History Anime / MyNeighborTotoro

%%* ByTheEyesOfTheBlind: See InvisibleToAdults

* RousseauWasRight: Satsuki and Mei are all round innocent and good...until they hears news of her mother's illness seemingly getting worse, causing Satsuki to snap at Mei and cause her to cry. Mei, still remembering her mother's condition goes out of her way to head to the hospital to see her, sending everyone into a panic when they note that she's gone missing.

%%* NarrativeShapeshifting: The opening credits.

* RandomEventsPlot: With the exception of Totoro himself and the girls' worrying that their mother might be dying, nothing really happens in this moive. It's just two girls hanging out in their new home.

* RousseauWasRight: Mei is all round innocent and good...until she hears news of her mother's illness seemingly getting worse, causing her to head beyond to see her, sending everyone into a panic.

** However, Mei is shown drawing "a Totoro" with crayons (and the Cat Bus in chalk during the epilogue), both of which are... done by a four-year-old, shall we say.

%%* {{Tsundere}}: Satsuki and Kanta are this to each other.

%%* ElectricSlide: The Catbus is seen doing this.

%%* CoolBigSis: Satsuki is this for Mei.

%%* EverythingsBetterWithSparkles: The sparkling acorns.

%%* RousseauWasRight

* MohsScaleOfViolenceHardness: A firm 0 on the scale. The most violent thing that happens in the movie is Kanta getting gently bonked on the head by his mother for losing an umbrella.

* BlatantLies: Satsuki refers to her teacher as male in the French dub. (This instance is actually a [[BlindIdiotTranslation translation mistake]], making the rest of the dubs avert the trope, where she correctly refers to the teacher as a female (which the latter obviously is).)
* BlindIdiotTranslation: Satsuki promises to talk to her teacher about her sister Mei. During this scene's French dub, she refers to the teacher as [[BlatantLies male]].

* BlindIdiotTranslation: Satsuki promises to talk to her teacher about her sister Mei. During this scene's French dub, she refers to the teacher as male.

* BugBuzz: This happens during the night when Mei and Satsuke help "awaken" the acorns.

* AliceAllusion: Mei's first encounter with the Totoros starts with her following the white rabbit-looking one (and the medium blue one) until she falls down the hole where King Totoro is laying. She's found after the encounter sleeping on the ground and Satsuki and Kusakabe think it might have been a dream. The allusion further helped that the scenery of the forest areas is drawn a bit more dream-like in Mei's initial explanations then just looks like an overgrown bit of wood when she tries to find it again.

* BreatherEpisode: The movie was shown after the rather unpleasant ''Grave of the Fireflies'' in its original theatrical run in Japan.

A little cycle truck putters down a rural road in post-war Japan, carrying four-year-old Mei (Creator/ChikaSakamoto), her older sister Satsuki (Creator/NorikoHidaka), and their father Tatsuo Kusakabe (Shigesato Itoi) to a new home in the country to be closer to the rural hospital where the girls' mother Yasuko (Creator/SumiShimamoto) is recovering from an unspecified (but potentially deadly) disease. Along with the usual tribulations of moving--a spooky old house, new neighbors, fitting in at a new school--Mei encounters an odd little creature (Hitoshi Takagi) in the backyard. While pursuing it, she comes upon the den of a much larger forest spirit that she eventually calls "Totoro". At first, Mei is the only one who sees Totoro, but Satsuki soon meets him as well, and the girls have several fantastic encounters with Totoro, interwoven between subplots involving their family and (human) neighbors.

* PinkMeansFeminine: Mei wears a pink dress all the time [[spoiler:except at night.]]

* NoAntagonist: As the DVD release points out, the movie was designed to be devoid of conflict. The main source of tension in the third act is not any antagonistic character, but the mother's illness and the girls' reaction to it.

%%* BreakTheCutie: Mei

* NoAntagonist: As the DVD release points out, the movie was designed to be devoid of conflict.

%%* PinkMeansFeminine: Mei [[spoiler:except at night.]]

%%* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVsCynicism: An extremely idealistic film. It uplifted everyone's spirits up after this was in a double feature with ''Anime/GraveOfTheFireflies''.

* AdultsAreUseless: This is mostly averted, though it's through Satsuki (and Totoro's) actions alone that Mei is found during the film's climax.

A little cycle truck putters down a rural road in post-war Japan, carrying four-year-old Mei, her older sister Satsuki, and their father Professor Kusakabe to a new home in the country to be closer to the rural hospital where the girls' mother is recovering from an unspecified (but potentially deadly) disease. Along with the usual tribulations of moving--a spooky old house, new neighbors, fitting in at a new school--Mei encounters an odd little creature in the backyard. While pursuing it, she comes upon the den of a much larger forest spirit that she eventually calls "Totoro". At first, Mei is the only one who sees Totoro, but Satsuki soon meets him as well, and the girls have several fantastic encounters with Totoro, interwoven between subplots involving their family and (human) neighbors.

* CoversAlwaysLie: [[http://www.animationmagazine.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/poster_totoro.jpg The original Japanese poster]], which would be recycled for the movie's subsequent 2010 DVD and Blu-ray sets, is taken from concept art for an early draft -- according to which the two siblings were still one character. So instead of Satsuki and Mei waiting in the rain, it has a girl who has Mei's head on Satsuki's body. Whoops.

* CoversAlwaysLie: [[http://www.animationmagazine.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/poster_totoro.jpg The cover]] for the 2010 American DVD, recycled for the movie's subsequent Blu-ray sets, is taken from the original Japanese release poster, which was concept art for an early draft -- according to which the two siblings were still one character. So instead of Satsuki and Mei waiting in the rain, it has a girl who has Mei's head on Satsuki's body. Whoops.

* CoversAlwaysLie: [[http://www.animationmagazine.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/poster_totoro.jpg The cover]] for the 2010 American DVD, recycled for the movie's subsequent Blu-ray sets, is taken from concept art for an early draft -- according to which the two siblings were still one character. So instead of Satsuki and Mei waiting in the rain, it has a girl who has Mei's head on Satsuki's body. Whoops.

* BreatherEpisode: The movie was shown after the depressing ‘’Anime/GraveoftheFireflies’’ in its original run in Japan.

* LullDestruction: The Fox/Streamline dub has a ''lot'' more dialogue compared to the original Japanese or the Disney dub. This is particularly noticeable for Satsuki and Mei, and most commonly done in more ambiguous situations (e.g. an offscreen character or one who's far enough away the mouth can't be seen).

TheFifties: This movie is set in the fifties. According to [[WordOfGod]], it's the very time period "when televisions were yet to be brought to homes".

%%* TheFifties: This movie is set in 1958. - ZCE, are there any strong indicators for the time period?