm still willing to give this new English dub a chance. Although I don't think it will replace the Streamline version, I still think it will be enjoyable on its own merits. Produced by the same folks doing the dubs for SPIRITED AWAY, PORCO ROSSO, and NAUSICAA - writers Cindy and Davis Hewitt - (the earlier yet still excellent dubs by Disney, KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE, PRINCESS MONONOKE, and CASTLE IN THE SKY, were directed by Jack Fletcher), I have no reason to doubt that it will be another worthwhile addition to the top-quality translations Disney made. The voice cast includes two actual sister actresses playing Satsuki and Mei, which is a very clever choice on Disney's part. I bet this'll make them sound all the more authentic. Dakota Fanning is set to play Satsuki, while Elle will voice little Mei. There's no shortage of talent in the cast, either. Timothy Daly (WINGS) is going to be the girls' dad, and, surprisingly, Lea Salonga (wonderful in her performances as the leading role in MISS SAIGON and the singing voices of Jasmine in ALADDIN and the title character in MULAN) will be their mother. I had a bit of trouble adjusting to it, but Carroll has said that she previously played comic and/or supporting roles, so I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt. I expect that, like CASTLE IN THE SKY, there will be unfavorable comparisons from purists between the two English versions (not to mention the original Japanese), but if you're like me, who loves the dubs and doesn't care about what naysayers think, you'd probably do best to ignore these guys and watch the movies however you like. That said, this new Disney release is said to be including the original Japanese language track (which the FOX release didn't have)... as well as an anamorphic widescreen presentation (the FOX DVD was pan & scan), so this version comes as an unquestionably highly recommended purchase even before it's released. I'll be updating this review when I get my hands on it, but in the meantime, animation buffs, mark your calenders for August 31!
Rating: 
Summary: Wait for the new release
Review: The DVD version available right now is from Fox. It's a pan & scan version and contains no extras. While the movie itself is wonderful, hold off buying this edition. On August 31, 2004 it will be re-released as a 2-disc set like the other Miyazaki movies (Spirited Away, Kiki, Castle In The Sky). It will have an all-new English language cast, widescreen presentation and a second disc of bonus features. Two other films will be released the same day - Porco Rosso and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. I know I'll be replacing my Fox p& s version of Totoro then.
Rating:
Summary: Mr.Miyazaki's 3rd movie
Review: Tonarino Totoro is 3rd movie for Miyazaki. In Japan roadshow, the movie was showed with [Hotaruno Haka]. I like latter movie in the point that expressed the real story, the poverty of World War2. But the person's favorite movie will be different by individual tendency. I had the tendency that liked documental and truth story than fantasy story. Off course for young children or the person that like fantasy, Totoro will be the best movie. The two movie before Totoro was fantasy but war and agressive movies. Totoro was a first movie that there was not war scene. When we watch such a point, the movie will be safe movie that child can watch. And the character of Totoro is also very cute and unique, Totoro off course,[Neko bus=cat bass]etc. But Mr.Miyazaki did not forget to include his messages to this movie. Maybe foreigners would feel unique things in the movie atomospher, for instance, big forests or secret paassages etc. But there was such scenery in Japan in fact. And the sketch was done in Tokyo. Though I have lived in Tokyo more than 20 years, I have not cared about such scenery. Off course though what nature is losing will be truth, but in addition to that, I think that Miyazaki want to tell us that we should notice the nature, even if here is downtown city. The movie that Miyazaki make is included the important messages. Even if watcher is not Japanese, will be able to think about the messages. That is to say, nature is one of imoportant things for human. And I am surprised that many U.S,A people knew Miyazaki's movies. I can understand the reason that is said that Japan is anime country. I am sorry for my poor English.
Rating:
Summary: great family movie
Review: I think that this movie is great for the entire family. I first saw it when I was about... 4 or 5 I think.. It's a very good movie, for kids especially. If you liked this I highly recommend
"Spirited Away" which is also directed by Hitoshi Takagi.
Rating:
Summary: They had wings and I had none.
Review: "My Neighbor Totoro," a film by Miyazaki Hayao is many things on many layers - one vital layer concerns loss and coping with the real possibility of loss. Satsuki, Mei and their father move to the countryside owing to the illness of their mother. As is common in Miyazaki films, the film centers on the concept of Shojo. According to Susan Napier, ""Shojo" literally means "little female" and originally referred to girls around 12 and 13. Over the last couple of decades, however, the term has become a shorthand for a certain kind of liminal identity between child and adult, characterized by a supposedly innocent eroticism based on sexual immaturity, a consumer culture of buying "cute" (kawaii) material goods, and a wistful privileging of a recent past of free-floating form of nostalgia" (Napier, Anime From Akira to Princess Mononoke 118). I will do 3 things in this review: (a) Picking up on Napier's shojo definition in terms of its liminality, (b) I will explore the space between supernatural vs. the fantastic, leading into, (c) an examination in terms of magical realism and the emancipation through flight. Residing in this liminal shojo space has really less to do with Mei but more to do with Satsuki. As the crush of the rather nervous young neighbor, we are introduced to Satsuki in a voyeuristic fashion. We "know" the young neighbor is somewhat smitten by her and yet she seems oblivious to the whole thing. This sort of "innocent eroticism" is played out - arguably to hint that Satsuki is well on her way to becoming a woman - but not yet. As Mei is left to her own devices, she chances on the bucket with the hole and eventually finds herself falling into the hole in the camphor tree - where she finds Totoro. The wonderful thing about Anime is that the transitions between the real, the surreal, the fantastic and even the magical realism is so seamless as to appear natural. As Mei, in a move reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland stumbles into a rabbit hole of sorts, finds herself in the realm of the unreal, or is it? When she is found in the forest by Satsuki - in a really imaginative move, Miyazaki keeps Satsuki in the liminal shojo space by making her see the things that only children see. We get this, in a real sense, when the cat bus is approaching both Totoro and Satsuki and she wonders how come no one else can see. Even if the father "believes" both Satsuki and Mei - he never really "sees" anything. Is the experience of Satsuki and Mei merely a hallucination or is it something supernatural. Once again, to borrow from Napier, something "supernatural" is still within the realm of the real. Taking the tack that the movie is about stress and children inventing realities to cope with such stress, Napier describes a facet of Miyazaki's work - that of the realm of the "enchanting" (Napier, Anime From Akira to Princess Mononoke 126-132). Back to the original premise of transcendence from that liminal characteristic of shojo... I find myself transported back to Milan Kundera who writes in "The Book of Laughter and Forgetting": "And then suddenly they were all singing the three or four simple notes again, speeding up the steps of their dance, fleeing rest and sleep, outstripping time, and filling their innocence with strength. Everyone was smiling, and Eluard leaned down to a girl he had his arm around and said, "A man possessed by peace never stops smiling." And she laughed and stamped the ground a little harder and rose a few inches above the pavement, pulling the others along with her, and before long not one of them was touching the ground, they were taking two steps in place and one step forward without touching the ground, yes, they were rising up over Wenceslaus Square, their ring the very image of a giant wreath taking flight, and I ran off after them down on the ground, I kept looking up at them, and they floated on, lifting first one leg, then the other, and down below - Prague with its cafes full of poets and its jails full of traitors, and in the crematorium they were just finishing off one Socialist representative and one surrealist, and the smoke climbed to the heavens like a good omen, and I heard Eluard's metallic voice intoning, "Love is at work it is tireless," and I ran after that voice through the streets in hope of keeping up with that wonderful wreath of bodies rising above the city, and I realized with anguish in my heart that they were flying like birds and I was falling like a stone, that they had wings and I would never have any." I intuit a sense of escapism in Miyazaki's work. I think there is something to Miyazaki's movies in terms of escape - from the everyday to a liberating space. On the subject of liberation... it is common to see flight in Miyazaki. "Laputa" we see nothing but flying. In "Kiki's Delivery Service," it is arguably learning to fly that liberates Kiki. Miyazaki's oeuvre is filled with imagery of flight - Tonari no Totoro is no exception. To transcend being human, being a child, as Kiki escapes her liminal status as shojo and into womanhood so does Satsuki as she and Mei take flight in the cat bus. And I "realized with anguish in my heart that they were flying like birds and I was falling like a stone, that they had wings and I would never have any." Miguel Llora
Rating: 
Summary: A more youth-aimed effort by Miyazaki
Review: Princess Mononoke was the first Miyazaki movie I'd seen, and is perhaps my favorite (close call between it at Spirited Away). But having come to the director by way of a film rivaling the best of Kurasawa in its epic scale, its always refreshing to see how Miyazaki is able to excel in telling more intimate (yet still magical and fantastical) stories of children learning to accept the adult responsibilities that come with growing up. In films like Kiki's Delivery Service and the recent Spirited Away, children start their journey through adulthood by dealing with problems allegorical to those the children watching the film face or will face themselves. My Neighbor Totoro, which is partly autobiographical (Miyazaki's mother battled TB), presents a real problem, an ailing parent, more directly, but demonstrates the same sensitivity he does when using witchcraft and spirits to metaphorically approach children's anxieties. The plot is straightforward enough: Two young girls explore their new home, discovering the enchanted creatures that share the house and the encircling forests, while waiting for their mother to recover from her illness and be discharged from the hospital. The mother's absence from their new house is not ignored, nor is it a dark cloud constantly hovering over the proceedings. The children live their life in their enchanted new land, but they also think of their mother and anxiously await her return. Miyazaki of course includes the magical creatures and fantasy one expects from him, but ultimately his goal is just to tell a simple story, capturing emotions all children can relate to on some level. Unfortunately, Miyazaki seems to pull the reigns too tightly on the fantastical elements of this film. Of course, My Neighbor Totoro has spirits and magical catbuses and all, but they don't rate much screen time; the girls are the ones that must carry the film. And Satsuki and Mei aren't really interesting enough for that burden. The totoros are cute, and the catbus is amusing, though a little creepy. But somehow the balance between these magical creatures and the human children they are there to delight seems off here, compared to Miyazaki's other films. Ultimately, I'm not sure that this film is inferior to Miyazaki's other work. I just think this is one case where the film is aimed at children, and they primarily will enjoy it. Adults will, too (I did), but if you're expecting something as delightful as Kiki's Delivery Service, or on the scale of Princess Mononoke, you might be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Buy the import
Review: I give this movie 4 stars, and the American DVD 2. While not as astonishing as some of his other movies -- notably "Castle in the Sky", "Princess Mononoke", and his latest masterpiece "Spirited Away" -- this movie is a must-have for any serious fan of Hayao Miyazaki. It's full of his characteristic warm-hearted intelligent characters, lavish artwork, and love of nature. However, because the American release is full-screen, I highly recommend buying the import version (see under "New and Used") which has a 16:9 aspect. Oddly, this movie, or at least the print used on the import DVD, seems to have been made for the English soundtrack: the mouth movements fit English better. The Japanese soundtrack sounds rather lifeless, and frequently misses lines of dialogue. And the English subtitles are verbatim from the English soundtrack, with close-caption style "sound effects". So, unless you're determined to hear the Japanese track, I recommend changing over to the English track. In the main menu, navigate to the upper right entry to get to the soundtrack menu, and then select the second item. Sorry, no English menus on the import!
Rating:
Summary: TWO THUMBS UP
Review: Well i watched this movie because i can acctualy draw manga and anime and i think this movie is GREAT. Its funny, bizare and a little creepy, but only a little. I strongly reccomend Spirited Away, its great for kids and some adults may like it.
note im not really 1
Rating:
Summary: Well loved by 3 year old and 7 year old
Review: My 3 year old and 7 year old absolutely love this movie. I, however, find the overall story fine with the Totoro friendship quite odd. Children love this movie. Try "Kiki's Delivery Service" for a movie that kids and adults will love.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT FILM: Strong female characters
Review: The thing I love the most about this movie are the strong female characters. The girls are brave, independant, curious, imaginative, and delightful. Also, the adults in the movie never squash or discourage the girls imaginations, yet seem to join in on the fun. Very delightful movie and great for young children to watch!
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