My Neighbor Totoro
Overview
Animes usually have fantasic plots that rarely interest anyone besides oily-faced nerds. But, at times they reach beyond this theme and find a more universally appealing story to tell and mix in just the right ammount of fantasy and wonder to keep it accessible for the nerds, yet it's not so far fetched that regular viewers would turn it off. My Neighbor Tortoro achieves this seldom found medium.
Storyline & Narrative
Two girls move, along with their father, to a new house in the country under a very large camphor tree. Their mother is sick in the hospital and a boy next door has a secret crush on the older of the two girls. Strange creatures (totoros) live in the tree and help the girls grow a garden of magic beans during the night. Things are going alright until a strange call arrives from the hospital and the younger girl freaks out and sets out for the hospital with a big ear of corn. The town's people think that the little girl fell in a pond and drowned. The biggest totoros comes to help. More happens, but I won't say.
Characters & Dynamics
The two main characters are mai and satsuki. For a young girl mai is quite mature and has the right ammount of wonder to lead her to the totoros which leads the story. Satsuki is quite an indepedent girl, responsible and intelligent. She functions sort of as a young voice of reason. She's sensitive and truly loves her sister, even though she doesn't appear to let on in public. Mai keeps satsuki in contact with her childhood. The father is sort of undeveloped, which actually helps the story, since the children aren't really tainted by adulthood and the adult world stays strange and foreign. Mai's cry is sort of annoying though.
Animation & Visual Direction
My Neighbor Totoro is as just as enjoyable to watch on mute as it is to watch with dialouge and its sound track (which is very good I might add). It's very minimal in terms of action and fight scenes (there aren't any), but the drawn cinematics are great. If you pause the tape, almost every frame is worthy of being mounted on your wall.
Voice Acting & Soundtrack
The voice acting is great in all the younger characters, but sometimes the translation is a little weird for the father. But perfection is rarely found in dubbed anime.
