“My Neighbor Totoro” (Totoro for short) is one of our favorite animated movies of all time both for its educational and nature-celebrating story and for its loveable characters. Take a minute to tell us what your favorite animated film is and why here!
My wife and I love Totoro – sometimes I think we like it more than our kids do.
There’s one scene that I sometimes wonder about – the bit where the seeds grow at night into a huge camphor tree that towers over them and their house. It’s an utterly magical moment for the children but it does look very similar to the mushroom cloud of an atom bomb and I can’t help thinking that this is a deliberate reference. I’m led to understand that the camphor tree is a common symbol in Hiroshima and that the director grew up in post-war Japan.
I guess what I wonder about are two things – is this reference deliberate, and if so, what point is the director making?
Disney’s Fantasia matched my tastes as a child.
Nausicaa, it’s from the same studio as Totoro and it’s amazing. It gives a nice view of the future if we keep destroying our world, also for a animated movie with 26years, it’s still very actual in the message it delivers.