However, when people say "Totoro", they are usually referring to Oh-Totoro. "Chuu" and "Chibi" mean "medium" and "small", respectively.
"Oh" means "large" in Japanese, but Oh-Totoro has been translated as "King Totoro" in the U.S.
#MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO DAD MOVIE#
Although it's hard to see it on the tape, in the picture book for the movie you can see the picture on the cover shows a goat running over a bridge while a Totoro-like troll looks up from underneath the bridge. In the closing credits you can see their mother reading the book to them. When Satsuki asks her "Totoro? You mean, the Troll in our book?" she is referring to their book "Three Mountain Goats" (The Three Billy Goats Gruff). The name "Totoro" comes from Mei mispronouncing (she has a tendency to do so, though it wasn't clear in the dub) the word "tororu", which is the Japanese word for "troll". the raccoon dog, an animal distantly related to foxes), cats (the pointed ears and the facial expressions), and owls (the chevron markings on their chests and the "ooo"-ing sound they make with their ocarinas at night). However, he is obviously a mixture of several animals: tanukis (ie. Totoro is not a traditional Japanese character, he came completely from Miyazaki's imagination. He has been called many things from "a giant furry thing" to "a rabbit-like spirit".
13 I saw a picture of Totoro and a girl at the bus stop.10 What is the little road shrine where Satsuki and Mei took refuge from the rain?.8 What does the girls' father do for a living?.
#MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO DAD FULL#
With a half-century of Disney full animation at one’s disposal, the rigid backgrounds and limited character movements appear dull and crude when viewed on a large screen. Writer-director Hayao Miyazaki has essentially padded a television half-hour into a sluggish theatrical feature. But instead of a 1950s television neighborhood, they dwell in unmistakable Asian houses surrounded by rice fields while innocuous pop songs drone on the soundtrack. The characters, despite obvious Japanese names, have Anglo features. Obviously aimed at an international audience, the film evinces a disorienting combination of cultures that produces a nowhere land more confused than fascinating. However, while it all seems so dire to the tykes, we soon discover she has merely contracted a mild cold. The action slowly builds to a crisis in which their mother is unable to return home for a family weekend. They are indeed cuddly and have a few tricks that are mildly diverting. Instead, it largely concentrates on the journey of wonderment in which the girls discover a new environment and the creatures both real and fanciful of the region. Not only is the tale of a wholesome stripe unseen for generations, but is virtually absent of dramatic tension. In a far-off city hospital, their mother is recuperating from some unnamed ailment. The story centers on two young sisters, Satsuki and Mei, who move to rural Japan with their professor father.