The Financial Times recognized the character's appeal, commenting Totoro "is more genuinely loved than Mickey Mouse could hope to be in his wildest—not nearly so beautifully illustrated—fantasies". This DVD release is the first version of the film in the US to include both Japanese and English language tracks. It baffles me that no matter what, the stories Hayao Miyazaki makes always enable you to emerge yourself in a new world.

The animators stated one month was taken to create the tadpoles, which included four colors; the water for it was also blurred. The film's central character Totoro was used as a mascot by the Japanese campaign "Totoro Hometown Fund Campaign", which aimed to preserve areas of satoyama in Saitama Prefecture. The music for My Neighbor Totoro was composed by Joe Hisaishi, who previously collaborated with Miyazaki on the movies Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Castle in the Sky. In Japan in May 1988, Tokuma published a four-volume series of ani-manga books, which use color images and lines directly from My Neighbor Totoro. Oga's conscientious approach to My Neighbor Totoro was a style the International Herald Tribune recognized as "[updating] the traditional Japanese animist sense of a natural world that is fully, spiritually alive".

According to the environmental journal Ambio, My Neighbor Totoro "has served as a powerful force to focus the positive feelings that the Japanese people have for satoyama and traditional village life". A Study of Japanese Animation as Translation: A Descriptive Analysis of Hayao Miyazaki and Other Anime Dubbed Into English. Totoro also serves as the mascot for Studio Ghibli and is recognized as one of the most popular characters in Japanese animation. The beloved animation classic by legendary Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki, My Neighbor Totoro is now retold in novel form. A few days after planting the seeds, the girls awaken at midnight to find Totoro and his fellow spirits engaged in a ceremonial dance around the planted seeds.

In 2004, Walt Disney Pictures produced a new English dub of My Neighbor Totoro to be released after the rights to the Streamline dub had expired. Wegner, the film is an example of alternative history, citing the utopian-like setting of the anime. A simple but magical story of the bond between a family and enjoying the simple things in life - helped by giant fluffy creatures who like umbrellas!

Mei and the Kittenbus ( めいとこねこバス, Mei to Konekobasu) is a thirteen-minute sequel to My Neighbor Totoro that was written and directed by Miyazaki. If you have kids or like kids then this would be a good story to read them, but as I say pretty much the film. I'm a big fan of Studio Ghibli movies and have great respect for the amazing artist that is Hayao Miyazaki.

It follows the source material, from which it's derived, quite faithfully, albeit a few minor tweaks may be discovered here and there throughout the tale. In 1989, Streamline Pictures produced an English-language dub for exclusive use on transpacific flights of Japan Airlines.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. In 2023, the film was re-released in 970 United States locations as part of celebrations to mark the 35th anniversary of its first theatrical release, [36] with showings in both Japanese with English subtitles and with the English dub. It had previously been released as an Image Song CD in 1987 that contains some songs that were not included in the film. My Neighbor Totoro was ranked third on the list of "Greatest Japanese Animated Films of All Time" by film magazine Kinema Junpo in 2009, 41st in Empire magazine's "The 100 Best Films of World Cinema" in 2010, second on a similar Empire list of best children's films, and number one in the greatest animated films in Time Out; a similar list by the editors ranked the film in third place.

This dub was released in 1993 to United States theaters, and the following year on VHS and LaserDisc in the US by Fox Video in 1994, and on DVD in 2002.In 2001, Japanese magazine Animage ranked My Neighbor Totoro 45th in its list of 100 Best Anime Productions of All Time. I also had issues with the pacing, and found it pretty odd throughout the book; many parts were very faithful to the anime, while others were anywhere from too dragged out to completely omitted.