My Neighbor Totoro
1988 film directed by Hayao Miyazaki
My Neighbor Totoro is a 1988 Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and animated by Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten. It stars the voices of Noriko Hidaka, Chika Sakamoto and Hitoshi Takagi, and focuses on two young sisters who, after moving with their father to the countryside, experience interactions with friendly wood spirits in postwar Japan.
The film explores themes such as animism, Shinto symbology, environmentalism, childhood and the joys of rural living. My Neighbor Totoro received worldwide critical acclaim, and grossed over $41 million worldwide at the box office; the film also grossed significantly more from home video sales and merchandise.
My Neighbor Totoro received numerous awards, including the Animage Anime Grand Prix prize, the Mainichi Film Award, and Kinema Junpo Award for Best Film in 1988. It also received the Special Award at the Blue Ribbon Awards in the same year. The film is widely regarded as one of the greatest animated films of all time, ranking 41st in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010 and the number-one animated film on the 2012 Sight & Sound critics' poll of all-time greatest films. The film and its titular character have become cultural icons, and made multiple cameo appearances in other films. Totoro also serves as the mascot for Studio Ghibli and is recognized as one of the most popular characters in Japanese animation.
Plot
In 1950s Japan, university professor Tatsuo Kusakabe and his daughters Satsuki and Mei (approximately ten and four years old, respectively) move into an old house close to the hospital where the girls' mother, Yasuko, is recovering from a long-term illness.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “My Neighbor Totoro” is 1988 film directed by Hayao Miyazaki. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Neighbor, Totoro and film, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “1988 film directed by Hayao Miyazaki” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q39571. VIAF identifies the subject as 223422047. The Library of Congress control number is no2016056851. 5 of 8 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1988, 2010 and 2012.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “My Neighbor Totoro” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.