➡ This podcast discusses the anime film Totoro, a beloved character in Japanese culture. The hosts debate whether Totoro is real or imaginary within the context of the film, and how the movie evokes nostalgia for a simpler time. They also discuss the film’s portrayal of Japanese children and their behavior, and the cultural differences between Japan and America in terms of education and societal expectations. Lastly, they touch on the strong opinions people have about the characters, particularly the character May.
➡ The text discusses various popular Japanese and American children’s characters and shows, including Totoro, Ampaman, Drymon, and Paw Patrol. It highlights how these characters have evolved over time and how some have lost their appeal. The text also discusses the protective nature of Hao Miyazaki over Totoro, limiting its merchandise and content. Lastly, it explores the differences between working for Disney and Miyazaki, and the unique storytelling style of Miyazaki’s films, which focus more on atmosphere and imagination rather than a traditional plot structure.
➡ The text discusses various theories and interpretations about a movie, comparing it to a real-life incident known as the Sayama incident. It mentions how certain elements in the movie, like a cat bus, might have connections to the incident. The text also talks about an urban legend of a girl seeing a cat ghost before committing suicide, which some believe is linked to the movie. Lastly, it mentions that the movie was released as a double feature with another film, “Grave of the Fireflies,” which is about the tragedies of war, leading some to associate the movie with themes of death.
➡ The text discusses a theory about the movie Totoro, questioning whether the character is friendly or dangerous. The author suggests that Totoro, like nature, can be both nurturing and threatening. They also mention the inconsistencies in the theory, such as the age difference and location. The text ends with a discussion about upcoming projects and podcasts.
➡ The text discusses a movie where a father and his two daughters move to the countryside and encounter a large, mythical creature named Totoro. The creature, which is a mix of a cat, owl, and fox, represents nature and has magical abilities like making plants grow and calling a cat bus for transportation. The movie’s main conflict arises when the younger daughter goes missing, but she is found safe later. The text also explores whether Totoro is real or imaginary, concluding that it might be a blend of both.
➡ In the movie, two girls wait for their dad at a bus stop and meet a creature named Totoro. They give Totoro their umbrella, which he takes. The movie suggests that Totoro and other creatures like him only appear to children and when they want to be seen. The movie is set in a specific area in Japan, which has changed over time and doesn’t look like the rural setting depicted in the film anymore.
➡ This text discusses the realistic locations used in anime films like “Summer Wars” and “Kimi no Na Wa,” which fans can visit in real life. It also talks about the problems faced by real-life locations featured in Western TV shows and movies, as they often become unlivable due to fan attention. The text also mentions the destruction of a culturally significant house in Australia, and discusses various aspects of Australian culture and language. Lastly, it delves into the music and voice acting in the anime “Totoro,” praising the Japanese voice acting as highly accurate.
➡ The text discusses the differences between the English and Japanese versions of the Dragon Ball Z series and the movie Totoro. It highlights how the English versions often change the tone and meaning of the original Japanese content. The text also discusses the cultural differences between Japan and the West, particularly in terms of children’s independence and freedom. Lastly, it explores various theories about the deeper meanings and interpretations of the movie Totoro.
➡ The text discusses a father who consistently puts his children in dangerous situations, such as riding in the back of a truck filled with furniture, playing in a dilapidated house, and interacting with a large, potentially dangerous creature. The father also neglects his responsibilities, often oversleeping and leaving his young children to fend for themselves, including preparing meals. The children are conditioned to hide from the police, suggesting they are aware their father’s actions are unsafe. The text concludes by questioning the father’s awareness of his children’s dangerous adventures and his overall neglectful parenting.
➡ The text discusses a family’s struggles and their interactions with soot sprites, mythical creatures that leave if they deem you good. The family cleans their house and takes a bath together, causing the sprites to leave. The text also discusses New Year’s traditions in Japan, which are quiet and family-oriented, contrasting with the wilder celebrations in the States. Lastly, it talks about a Japanese soda bottle with a marble in it, which acts as a seal to keep the drink fizzy.
➡ The text discusses various topics, including the taste and cultural significance of Ramune, a Japanese soda, and the rarity of Dr. Pepper in Japan. It also mentions the marketing of Mellow Yellow and Fanta in Japan, and the history of these brands during World War II. The text also discusses a scene from a Studio Ghibli film, and debates whether the character Totoro is real or imaginary. Lastly, it mentions the sound design in the film, specifically the accurate representation of summer sounds.
➡ The text discusses a conspiracy theory about the movie “My Neighbor Totoro” being based on a real-life murder case, the Sayama Incident, which occurred in Japan in 1963. The theory suggests that various elements in the movie, such as the names of the characters and the location, are linked to the murder case. However, Studio Ghibli, the creators of the movie, have denied these claims. The text also touches on issues of social class and the justice system in Japan, using the Sayama Incident as an example.

Yeah. Welcome to the AAT Disney Podcast. You have arrived for Anime Annuary. Who wants to wait for April when you can have Annuary? That’s where we are today. This is Matt. Hi, Thomas. How is it? It’s a new year. It’s good. I couldn’t remember what we were going to call it, if it was going to be like, Japan youary or something. No, I like the simple just taking the J off for no particular reason. Hey, it makes sense. That’s the J. There’s the J. J Jay for. For that. So, yeah, we. We are not looking at.

I guess we’re still looking at. I don’t want to call Toto a rodent, you know, because, you know, we usually look at the mouse, right? We. We peer inside the mouse. Today, we peer inside the mythical rodent, like, creature. Why? Well, apparently it’s part cat, part rodent, part owl, and I think there might have even been, like, a fox in there somewhere. But it’s an amalgamation of a bunch of. It’s like a. Like a Optimus prime of Japanese forest creatures. That’s why people like them so much. Okay, there we go. I’m curious. About 10, 12 years ago, one of my friends was like, hey, do you think you might be able to find some Totoro merch? It’s like, yeah, in Japan, we were just drowning in it.

You know, I was in this store a few days ago, and there was just a whole wall of totoro and maize and all that sort of stuff. I get it now, too. This was the first time I’ve ever seen Totoro. And I think I understand why this is kind of construed as, like, Japan’s Walt Disney, or at least their version of this animation studio that kind of owns their nostalgia and then, like, tickles their weird little nostalgia bone in a certain way. I think it’s like, now I. Now I understand. After seeing this movie, I understand more than I’ve ever have.

What’s one of those things that makes you nostalgic for something you weren’t even there for, you know, which is always an interesting effect. It’s like when you watch old educational films or something like that, and you get nostalgic. It’s like, but I wasn’t there. I didn’t experience this. In my case, I. I didn’t really feel the nostalgia. And. And after the first viewing, I watched it twice. After the first time I saw it, I was just left wondering, like, what did I just see? What? What don’t I get? That was so Confusing so many un. And I just started doing, you know, deep dives and reading through all of the different bickering online on Reddits and forums and elsewhere.

And now I have a better appreciation. I rewatched it with everybody’s thoughts. You know, one. Let me just give you one example. Like, some of. Some of these got really heated, and I think after I read a particularly heated exchange and some random, like. Like, anime film, a file forum, but these people were getting, like, very. Onto, like, a left and right side. So this was. This was the culmination. It says the only people who think Totoro is imaginary are people who don’t enjoy anything happy and purposefully want Totoro and all the small Totoro to have been imaginary because they’re depressing people who depart who prefer depressing stories.

And that was sort of like this mic drop moment. And this is just one of many different aspects. I think the. The thread I was on, on this one. Is Totoro good or bad? Is Totoro dangerous? Is Toto even real? And I think that’s ultimately what I was trying to find out, if Totoro did, in fact exist or if he’s just this imaginary creature that these little kids are thinking about. And there were people that get very angry on. If you imply that Totoro was imaginary in the context of this fictional film versus if he was real.

It’s. It’s weird. And this is just like a tiny little, like, preview into how. How seriously people take this movie in particular, that it’s so weird, because the movie almost makes a statement on it itself. After the sprouts begin to grow, they have the dream of the giant tree, and they’re like, oh, it was all imaginary. But there’s some truth to it, which I think that may. Like, that’s kind of the thesis statement in the movie. Well, there are. I. I took notes on, you know, the pros and the cons or, like, the fours and the against of whether or not Totoro is real and whether or not the children are neglected, whether or not this is a story about child neglect, whether or not it’s a story about murder.

Well, again, we. We’ll wait for that, I think. Yeah, yeah, we’ll open that can of worms a little later. Because I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t know any of that going into this. And it all just came from me trying to figure out, like, what other people saw in this. So the. The main takeaway, I guess the most practical, exoteric version is that this, this is like a nostalgic movie. It makes you feel nostalgia for a simpler time. Mostly like the late 80s, I guess. Mid to late 80s. 5 was kind of the target date. Just to toss out.

It’s a little before 80s. Yeah. It’s. It’s not. It’s like set before the. When the movie was made. Okay. I saw it was between. It was in a certain period between like 1926 and 1989. Yeah. Honestly, I mean, a couple. Couple questions for you. One, I. I took a similar attack to you. I. I went last night reading all the one star reviews on IMDb for Totoro, which actually there aren’t that many. There’s only about three, four, five, six. Okay, six. And then it goes to two stars, which is still low. But yeah, I was kind of like, who hates this movie and was reading all those reviews? Question the second.

Did you go Japanese or English? For the. I had to go English. Okay. I do recommend at least having a bit of look at this movie with the Japanese, because one thing this movie does is it perfectly mirrors how Japanese kids talk in the Japanese. Like, it’s disturbingly true. The child acting, voice acting in the Japanese version is like, spot on. It’s crazy. Well, let me ask you this then, because one thing that I always notice in English dubs of Japanese anime is that every kid is always screaming at the, like the top of their lungs.

They’re always screaming in the Japanese one, but they’re always screaming in a very true way. Like, I teach kids, I hear this stuff all the time, you know. So do Japanese kids speak at normal volumes or are they just always screaming? They can get pretty screamy, especially outdoors like this. It depends here, you know, like, people think of Japan as, like, being very regimented, right? And like you, you know, square pegs and round hole sort of things. But they kind of let the kids go nuts. Like, I’ve had kids that are just like insane, like crazy, like bouncing off the walls and screaming.

Like, maybe in this movie I’ve. I’m gonna teach May tomorrow. I mean, I have a student that is basically May, you know, and then Satsuki. I got Satsuki too. I mean, I got. I got one or two of those today that just have that vibe. But yeah, somewhere in late elementary school, and if not, then somewhere maybe by the second grade of junior high school, that’s where they get beaten down. I have the crazy kids and then one day, like, maybe I don’t teach them for a year and then I teach them again. Or even I had a kid that was nuts last year.

School year starts in April. Two weeks into April he’s just like, he’s become, you know, the, a desk drone. That’s why they probably let him run wild. They all know that at very soon they’re all going to succumb to the system in one way or another. Right. The other thing is very different. I think in America, like high school can be difficult, but universities usually considered to be more difficult. Right. Whereas in Japan they kind of kick your ass in high school. And then college is just like chill out time until you’re, you know, gonna go join the workforce and become a proper worker drone.

Well, and you, you mentioned that you’ve got a maid too. Another weird tangent that I didn’t really get. I didn’t look too far down this hole, but there was a lot of like May haters online and a lot of different avenues where people saying she’s ugly, she looks like a frog, that she’s annoying. This is just a four year old fictional character that people have very strong feelings about. And I guess again it was. I had to remind myself that this is sort of a staple in, I’m assuming in Japanese culture. Like here’s the first time I’ve ever seen it.

But like you said, you can’t go anywhere without seeing Totoro. And this is the. Is this the introduction of tutorial to the world or was this character only media? With Totoro, there’s no TV show, there’s no sequel. This is Totoro. You have seen all. Okay, so this is sort of like, like foundational to Japanese culture for kids growing up. Is the sea Totoro? Yeah, this is kind of the classier part, right? I mean there’s, there’s Ampaman. He’s. He’s the superhero whose head is made out of a red bean bunny, which is for preschoolers. You know, you grow out of Ampaman.

There’s Drymon. Do you know Drymon? Maybe he’s usually called the Japanese Mickey Mouse. Not Totoro. Drymon. It’s a, it’s a long running manga and then anime. They’ve made like 50 movies or something. But he’s a blue robot cat from the future who’s lost his ears and now he’s in the present day with this dumb Japanese elementary school boy. Like the boy is supposed to be kind of an idiot, like you know, Charlie Brown or something, right? And then dry money’s got, you know, like gadgets and things in his pockets for any situation that they run across.

So you know, what’s. What’s weird? I. Maybe I’m just losing touch and I’m fine with that. I have no reason to stay in touch. But all of the cartoon characters that you even like my parents grew up with, they were still sort of popular. They were still sort of relevant when I was growing up too. Charlie. Charlie Brown you brought up, that was still relevant. We were still watching Charlie Brown. They were still airing that on like regular prime time during holidays and stuff. But now it feels that all of those characters are sort of washed out.

They’ve kind of lost a lot of their appeal. And I don’t even know what the new thing is anymore. Was it the. In America, the. The Paw Patrol. I guess they’re into the Paw Patrol. I think they got canceled though, when. When the. The BLM got big. Paw Patrol went away for a little. Like they. They kind of like laid low. Same with Cops. You need to show Cops took themselves off there. There was a very anti police sentiment for a while and all the shows just went into hiatus. A lot of them rumored, like it was is gone forever.

And then once the heat died down a little bit, they all came like, Paw Patrol’s back and Cops is back. Like they’re all back now. But they definitely took a step back first. Yeah, okay, maybe in America. I only started noticing Paw Patrol in Japan in the past year. So maybe that’s when it hit here. It. It might have not, you know, now I start seeing the water bottles and the T shirts just in the past year. But I guess the point is. The other point I wanted to make about Ampamon and Drymon, the other super big kind of kitty Japanese characters, is there’s thousands upon thousands of hours of content and manga and story books for them.

Whereas Totoro, again, this is it. And Miyazaki has been pretty protective about it. One of the reasons there is not more Totoro is because Hao Miyazaki doesn’t want there to be any more Totoro. Even the merchandise, it’s all over the place. But apparently it’s made like with a cap. Like they actually like, he’s like, don’t let it get out of control. Sell this much, make this much. Keep it, you know, not going insane. Right. So you don’t see kids rolling around as much with like Totoro stuff. Because he. Because. Because I’m seeing some correlation here too, that while Walt Disney was alive, you know, I think that he was still at least even after he stopped being as hands on with every single feature length animation, just him being around people probably knew there were certain things that would piss him off and they just avoided doing that or keeping it from him.

But once he was gone, that’s when you kind of see like a completely different Disney erupt from that. Yeah. And that might happen to Ghibli after. I mean he’s like 80 something now. I think he’s still pretty hands on though. That’s why every what, seven years now he puts out a movie and says it’s his retirement movie. Right. That’s the pattern for like 20 years now. Because he will get upset both of us like. Right. He might still live longer than either of us do. Yeah, yeah. I mean he’s, you know, he’s, he is hands on still.

That’s one of the reasons this is only seven years. He’s. I think he’s actually doing some of the animation like himself. He’s also apparently a terror to work for. Just to throw that out. So I saw, I’m. I’m almost positive I saw a video that was them presenting AI to like some heads of, of Ghibli and they went in there and he’s. And he was pissed or whoever they were talking to. I don’t actually know if it was him or not, but it was like the high level execs and they were not happy that the fact that they were even looking into AI and he did a whole rant about how it can’t have like the human touch and like why would you want to phase out the human element and all.

All this. So that sounds like him. Very passionate. Very passionate. There is a documentary. It’s with the Blu Ray set. Miyazaki Blu Ray set. But there’s a documentary called the Kingdom of Dreams and Madness which is a pretty good look into Miyazaki. So I, I rec. I mean, and you can find that elsewhere. Would you rather. You probably know more about Miyazaki than I do and you know enough about Disney. If you had to work for one of them, who would you work for? Probably Disney. Because his thing was coming in and just being like if it was okay, kind of just shrugging me like he wouldn’t give you a big deal.

Right. Where I think Miyazaki just give you a big deal about like everything, you know. And Disney, he’s just. Everyone knows he’s coming. They start smelling the cigarettes apparently at a certain gate. You know, he wasn’t there all the time. Miyazaki’s breathing down your neck. You know when you’re doing this stuff. So yeah, I think I’d prefer working on the Disney side. You know, at least he threw one wild party. Right? So I think you have to go back to Snow White for that one. But I have a. Or Pinocchio too. I also have a couple other quotes that I found on online that I was reading through.

So I wonder if you had the kind of carefree childhood moments that Miyazaki wants to recall. And if not, I wish you had. Now that sounds innocuous, that almost sounds neutral. But this again was in response to someone that had a very strong opinion that this movie was about child neglect. And I’ll get into like the notes I try to sift through and just get the. The highlights of that. I thought that this was interesting, that this was another one of the debates. And then here’s another that says I understand why some people would be bored by this movie.

It’s quite event uneventful when it comes to storytelling, but it doesn’t need that at all. The movie lives from the atmosphere it creates. And after I read that I started to understand a little bit more I think because almost all the criticism about this movie that I was finding was talking about how it doesn’t have like a neat ending. Like was the mom sick? Like is she bad? Is she home yet? Like they just, they kind of resolved the movie in the credits without spelling it out. They don’t put a bow on it at all. And I think that a majority of people that it was almost like they were standing up for it.

They were like white knighting the movie plot at some points. But it was, it was almost saying if you’re trying to find a western style plot like a Steven Spielberg hero’s journey, beginning, middle end, then you’re not going to find it here. And, and the whole time you’re looking for that, you’re missing what is the movie’s actually about. And the movie was supposed to be about like getting back into this concept of having a wild imagination and seeing like fantastical things that adults can’t see and the only kids can see. So I guess that that one quote helped me when I re watched it again to almost don’t care about the storyline and just kind of like be here now.

I guess in terms of being a watcher. Yeah, I think other. Well, being a Japanese child growing up in a rural area maybe is that that’s the best way to have this movie entrained upon you. But it was one of the later Miyazakis I saw. I Actually saw it in Japan in the summer. Like there’s the Obon holiday and when the kids were younger, we’d have 13 people in the house with kids ranging from age, you know, one or two up to 13 or 14. And they put on Totoro a lot. So the setting of the movie is almost the same as actually the house in Totoro is weird.

We were sitting in a. A Japanese style house. But yeah, it’s just like we’re sitting in the countryside. It looks just like that outside where I’m watching the movie. I. I was watching without any English the first or second time because the kids were watching it and it was on. It was still like VHS or something, so it didn’t have subtitles. So I. I didn’t see this in actually in English till maybe like the third time I saw it. But it was like, I’m watching this movie and that situation without the Totoro part is just occurring.

Excuse me, occurring like around me, you know, that the same setting. I actually thought Totoro was in the mountains for a long time because of that, but it’s actually just at the edge of Kanto. There’s a name for this, it’s called Satoyama, which is right where the plane is starting to turn into mountains. That’s why we get little weird outcrops and stuff. But it’s still generally flat. So it’s not quite a mountain movie, which I always thought it was. But anyway, the point is, when you watch a movie and then you’re watching it in the atmosphere of that movie, it’s just like, oh, this all makes sense, you know, if that makes any sense.

Well, and I guess some context of what the movie’s about would. Would make it make even more sense. So let me give you my version of it, having only seen it recently, twice, and that’s it. And you’ve seen it probably a lot more than that. And you’ve gone like inundated with Totoro. Totoro. Is it Totoro or Totoro? Totoro. Toro. If you go for the song, you’ll. You’ll get the name right. So the. The movie from my. My oversimplification of this, it’s about a dad and his two daughters and maybe the mom move out into middle of the country somewhere into this dilapidated house.

And then while the dad is out there writing or working on something and kind of, I would say, neglecting the kids in a bit, at least on screen, they just kind of run free and they meet this too Entity which is this giant, like ginormous. Like it’s the size of a van at least, maybe even bigger than the size of like a minivan. And again, it’s a cat mixed with an owl mixed with a fox. It’s kind of like a, a fictional creature. But they meet this creature that I guess represents Mother Nature if I had to force it into like a western archetype.

And then because it can make plants grow and it can make trees grow and it can transport you, there’s also a cat that transforms into a little bus. And you can get onto the cat bus and then ride it around and it goes super fast. And the movie is basically about these two girls that are just walking around exploring, meeting these fantastical creatures, worrying about their dad, worrying about their mom who’s in the hospital with a cold. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. But that’s, that’s basically the problem we can read as tuberculosis just to, you know, they would explain to kids it’s a cold.

But okay, so yeah, in the, in the movie, at least in the English version, they keep implying that it’s nothing. Like she doesn’t even know why they’re keeping her there, it’s just a cold. But apparently it was based on the, the creator’s actual childhood and his mom did have tuberculosis, so that would make sense that you know, the mom. Anyways, the mom is absent for 99 of the movie. She shows up just at the very end and then in the credits she’s back home and they’re hanging out. So it doesn’t sound like a whole lot of stuff happens in that movie because again, there’s not really a hero’s journey.

I guess the, the biggest thing that happens, the biggest conflict is that the younger four year old sister May goes missing for what seems like half a day or so and someone sees a sandal in a, in a pond. So then you’re kind of raising the question, did you know, the little daughter drown? And. But then you find her later on that day and she’s fine. So that’s kind of the movie summarized, I think. Right. Did I miss any major plot points? No, I just want to redefine Totro slightly because you’re saying he’s Mother Nature, right? Which kind of.

But the mother nature, the commie of that specific area, as in not the macro idea of nature. Totro. I, I think, I think, I think a Japanese viewer would understand. Totoro is the kami of that plot of land, basically. Oh, just that. Is that why it’s the neighbor, because it’s actually such a micro scale that, like, he’s. He’s close enough to be your neighbor, so he becomes like the Gaia of your sort of, like, zip code. Totoro himself doesn’t and maybe cannot go to the hospital. That’s why he calls on the cat bus. The cat bus can go there.

You know, maybe the cat bus can kind of like traverse different realms of nature or something. I mean, if we’re. If we really want to read into it too much. So let me. Let me ask you. I guess you kind of hinted at it, but is. Is Totoro real or is Totoro imaginary? I. Again, I’m gonna re quote. They say it was a dream, but there was some truth to it. I think that’s what Totoro is. I. I think I mentioned it is, but here, I’ll give a. I think I’ve even mentioned this on the podcast before, but when I’m walking home just last night, it happened again.

And there’s a little stone shrine, and I know it’s there, and every time I see it, when I first see it, I think it’s a person or a fox or something. So for me, that’s Totoro. Right? I’d get a glimpse of this thing and like. Oh, wait, that’s just. That’s actually a stone shrine, you know, so the stone shrine. Ever teleport you to a completely different part of the city? Okay, good point. Doesn’t do that. But, hey, hey, man, you can meditate by it. You’d look really weird if you sat by that one. But, yeah, you know, we got giant trees with the.

The. The ornamental. The. The Shinto ornament around it. You know, I guess technically that giant tree is Totro. That’s why after the girls say they’ve met Totro, dad takes him to a shrine to pray because it’s like, oh, you just met a God. That’s a rare thing to actually see that God. And, yeah, and I guess the adults can’t see it at all because the grandma at some point makes a note that, like these soot sprites, and I guess by proxy, Totoro can only be seen when you’re young. And even. I think it’s even the youngest of the two daughters is the one that sees Totoro at first, and then only after she tells her older sister about it, then the older sister can see Totoro.

Yeah, I’m gonna go with my first. This is. This is light. This isn’t Even a conspiracy. This is more of like a. Did you notice this sort of thing? Do you have the wiki for my neighbor Totoro up by chance? No. Okay, bring up the wiki, and if the listener has the opportunity to, you can do this as well. This can be a group activity, but right at the top of the wiki, you can see the movie poster. All right. 1988. Yeah. Let’s pull this up. Okay. Okay. So. And I kind of blew my wife’s mind because, you know, she was 8, 7.

8 years old. She was Satsuki age when. When Totoro first came out. Right. So she grew up with the movie, and she argued with me. So I actually just made her look close enough and notice this. Okay. Scroll down just a touch for the poster so you can see the poster. There we go. Who’s the girl in the poster? Oh, it looks like almost like an older May. Right? Or a younger Satsuki. Right. It’s not. It’s not anyone that’s actually in. And also, this is interesting, too. I don’t remember in the movie, this particular scene, not just because the girl’s missing, but also the girl.

The both of the girls are there, but one of them has, like, a really weird look on her face, like she’s shocked, because I think this might be one of the first times that she also sees Totoro. Yeah. This is, from what I understand, this is from very early in the production of the movie, but it was such a cool image. They just kept it for the poster. And 99% of people in Japan didn’t notice that this is not Mei or Satsuki. The early draft of the movie, it was going to be one girl, seven years of age, so she got split into two.

You got May at four years old, you got Tatsuki at nine. Right. So just. It’s interesting that this is on the official theatrical poster. Right? And people generally don’t notice that this is neither of the girls. It’s a mixture of the two. So I didn’t put my finger directly on it, but I definitely know that when this scene happens in the movie, this is when they’re standing outside the bus stop, they’re waiting for their dad to come home. He hasn’t shown up. They start getting a little bit worried. The street light comes on, so you’re. You’re kind of concerned for the two girls, too.

And then Totoro shows up next to him, and he’s got this, like, leaf on his head because he doesn’t have. I don’t know what the gender of Totoro is, I’m assuming, say he is wearing, like, this leaf as this, like, umbrella. And then they pass the umbrella to Totoro, who then steals it. He gets on the capos and he steals their umbrella. But at no point in that whole scene when I was watching, it’s that same feeling when you see a trailer for a movie and then you go and you see the movie and you’re like, wait a minute.

Like, this is missing. Something that I remember seeing is, like, the advertisement for it. So, yeah, this. This scene was missing when I was actually watching the movie because I’ve seen this particular depiction of this girl and this particular. But when it happens in the movie, she’s not sort of chill like this. Like, she’s kind of freaked out. Yeah. And while we’re playing Spot the Difference, I think it was a black umbrella, too. And we’re looking at a red one here. The black one’s the one that she gives to Totoro. Okay. Keeps one, too. Or whatever.

Yeah. But anyway, I only learned about that, like, a few months ago, so I was like, huh, I’ve been seeing that poster for years. I never noticed that, you know? And so here are the some of the interesting notes about whether or not Totoro is real or not. So one note is that I guess that he. He ends up showing up whenever May gets sleepy or starts to fall asleep. Except for one time when May’s not there. And then the big sister falls down and then she sees Totoro. So there is some sort of theme here where Totoro might be showing up.

Like, right as you’re transitioning from awaking state to a non awakened state. I’m not really sure, but that’s one of the examples. The dad says that forest sprites exist, but they only come out when they want to be seen. And then there’s also this one part at the very end when the cat bus brings the two girls back to their house. The grandma starts coming down the road, and the cat bus kind of jumps off the top of their house. But as it jumps off to the house, it kind of turns transparent, like Cheshire cat style.

It no longer wants to be seen. And I did think that was interesting. That happened right as Grandma comes. So. And she earlier said that only children can see it. So it made me think, at least for the cat bus, the Toro, if they play by the same rules, that the cat bus knew an adult was coming and they had to hide, or if the adult coming makes it no longer exist. Is it like a. Like a Santa Claus thing? Like if your parents walk in and Santa Claus was there, he just evaporates maybe. Oh, hey, here’s an interesting one because you kept saying granny and I was like, I don’t think she’s actually related.

And that. That’s a language difference in the Japanese. It’s very much. She’s a nanny. That does not seem to be related. They just got, you know, the. The local old woman takes care of the kids is the vibe in the Japanese version. Whereas I was just looking because I was curious and it says in the English dub it is now granny. So they’ve. Yeah. She’s not a grandmother to them in the. In the. Okay. She’s just an old nanny for the. The entire village, basically. Yes. That’s. That’s because she seems pretty familiar with the boy as well.

Right. Interesting. Yeah. No, that. It definitely. I’ve. I thought that they were all family. That’s. I. That’s why I even threw that in when they all move out to this area. And it wasn’t even clear to me too that the mom was even involved in this move. It almost seems that the mom is sick with tuberculosis before they even move. Because even when they first move into this new house, it’s just the dad and the two daughters. Yeah. Kind of weird. Well, they keep talking about how mom’s going to come and live here eventually. It seems they lived in Tokyo.

He’s a professor. Right. And his. So she’s sent out to a sanitarium. Kind of like not in Tokyo because you don’t want a TV person with all that pollution, I guess is the idea. So they move to that house. What’s not clear to me is if that. I guess they just bought the house and are just showing up in this neighborhood or whatever. So. Because, you know, especially rural neighborhoods in Japan can be pretty tight. So. Which might be why they’re in such a bizarre house. Like the house they’re in. And there are like I think maybe more than one recreation that house at parks in Japan and stuff.

But Japanese definitely see that house as being kind of weird looking. That’s not what a normal countryside house looks like at all. But like in what way is this one more western looking? It’s a little. It’s like a mishmash of Japanese and Western. Like it kind of has that like kind of towery thing at the front, which. That’s not something you would see in a countryside Japanese house at all. So. Interesting. Well, maybe that was some Foresight into trying to tap into the nostalgia beyond just one specific area. Even if it is, you know, anime. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, actually it is one specific area I think. And it was weird. I figured this out also. This or last year, I guess 2024, because I think I mentioned my family, we took a trip to Moomin Village, right. And as I was researching we get to the death God stuff we’ll get to eventually. I kind. It was like where we were was like five miles east of where Totoro is supposed to be. You can actually kind of, if you start getting on maps and stuff, you can find pretty much the exact spot where this movie is supposed to take place.

Interesting. Have you ever been there or was that the closest you’ve ever been? That’s the closest I’ve been. But I mean it’s. It’s now just a suburban town. It’s a lot more built up. It still has some fields and stuff. Stuff. It’s not full on metropolitan Tokyo area, but it’s not this rural looking. Again, that’s why I thought it actually took place like out here in Nagano or something. But because Saitam is all just suburban sprawl these days. So if, if that were some. If, if there were analogy to that in America, there’d probably be billboards and like paid tours and like a little, you know, photo spot and everything.

Like, you know, this is the, the site of where Totoro was filmed or something. Is there anything like that? Or is. Is that sort of too tacky? I think there’s a Ghibli museum around there. I’m actually going to look at Google Maps here because basically my, my daughter weirdly has inherited her Japanese mother’s hair which is wavy and Japanese girls do not like that. They want straight hair. So we would go on like a three hour drive to this salon so where the person knows how to deal with wavy, curly ish hair. And then it was like the next day, where are we going to go? So what are things you could see around there? So yeah, we went to the Moomin park in Hano, which is a lot of fun.

And then just, just a little bit to the east you get Sayama. And I swear there’s something Ghibli around here. I think it’s just a Ghibli museum. It’s not one of the like themed out parks or something. That’s. That’s why I went to Moomin. We thought it’d be more exciting. Ghibli or maybe a Snoopy Actually, getting back to Peanuts, it might have been like a Snoopy museum. Ghibli Museum is. Okay, it’s, it’s, it’s in the vicinity, but even that’s actually a little bit east of where Totoro. So between. Yeah, it’s kind of between the Moomin village and where Totoro take place.

So. Okay. But yeah, on Google Maps now, it’s just, it’s just suburbs, you know, with a few rice fields here and there. It would not look like this anymore. And. And also apparently there was a shot of where the mom is staying in the hospital. And I found some other like, really like detailed arctic blogs online where they’re showing. Even the layout of this fictional area in the hospital does correlate to a real place. So a lot of this, I think was coming directly from some kind of like a life experience. Like you said, the creator’s mom actually had tuberculosis.

Actually went to this hospital. And I think it might have even been this one. Yeah. One weird thing about anime, and we’re gonna see this a lot more with the other animes this month is animes go location scouting. Like, you know, in Western animation, Disney animation, it’s like, let’s make fantastical places. Oh, this place kind of looks like New York City. You know, even if it is New York, it’s stylized. But the other. Later in the month, we’re doing Summer wars and Kimi no Na Wa, your name, which you can visit the locations of those movies.

Summer Wars, I live in the location of those movies. I walk past that castle often. You know, I ride, I’m at that train station like, you know, several times a week. So when I watch Summer Wars, I’m like, I know all these locations. I. I pretty much figured out where their house is in Summer Wars. So the same here with Toto. I pretty much figured out like where this movie’s taking place. And then Summer wars, we have had a few tours around. I mean, I didn’t take one, but you can have a tour where they’ll take you to the locations, your name.

There’s a. There’s just a staircase in Tokyo that’s become a popular tourist destination because they recreated the last thing that movie on that staircase. So it is interesting to these hyper realistic animated backgrounds that, that you can, you know, compare side by side with photos. America can’t handle that sort of thing. I mean, like, for example, the Breaking Bad house, people have to like, had to move out of that because it just became unbearable to live there. People were throwing Pizzas on the roof coming up and just, like, knocking on the door. The same thing with, I think, the house in the Goonies.

A few, like, a whole bunch of houses that actually existed in real life to end up being in TV shows and movies. They become unlivable because no one respects that an actual person might be living in that house or in that area. So maybe it’s just like a culture thing. Like, we can’t handle it as much here. Meanwhile, in Australia, someone just tore down, accidentally tore down the house where AC DC started. They bought. They bought the plot of land to build, like, a hotel tower. And the. The previous owners did not tell them that the house had at least a little bit of cultural significance.

I mean, if you’re an ACDC fan a lot. But I guess it’s a good question, like, does that matter? Like, do you need to preserve the house where AC DC started? Is that have some, like, actual significance for the house to keep existing? I mean, that’s still. Is that Australia’s biggest rock band ever? I mean, Midnight Oil’s not as big as that silver Church cooler, but. Yeah, but they didn’t last for decades. They didn’t get, you know, to do the soundtrack for an Iron man movie. So, like, Crocodile Dundee’s house. Does he know he lives in the bush, Right? Even have a house.

They preserve some of the bush, I can tell you that. You can go up there and burn down. Yeah, you go bush. That’s. That’s apparently the term if you’re going out there, which sounds a little bit wrong or while we’re on. Australian English is also one that I kind of found myself using. And sometimes if I use in the wrong company. Look at me Weird. Taking a look at something in Australian English is taking a squiz at something. So if people don’t know that term, sometimes it doesn’t sound good. I’ll take a squiz at that. There’s also a really fun Australian punk song that I came across a while ago called Smoko.

And apparently, like, having a cigarette, they’ll call it a smoko. Yeah. Oh, for Australian punks, by the way. And I’ll recommend this to you. And just to tell you the title, I’ll be dropping F bomb into this podcast today, but it’s by a band called the Cosmic Psychos. The song’s called With City. I highly recommend the video. Okay. And my Australian buddy, he’s the one that I work on music with, but he’s like, yeah, that’s. That’s what it’s like out in like the. You know, the rural areas of Australia. It’s spot on at least for the.

The punkier scene of things. So I mean I. I guess just true to their roots because I assume that we’re just talking about British convicts, right? Oh, and that’s what this feels like. It’s. The band started in the 80s, but the video is from 10 years ago. So they’re like middle aged and fat. The guy’s like tearing off his shirt. He has this like giant beer belly and stuff. It’s great. Every time they sing the title, the band kind of walks behind them and they all start like flipping birds at you. It’s. It’s. It’s a fantastic video.

Highly recommended. You know, as long as. You know. I guess it’s not safe for work because they do sing the chorus a lot. Back to Totoro for Holy with city and go back to Totoro. Back to Saitama I guess. Let’s see. So looking through my notes a bit just for funsies. The song pro. Oh yeah, yeah. The songs in this movie. I do have to talk about the songs a bit which are the. You know that all that. That’s just like. Like think toys that play music probably have the Totoro song and the Ponyo song because you know, my daughter was real.

The toddler. We got her like one of those drums and would play songs that had both of those. Most toys probably have them. The. The dreamier theme. Do you know what I’m talking about? There’s the kind of kitty sounding Totoro song and then there’s the dreamier main theme of the movie, right? Yeah. Then the English version. I only heard the Totoro song when the credits were playing and it was also. That was also dubbed in English. Okay. Anyway, the dreamier instrumental song I play in orchestras in Japan and I have performed that with an orchestra probably at least three times, possibly more.

It’s pretty much everyone recognize it if you just played the instrumental. Yes, that’s why it’s encore. You know. We just done a symphony and a concerto and a short classical piece. Now we have to play one for the masses. Right? That’s the encore. And it’s usually a Ghibli song or some old Inca song to make the OG song cry. You know, the old men cry. So it’s an Inca or. Or like a Ghibli song usually. So in Totoro’s. It’s in my music folder right now, you know. Or the cello part is at least. What does that.

Does the Totoro song make people cry? No, no, the. The theme. The theme, yeah. Again, the Totoro song is what you sing to your two year old, right? Because it’s got the John T beat, you know, the main theme’s not hummable. I can’t, like, sit here and remember exactly what it is, but I can remember what it feels like, you know, I hope that was not screwed up in the English dub. By the way, do you know which English dub you were watching, by any chance? I guess you’re watching. I didn’t know there was more than one.

Okay. 1993, Fox put this on American Home Video. I’m noting because in that dub, it is called Granny is Nanny. She is nanny in the 93 dub. Once Disney started distributing Ghibli in the States, they put Totora out on home video in the mid 2000s and had the Fanning sisters doing the voices. 2005 is the Disney version. The Fanning sisters. Tim Daly is the father. Frank Welker does all the animal noises as usual. So, yeah, so I’m guessing you’re watching that one, which is supposed to be the better dub. If you’re. If you are going to dub it, I do recommend going and watching at least a few key scenes just without the dub, because I think when you put these kids in English and they’re screaming all the time, they are super annoying.

Right? I mean, were you. How annoyed were you by these kids? I’m used to it because I expect every single child in anime to scream constantly. So I guess I was. I was predicting it, and it just did exactly what I was expecting it to. It didn’t catch me off guard. How are the kids talking? Are they. Are they talking in that, like, exaggerated King English like this? Not really, no. I think it was. It was very good. It was not good. That’s good. Yeah, that. That’s one of the reasons, like, when we watch. What was it? Oh, God.

What was the Iraq War movie? How’s Moving Castle? I think I told you five minutes in, I was like, this doesn’t make sense in Japanese. So I switched that one to the dub, which was a very good dub. It had Billy Crystal. Right. Whereas Totoro just. I. I think the Japanese dub is some of the best voice acting, like, pretty much ever for any animated thing. It’s just when you are familiar with what kids sound like in Japan, it’s like, this is 100% correct. It’s crazy. I’ll take that. Before I actually go to Japan, I’LL watch the, the undubbed version of Totoro so I can get a better understanding of what I’m headed towards.

Right, right. So because I, I, I think the biggest offender for me was a Dragon Ball. No, no, no letters after just Dragon Ball, which we watched. And in Japanese, it’s perfectly watchable. And then the English dub is so terrible. Bulma, the, the young attractive girl, lady, we’ll call her lady because I just call her attractive. Anyway, point is, she sounds like a middle aged woman in the English dub and she sounds like a, a cute girl in the Japanese dub. Right. And then Goku himself sounds like a Japanese boy in the Japanese version. And what I was just doing where he’s talking like this is what the, the English dub does and makes the show unwatchable for me also.

I mean, I just learned this recently, but apparently Dragon Ball Z was not necessarily a show for kids and that whoever originally brought it over, whoever was greenlighting a lot of these shows, they just figured, oh, it’s cartoons, of course it’s for kids, but there’s some very adult, very like, mature storylines that occur in the Dragon Ball Z series, even though it was mostly marketed to kids in the West. I don’t know. Mr. Satan, the Japanese version has a character called Mr. Satan. Goku dies and goes to. He’s dead in, in the Japanese version. Whereas in the English, the original English dub, he’s just like off in the cosmos somewhere.

But in the Japanese version, it’s made clear that Goku is dead and he’s training in the beyond. Okay. And they leave that little ambiguous. This movie too. Even Totoro, there’s lots of theories that the girls are dead. Okay, I guess it’s time to open that can of worms. Yeah, well, I’m not even with the murder version. I’m just talking about just regular old like them. Like without even getting into the murder ant analogy that they’re just dead and that’s the only reason they can see Totoro. And that’s also why they go and they see their mom at the end is because the mom is also close to death.

Right. And it’s almost like mom saw a couple ghosts of the girls outside, which would freak her out. But if she’s left there corn, that says to Mom. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s, that’s Twilight Zone stuff if you’re the mom in the bed there. You know, I wonder, maybe this was just a 1950s rural Japanese thing, but did people just eat raw corn as a way to get over illness. I’ve, I’ve had raw corn before. I’ve pulled corn directly out of a cornfield and just eaten it. It’s actually really good. It doesn’t need to even be cooked.

But is that a normal thing? Like if someone’s sick, you just give them raw corn? Well, in Japanese, again, see, it’s almost like we’re sometimes we might be talking about slightly different movies, but watching in Japanese, they make it clear that, oh, eating vegetables makes you healthy. And then May has the corn, so she becomes obsessed. The nanny or granny. In my version with the nanny, he definitely says like, oh, like when your mom comes, I’m gonna feed her all these vegetables and the vegetables will make her all better again. So yeah, I guess the, the girl was thinking, which flying four year old logic, right? Like, oh, if I get her this corn now, she’ll be healthy.

Now that, honestly, that’s another good thing to keep in mind because again, a lot of the, the criticisms and the confusion, in my case I wasn’t really even like critical. I was just confused. A lot of, a lot of it. But one of those notes was that the movie is not about the mom. And if you’re, and if you even care about what sickness the mom has or if the mom lives or if the mom dies, even though they imply that she lives in the credits. But if you even care about that, you’re not watching the movie the right way and that the movie is supposed to have you live and kind of see the point of view in a way of the two little girls and all of the limited information that they have too.

So yeah, I guess four year old logic kind of reigns supreme and in that type of watching of this movie, right? And think when you were that young or even a little older and playing outdoors, go back to your memories of that. You know, I said before, I, I remember playing in a giant tree at my elementary school. We pretend it’s a spaceship and in my memory inside it is a spaceship. I don’t remember what the tree looks inside. I remember what the spaceship looked like, you know, in my, the spaceship of my imagination, man. You know, I remember that.

Or yeah, you know, the Boy Scouts, you have to build the giant forts and then to capture the flag. And I remember that as, you know, a massive insane battle where it’s just a bunch of kids running around, you know. Yeah. When I think back to all the tree forts and all like the playgrounds and stuff that I was ever on for whatever reason, my mind goes right to like the most horrific accidents I had seen in those places. So I remember people like falling out of tree houses and breaking bones or like skinning all of the skin off their side or like losing teeth and stuff.

So I don’t know, maybe that’s just a me thing. Right. So these kids, they remember climbing in the underbrush and finding a big weird creature, you know, I mean, when they’re in their 30s, they’ll still remember it that way. So I guess on, on that about the. These kids just kind of like roaming around in the middle of, you know, this rural spot and finding weird creatures and getting lost and possibly even drowning in some cases. Or at least thinking enough that like, yeah, my dot, my sister might actually be dead here. But there’s a article that was, it’s 10 years old now, but even 10 years ago it was talking about how Japanese children are still allowed to kind of be free range a little bit.

And it was, the context was that people that were in, kids that were in elementary school, I think, or even like kindergarten, that they were walking 10 minutes to a train station and then taking a train by themselves with, without like a, you know, guardian figures or anything, those chaperones, and taking a train and get to school and then doing it on the way back. And they were talking about like fifth first graders that were doing this. Yeah, my daughter did that right before she started the first grade. We had a thing where it was like one of the upper classmen of elementary school showed everybody and the parents the route and every morning the kids would get together at about 7:30, I think there was like a fourth grader in charge.

And then there’s a bunch of first to third graders all wearing those little yellow helmets. And they always talking like six years old. Right, that’s, that’s. You were talking six years old? Yeah. The first three years of elementary school they’re supposed to wear yellow helmets, which I don’t know how that helps that much, but whatever. First three years, yellow helmets, fourth, fifth and sixth grade, you don’t have to wear the helmet anymore. Maybe you’re in charge of some of the smaller kids, but there are no experiment a little bit. Yeah, I think hopefully they were nicer.

I didn’t hear any horror stories, so. And my, once my daughter started junior high, she walks to the train station about five minutes from here and takes a 30 minute train ride with, you know, I mean she’s what, 15 now? She can generally handle herself. But yes, from 60 years old all the kids just went to school together. So that that is accurate even now. And so, so. And that wasn’t too different maybe in like the 50s, even in the. The states too with that. I guess that’s one of the differences that was coming up is that people that didn’t have that same nostalgic feel watching this from the west point of view.

It was being cited that well, maybe you just didn’t get to be as free range and that this was actually definitely more of the norm in Japan to be able to just like run around as a four year old with your slightly older sister for the entire day. But it also. So these were the different explanations for why this movie might be about a deterioration of the family union and unit and child neglect. So you’ve got what the. And I even noticed this myself. So when I came across someone else talking about this, I immediately related because when the movie started out, the weirdest thing happened.

And maybe this is an English thing. So maybe you can tell me of. This also is present in the Japanese version. But in the beginning of the movie the girls are in the back of this truck because they’re moving to the new house that’s going to be out in the country. And they’re kind of peeking out under some sort of tarp or whatever. You know, they’ve got like all the furniture and all kinds of stuff in the, in the bed of this truck. And they’re in the bed of the truck with all this stuff and they see someone walk by and they hide and then they poke out afterwards and they’re like, oh, I thought it was a police.

So I, it stood out to me because I was like, why would a 4 year old, 6 year olds care whether or not there was a cop going by? And why would they hide from the cops? Like what are they doing that’s wrong? They’re probably not supposed to be riding there. Dad told them to watch out for the popo. That is it. Right. But okay, so let’s, let’s just follow this through without, you know, I won’t put an hour on it. But why do you think they shouldn’t be back there? Well, okay, I guess I don’t have seat belt rules yet.

There might just be a knot riding in the back of a cab. Right. Well, but, but the reason, I guess more than just the. It’s, it’s funny because you’re thinking of like the law version but like the actual reason you wouldn’t want to have them back there is because if you were to stop shore or if like the items in the back were to settle in some way. Oh yeah, that’s why there’s, you’re killing your kids. Like they’re, they’re, you know, dying under like this debris. And that’s why they’re hiding from the police. They’re hiding from the police because they know they’re not supposed to be back there.

But why would they know that the police don’t want them to be back there or that they would need to hide from them. Unless the dad has already set up this pattern of like, hey kids, I’m doing dangerous things. Like I’m, I’m being very flippant with your lives to the point where the authorities might intervene and say, hey, don’t you care about your kids? And they’re so used to this that the dad has now conditioned them to just hide from the authority figures as opposed to him doing something safe with his kids, like, I don’t know, having them ride up front with him so that it’s no longer a safe.

Anyways, that was in my mind when I was watching that the first time. First I was like, why were they hiding from the cops? I was expecting that they were on the run from the law or that because I hadn’t seen the movie before, right? So I figured maybe it’s like a heist movie. So after it was over that question I was like, why the hell are they hiding from the cop? I couldn’t let it go. And that was what I discovered. And that’s when I found this whole list of like, and here’s why the dad is the worst dad ever.

So I related on the very first bullet point right off the bat. Yeah, I guess it’s that he doesn’t have a support system, you know, like we don’t see again, that’s why I think it’s important. That’s not granny, that’s nanny. Right? That makes more sense. Showing up in the town. He’s like, this is the only way we can do do this. My wife has had some mental issues and she’s not worked for a while. You know, the reason that we don’t have to really throw our lives in the air is because my in laws live here, so my sister in law lives down the street.

So there’s plenty of support system. Right. But if they weren’t around, it would have been a much more troubling situation at those points in time, you know. So okay, so exhibit A, right? The dad and the, and the girls are already conditioned to hide from the police because of technically him being unsafe with them. Let’s just be very generic about that. But that seems like a reasonable bullet point. Right. The second one is the very first time that they get to this house and they start playing. They’re messing around with this huge structural beam. And when the.

And as they’re playing with it, it’s like this house is gonna fall on them or this beam is gonna fall on one of them until May kind of like puts it back into its, you know, it’s. It’s situation. But as soon as I saw that too, it was like, man, this movie could have been over real quick. Like, these girls walked into the house, played for five minutes, died. Movie is over. Credits roll, right? So, okay, exhibit B. The dad’s just letting them run around this, you know, dilapidated house. It’s about to fall on them. Another one is that right after that, they.

They all take this, like, bath together. Which. Fine. That was a. It’s a different cultural thing that definitely would. You wouldn’t see. Let me chime in a little bit. May. Being in the bath with him is not weird. Satsuki. I. I feel like the cutoff age in Japan is typically about 7, so she’s a little bit on the line, and I’m not gonna comment on that beyond that. You wouldn’t see that in a Disney movie ever, I don’t think. But that as they’re in the bath, he’s telling them to never show fear or to always be brave in the face of fear.

And the girls immediately take that to the extreme because they get lost in the woods and they find Totoro, and the little girl is not afraid of this thing that I would argue looks more like a bear than anything else. It has dark claws. It’s giant. Right. I don’t know if it has, like, sharp teeth or anything, but your instinct should be to avoid this thing and not to, like, giggle and laugh and play on, jump on its chest. So again, that this could be easily construed into the dad just not telling his kids, hey, if you come across a giant animal with huge claws, don’t run towards it.

And, you know, because I want you guys to stay alive. And this is just common sense. Probably not inside Tama, but yeah, if you go on that walk here, people carry bear bells when you’re hiking because there’s bears. So you would teach your kids to stay away from bears and not maybe like, just hug them. Right? Right. I. I don’t know if Totoro has some kind of mystical ambience or something. You. If you want to get fantastical. You can mention that. But yes, from a, from a structural universe point of view, that is very bizarre to just embrace Totoro that way.

There’s also a scene in which the dad oversleeps and essentially the, the older of the two daughters, which is still just like six or seven years old, she ends up having to make, you know, food like, like the meal for the whole family. So again, just this one’s maybe not a damning exhibit, but you know, exhibit D. The dad is somewhat neglectful. He’s just, he’s sleeping in to the point where he doesn’t even realize what time it is. He doesn’t even concerned about feeding his children that are about to go back out into the wilderness. That’s the one that actually sticks out the most to me because I wake up pretty early.

I wake up at like 7 most days and I’m the late riser. People get up at 5, they start doing the laundry, start doing breakfast, all that sort of stuff. So that one sticks out to me because especially Japanese adults are like, we have to wake up early and get things done, you know. And I can see, you know, your kid like making you a meal or something, but we’re talking about a six year old. Like would you even actually want your six year old to be making the meals for the family? Well, she is nine, so I think that three years, okay, she’s nine, makes a little bit.

And her older, the older daughter is nine. Nine. Yeah, but, but yes, that one stuck out because your 9 year old daughter should not have be making breakfast by necessity, you know. And then also, I guess the, at the, the climax of the movie, if you could even call it that, is that when May goes missing and the nine year old goes looking for her and someone mentions there’s a sandal in the pond and now all of a sudden she’s worried that May drowned and she’s running around and. But like, does the dad even know about any of this going on? Does the dad know that his daughter might have drowned in this lake? And it almost just seems that so much is going on that’s on the responsibility of a four year old and a nine year old.

And the dad otherwise was just there to drive them very unsafely to this dilapidated house and then neglect them like the rest of the time. Nature kind of raises them. He doesn’t even come home on time, right? They’re like out waiting for him at the bus stop in the rain and he still isn’t coming home on time. I’m guessing he has a notable commute. I mean, I’m not trying to make excuses for the guy too much, but I’m trying to work out what this is. Don’t you defend him, that bastard of a dad. Because I’m thinking it’s probably at least a two hour commute in the 1950s from where he is to, say, universities in Tokyo now.

We got better trains, you know. Well, I guess the train doesn’t go out there. So that. That’s part of the issue. Why did they move over to train? Oh, because the mom’s there. Okay. Yeah, yeah. He’s failing at several things. So again, he’s lacking a support system. So if I were thrown to that situation, I’d probably be a crappy dad too. You know, he’s got a fair amount on his plate, but yeah, yeah, he needs more help than just nanny. There’s a another thing that I don’t know if it translates the exact same way with the English version.

When they move into this house, there’s all these, like, little dust mites and I guess these are these soot spirits or soot sprites that. The soot sprites, they will leave you alone if they determine that you’re good. So if you’re nice people, then they go away and they won’t mess with you. And we do see that after they end up cleaning part of the house, they take that like, like family bath together. And after that, the soot sprites, they go away. So I guess they’ve determined that this family are nice people. But I was wondering, like, what’s the or else? So let’s say the soot spirits are like, no, you guys aren’t nice.

What do they do? Are they just a nuisance or do they live in a dirty, crappy house? Now that’s how it is. It’ll just always be a dirty house. So does that also mean that if you go to someone’s house and there’s soot and there’s dust bunnies, that they’re just not nice people or you make them work for you? Isn’t that what the guy in Spirited Away does? Speaking of an element that does end up in like, those end up in several Miyazak movies. You know, the Totoro is completely contained here, but those things show up all over Ghibli films.

Also, what about the frog? There’s an emphasis on a frog that walks really weird at the bus station and never again. And I. I don’t know, is there something with Ghibli movies and frogs Did I miss some sort of symbolism? Was. Were they just like having a fun. Let’s just draw something for a few days of a frog walking. That’s kind of how I read it, watching the movie because I was like, someone really put some, you know, some attention that probably Miyazaki put some attention in that little bit of animation place setting. Just trying to show it’s rural.

We don’t have a year of the frog, I don’t think. I can’t remember what the Chinese zodiac does. Zero. The snake. Now, by the way, is that good or bad? I don’t know. It just is, I think. I think that’s for all the Year of the Just. It just is. Yeah. It’s not as fun as you’re the dragon or you’re the monkey though, is it? I would. I mean, I would assume that there’s like good and bad versions of it though, right? Yeah, I mean I, I got a good fortune off of tv. Oh, here’s a New Year’s thing in Japan, like right after the.

There is no ball drop. It’s just a countdown. But then they have this guy is just like flashing on your tv like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And it’s a different fortune each time. So you’re supposed to shoot one with your camera and that’s your fortune for the year. So it sounds efficient. I kind of like that. No, so it’s fun, like. Yeah. The only thing is I, I like the Japanese New Year. The. The nhk, the State tv, they’ll just, They’ll. After that big music show, they’ll stop. That ends at 11:45 and the 15 minutes before new Year.

In a extreme contrast to American New Year, which is all screaming and ball dropping. NHK just. It shows like shrines around Japan and the bells, people standing in line for the shrines. And then there’s a quiet countdown to zero. And I’m not flashing the camera. There’s no screaming, there’s no loud noises. It’s like on. On state tv. It’s like super. It’s like. It’s almost narcotic, you know? Well, not just that. I mean on. In the States, even the, the like the TV hosts get drunk and do inappropriate things. Yeah, look at that Jamie Candy Special again.

2012, 2013 FAIL. But yeah, what do we see before? Oh, the countdown this year was animated actually was Chibi Godzilla. There’s this like anime baby Godzilla and other monsters thing that’s kind of popular right now. And that was what we saw. So it’s just these like little cute monsters counting down to New Year with a, with a numeric countdown. And I’m, I’m kind of nostalgic myself about sloppy New Year’s, about like seeing people just like lose all inhibition and doing, you know, regrettable things on New Year’s. Right. You’re with your fan. See, that’s the thing. Like maybe you’re more likely with your friends for Christmas, like hanging out, partying.

And then New Year’s you are with your family. Japanese are with their family for New Year’s. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it’s the opposite here. Right, right. That said 2003-4, I think I was living in Athens, Georgia. My roommate. It’s the only time I throw in a big party, actually. But we threw a New Year’s party and we made scorecards for debauchery points. So every time you took a drink, you’d have to market or, or do drugs or do, or fall over or something. You’d. You’d get debauchery points. And we had a prize for the most debauched person at the party.

And the winner. The winner. Oh, the winner ended up making out with a guy’s girlfriend while the, the boyfriend was passed out on the couch having vomited. Was that the prize or was that just part of him being the one? Oh, no, that, that’s where. That’s. That was like the 50 points for Gryffindor moment. Yeah, we’re like, okay, that guy wins. I don’t care what the other points say. He gets 50 points for that adultery. Oh yeah, he got this in the bag. Oh, come on. These are, these are 20 something boyfriend girlfriends. It’s not. I know, but you know, makes it sound more serious sound.

Makes it sound biblical. Like he just violated one of the commandments. Right, right. But yeah, yeah. Anyway, that was. We had debauchery point. So yes, I, I do agree with you that that kind of New Year’s has its time in place. But I’ve, I’ve been doing the family New Year’s for a decade and a half now. My New Year’s are, are quiet shrine and bell tolling now. So that, that’s. So I guess on the New Year’s there everyone is nice people and all the soot sprites are like tucked away because it’s not the same as as over here.

But they, they also are showing these kids not just cleaning up the soot sprites, but like cleaning up trash under the house. And there was this one scene where they go under the front porch or something. And it had one of those Japanese soda bottles that has the marble in it. Are those actually popular or is that just, like, a novelty thing? They’re popular. Ramune. Ramune? That’s how you pronounce it? Yeah. They just seem wildly inefficient and, like, they would cost more money to add these marbles to the things. And I also wonder, have you ever heard of a Pythagorean cup or a.

Or a greedy cup? Do explain. It sounds like something that’s been mentioned before, but I don’t have a Pythagorean cup. No. Or also known as a greedy cup. It was this certain type of cup that has a hole or has two holes built into it so that if you drink too fast, it’ll actually end up leaking out all over you. So. And they were. It was made in order to, like, this, like, philosophical drinking cup, to, you know, drink your alcohol, but not to over indulge in it, because if you try to drink it too fast, you would lose it all.

Yeah. It’s explained as Pythagoras’s practical joke device here, right? Yeah, I guess that’s also what it was. So if someone was, like, really trying to drink that wine quick, it would spill out all over them. But if you just, like, slowly took. So. And I just wonder, is that how Ramun sodas are supposed to be? Because, like, that little marble, if you, like, drink it too fast, it, like, slips out of its spot and then it plugs up the soda so it doesn’t come out, which is the opposite of what we do in the States, where they keep making the mouth of the can bigger and bigger and bigger so that you can essentially just shotgun the entire can in one gulp if you’ve got the capacity to do it.

Okay. A quick search says it is to act as a seal, keeping the drink carbonated and fizzy by creating pressure against the bottle’s neck. Now, why that doesn’t go in for other carbonated drinks? I know maybe ramen, it just tastes like crap if it’s not properly carbonated. That just tastes like, sugary. Like you’re drinking glucose, maybe. I don’t know. I guess it’s always been fizzy because of the marble. I don’t drink a lot of ramen either, but it was kind of a summer drink. Like, the Japanese would see that as, like, you know, something you drink in August.

Why? I don’t know. Traditions, you know, there’s like, certain, like, traditional Japanese, like, sweet stores, which is different than a candy store. So. And that’s this kind of place that’ll sell you ramen a. I, I, you know, one of the ways I cut down my weight like 10 years ago is basically cutting soda out of my life completely. So I, I haven’t had a ramen in a while. I’ve had, oh, I’ll get ramen a Mentos. They have ramen a flavored Mentos. I’ll buy those sometimes. But isn’t ramen a part like the experience? Not a flavor? No, it’s a flavor too.

Yeah. So what would you describe the flavor as? Ramine. Let’s see, like diet cotton candy maybe. Gross. Yeah. Okay, maybe you don’t want ramen a then. I don’t think I do. Okay. In a Mentos. Okay, good. I was just saying was never my favorite soda when I was drinking sodas. By the way, that was probably Dr. Pepper. Oh, Dr. Pepper in Japan though, that’s, it’s, it’s kind of rare. But often when you find it, I don’t know why, but Dr. Pepper ads will usually be like really like horny. Like you’ll have like this, you know, large breasted anime girl in a swimsuit on your Dr.

Pepper bottle. For some reason, this sounds like classic Mountain Dew commercials in the States. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s just weird. Why? You know, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen any of those original ones, but all the original Mountain Dew commercials, it was usually about some bumpkin winning over the heart of like, you know, some well endowed, sort of like blonde hillbilly lady. No, I just remembered 90s do the deuce and then the TV’s screaming at you. The, all the original ones from like the 60s and 70s are all animated and it was, yeah, it was always like some random hillbilly bumpkin winning like a shooting competition.

And because of that he gets to like marry his cousin or something. Just yesterday I saw Mellow Yellow for the first time in Japan. And it was extremely confusingly marketed because it had the top. It was like the top half of the label actually was for Fanta. And then it was like at a diagonal angle and under that was Mellow Yellow. They were like, oh, it’s, it’s really Fantas. They’re trying to sell Mellow Yellow as Fanta and not as. That almost sounds like a World War II nod. Right. Because Fanta was made for the Germans so that the Americans could keep selling soda to the Germans.

So they just put a factory there. And then the Germans work with The Japanese in World War II. So, yeah, there’s a. There’s an interesting backstory there with the mellow yellow reference. Yeah, yeah. When you think about that. Yeah, I forgot about the Fanta thing. They love Fanta in Japan, though. Yeah, there was a. Well, of course they would. There was also a really interesting thing that stood out to me at least, especially work, like working in animation. There was this one part in the movie when the younger sister, May falls down the hole. I think it’s the very first time that she meets Totoro.

She falls down this hole and then when she hits the ground, she kind of like does this somersault and her eyes are, like going in different directions. Like, very kind of like Looney Tuney sort of effect. And then she shakes it off. She, like, shakes her head around and then she’s normal again. But through all of that, I almost felt like I was gonna get in trouble because I. Like, I was working on this and I forgot to add the sound effects because if you were to ever see that in a western animation studio, like, of course you’re gonna have some zany, weird, like, sound like cartoon sound effects library to represent the eyes going around and then like, you know, with like, shaking the head as she shakes it off.

But the. At least the English dub version, it was like completely silent. Like she just tumbles, the eyes spin around, she shakes it off, she stands up. And there aren’t any cartoony Hanna Barbera style sound effects throughout any of that. And it. For whatever reason. Yeah, no, it stood out a lot for that. Yeah, I mean, that’s. I mean, that’s a pretty weird moment for Ghibli because that’s not usually Ghibli stock and trade. I mean, it’s amusing, it’s done well, but it’s not, you know, they’re normal. Any. Any other point in this movie you don’t see someone’s eyes move around like that again.

So, yeah, I guess we’ll get into the. Oh, I just wanted to say one thing about the. The boy. What is his name? The one that keeps running away whenever he has to talk to the girls. Okay, Kanta. That’s it. Kanta. I don’t know what he’s. He’s just bashful. Is that his whole deal? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He can’t talk to girls. But, you know, he’s had that buzz cut. And from teaching, I just noticed that the kids with the. The buzz cuts are always like the most difficult boys. Someone finally explained to me last year they’re like, that’s because when they get a haircut, they can’t sit down for a haircut.

So the barber’s like, get out of here. You know, so. Oh. I was like, oh, that makes sense. Okay, got it. And on my second watching when I noticed that, I was just. I was just wondering in the back of my head, maybe it’s because he knows these girls are dead and they’re ghosts and he’s scared of ghosts and that’s why he’s avoiding them. That fits in with the. The weird death theories, of course. And, you know, it’s like, I find those theories fascinating. We’ll talk about more now. But I find them fascinating. But I like this movie so much.

I like the charm of it so much that, you know, it is. It’s just. I don’t want to believe that, you know, Ghibli has. They’ve been prominent enough that Ghibli is like, no, that’s not the case. But, hey, that doesn’t mean anything, does it? We’re getting there. We’re getting. We’re getting so close to that. I got. I think I got like, two or three other notes here before we get into the. The murder suicide sort of angle of all this, that there’s a note that the. The older daughter. What’s her name? I just can’t pronounce it.

Satsuki. Satsuki makes this comment. It’s almost like she. She’s breaking the fourth wall. Or maybe she’s, like, writing to her mom. There’s, like a narration, but she says that trees and people used to be good friends. And this made me wonder, like, what do you mean, used to be? Is this like a fern gully thing? Is this like an avatar? Like, are we. Is this the. The same Disney? Like, humans bad, nature good. We’ve destroyed some sort of balance because they’ve got a truck. Or like, what. What happened. What happened between the relationship between people and trees? I think at this point, and it’s not shown so much in the movie, but if you’re looking at, you know, Japanese history, if we are calling this the mid-50s or even a little after this is right.

The point where that area is starting to turn into the suburbs. So I don’t know if that’s something that I don’t think the average viewer in Japan would even track that, but that might be the thought behind, like, this area is now changing. But Totoro can just make a freaking tree grow within seconds. In a dream, it’s just a sprout in reality, maybe. I guess so. Yeah. This. This does seem like it implies that Totoro is imaginary, because otherwise that tree would have still been there. But I guess you could also just say that when Totoro leaves, then the tree, like, shrank back down into little seedlings and saplings again.

Okay. What if we were to say Totoro is real, but he lives in dreams like you said? They may usually sees him when she gets sleepy. Real dream characters. Again, if you don’t believe Totoro is literally real, then you’re just a depressed person and you just want to watch an oppressing movie because that’s all you can handle. Like, this was this. There was so much animosity over this particular issue of whether or not he was imaginary or real. I. It blew my mind that. That people were this. This very passionate about it. Right, right. Oh, just one thing.

On the sound design, they have the cicada or whatever, and that. That’s. That was, like, one of the most accurate sounding summer sounds I’ve heard in a film. I don’t know if you caught on to that. That’s where the nighttime sound. Okay. That’s exactly what it sounds like around here in summertime. You say cicadas. Cicadas, yeah. What did I say? Sorry. I gotten used to saying semi because it’s shorter and that’s the Japanese name. I actually. Oh. I put in my notes. I call them bugs, but because they’re so loud, I’m like, those books are. Yeah.

I’ve. Everywhere I’ve grown up, I’ve had cicadas. I’m pretty sure. Yeah. I feel like they’re louder around here. Maybe the certain strain around here is, like, oppressively loud because I certainly, you know, I feel like growing up in the Southeast. It’s like a, you know, mellow. Right. Where, honestly, there’s certain years. There are certain years when all the cicadas, like, they sync up together and they’re all out, as opposed to being kind of, like, evenly spread out. And, like, there’s, like, news reports to let you know that this is one of those, like, cicada years where your ears are going to hurt if you’re just out in nature.

Okay. So. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, I was like. I had not noticed the sound design as much until this most recent viewing of the film. So let’s go through your notes a bit more. Did you. I’m ready to talk about murder suicide. Okay, let’s talk about murder suicide. The location of this, I don’t know. I guess I’ll let you put the, the padding the table setting for this one. Okay. This is, this is all fresh and brand new to me. So fill in where, where I might leave out gaps, but this is a conspiracy theory for sure.

Studio Ghibli has actually came out and addressed this which is something I don’t think Disney, most, most Hollywood, anything in the States usually don’t come out and dispel conspiracy theories. They might hand wave them away but, but Ghibli has pretty much like unequivocally said no, none of this is true. Like stop talking about this, you’re ruining it for the kids. But that the theory is that my neighbor Totoro is based on a famous murder. I’ll call it a mystery, I’ll call it an unsolved mystery I guess called the Sayama incident. And this happened in May, May 1st, 1963 in Sayama City in Japan where this guy basically kidnapped and assaulted a 16 year old high school girl.

And the guy’s name was Katsuo Eshikawa. And he was apparently this sort of bumpkin sort of class. He was like the, a lower class he worked for. His family were all pig farmers or something. It reminded me a little bit of like the Lindbergh baby case where anyways that kid goes missing and they just blame it on like the lowest person on the totem pole and they take the brunt of this and he goes into the police station and he’s a bumpkin and he doesn’t know this is his official story, that he doesn’t know what really is happening but that they tell him they’re going to be investigating his family, they might arrest his brother, all these bad things might happen unless he confesses to this crime and takes a 10 year plea.

And he does that, but it ends up not being a 10 year plea. They end up putting him on death row. Because Japan I guess had or has a death penalty. Has a death penalty. But this also ends up becoming this huge court case about steamrolling like people that don’t even know the law system that are in these lower cast that they get steamrolled through the court system and forced to take these plea deals to wrap things up for the cops. But anyways, with that said, I think that he ends up not getting death penalty. He gets released in the recently I think but that this is a landmark case for like injustice.

But the premise is that my neighbor Totoro is about this particular murder and the reason why the four year old is called May, which is because of, like, the English phonetic, you know, sounding of the month of May, but that also the older daughter. What’s your name again? Satsuki is the Japanese name. Satsuk also means May. So you’ve got the two little girls end up, you know, being named May. This murder happens in the month of May. And the. I guess also it’s apparently takes place in the same city. And that the model of the house in the movie that we see is actually located in Sayamo.

And. And there’s even, like, a little spot when we. I think we. We see Nanny, and she’s got a crate of, like, vegetables or something. And on the crate it says Sayama Hills. So I guess there’s like, all these different connections in the movie that relate to the location in which this thing happened. Again, it happened in 1963. The movie came out in 88. So that means that there is at least a. A reasonable chance that it could have influenced the writers or could have influenced the people that worked on the movie, that they would have known that this happened in this area.

There’s a few other ones, too, that apparently the cat bus at the very end, when it’s taking them to their mom, or I guess when they’re taking them home, it says, like, the grave road, or like, road to the grave. And that’s when they get on the bus and they, like, drive away. So those are. So there’s a whole bunch of other. Other little details that I’ll throw in here, but that’s the. The overall conspiracy theory is that the movie Totoro is written about this girl that was kidnapped and brutalized and murdered and left for dead.

And there’s even, I guess, some sort of, like, folk rumors that she also had a sister that went catatonic and was describing. Seemed some sort of raccoon cat crew creature. So. Yeah, that’s. That’s a. It was an interesting one. I wasn’t expecting any of this. This was me looking up the police part. I was like, why were they hiding from the police? And it’s like, did you know that tutorial is based on an actual murder? Tell me more. Yeah, I mean, it’s such a sweet movie, right? That it’s like, oh, okay. That adds an element of danger to it.

I don’t know if you can see that. You can see this. That. That is Sayama now, by the way, it’s clearly not countryside anymore, right? Well. Well, what was it in the. In the 50s? I guess in the 50s it would have been a lot more countryside. So, because, like, you know, like, the, the family house I keep talking about is up here, you know, so that’s what, that’s, that looks extremely totoro. Like, there’s nothing there, you know, so that’s where I got kind of thrown off a little bit. But, yeah, I guess the, the big hut.

That is how Japanese justice systems work. The one that was a recent release, he was, it was kind of like the Reuben Carter hurricane situation, right? Where the guy. It was a boxer who was arrested in the mid-60s for a murder and basically was coerced into a confession. And he, I think he’s the guy who was, he was on death row. He was on death row for, like, 50 years. And in Japan, when you’re on death row, they don’t tell you. It’s like, get up. It’s like, get up. Today’s the day. They don’t give you any warning or anything.

It’s like. So he spent 50 years expecting to die any day. And yeah, he was nuts by. It took, apparently, it took like, two months to convince the guy that he had been released. And he’s like 90 now or late 80s or something. So it totally destroyed that guy’s mind. And, and that does have Japan being, like, at least like 90. Muttering under their breath. Is our justice system okay? I mean, it doesn’t sound too much different than justice systems in pretty much every other country, right? Yeah, Yeah, I guess just the, the, like, the, the poorer you are, the more guilty you probably are.

Yeah. And that’s kind of the situation that went on here. So, yeah, you gave a pretty thorough explanation of all of that. There was a couple claims in some of the people that were trying to back this up, and these ones seem like you can dispel or at least give credit to. One of them was that in Japanese folklore, seeing those little soot sprites is actually a bad sign, and then it means you might die. Have you ever heard that before? That as an adult, if you see a soot sprite, it means you’re gonna die? I think the soot sprites are a Miyazaki invention.

I mean, there’s, that’s not a Japanese folklore thing. That’s a Ghibli thing. I think that’s a Ghibli thing. So it’s, what, and this is the first time they show up? I think so. I don’t remember if, I mean, he only made two or three movies before this, so I, I, I, I would say let’s, let’s debunk that one. Maybe. Okay, okay. Another one was that in the ending scene. This one. This one’s definitely grasping. But that in the ending scene, May and Satsuki don’t have shadows and that only dead people don’t have shadows. Yeah. And the studio explanation there is just like we didn’t need it at that point or something.

I don’t know. That’s kind of a dumb explanation though, that. That one’s almost like one. I thought that was actually one of the more interesting parts. You know, kind of like the spinning top at the end of Inception or something. Another one. There’s two other ones. The one of them is that about again about the cat bus or the Nico bus, because I guess Nico is cat in Japanese. So that the Nico bus does go to Grave Road or. Or grave path. I don’t remember that. It does change to hospital. That’s what it says on the way to the hospital.

Grave path. Yeah, I guess I didn’t track. Well, that’s why, because the subtitles translated hospital for me. But no, no, no, this had nothing to do because the subtitles didn’t show what the, the text on the bus said. Oh, my minded minded is what I’m saying. Oh, really? Okay, well, well, as, as you’re watching, apparently like one of the actual Japanese phrases that the bus shows is supposed. Apparently says like path to the grave or grave road. I don’t, I don’t know how it would translate between those two. I’m just wondering if someone saw the hospital one and kind of like, you know, read it slightly wrong and because a hospital, the kanji, one of those might be like kind of severe, you know.

Well, and, and the last one, this one has total, just trust me, bro, vibes all over it. But that when the original, when the actual Sayama incident happened and the 16 year old girl was found dead, that her sister became suicidal and right before she offed herself, she was talking about seeing this large cat, like ghost and then she, you know, exits stage left quickly. So I couldn’t find anything other than other blog articles referencing other blog articles about all of this. I didn’t dig deep enough to find like any of the original police reports to even see if the sister said anything or if the sister actually offed herself.

I did find a website that documented all the different events and all the evidence and all the different people that the police questioned. And there were like five or six suicides related to this Sayama incident. Like, like two different people related to the accused ended up offing themselves. There was another person that was potentially going to be like, like under police suspicion off themselves. Like it just. It seemed weird. Like this one tragic event ended up in the. The deaths of like five or six different people. Well, I’ll. I guess I’ll respond to both those, but I’m using this Kotaku article written by Brian Ashcraft just to give credit where credit is due to the first point.

Says the story goes at once a girl said she saw a cat apparition before committing suicide. According to Japanese site Flow Management. This however, was an urban legend. Most likely it was attached to the Totoro is a God of death rumor. So that would sound more believable. So that was the urban legend that. Did the urban legend come out after Totoro came out? Or did that urban legend predate Tauro so that the girl really did. Or at least there was an urban legend that the girl said she saw a cat ghost after this murder happened? Or did that only happen after Totoro came out? Well, the, the I think after, but I just tried.

It looks like this link no longer works to Flow Management, whatever. And that was probably going to be in Japanese anyway. But the other one with the suicides. Again, this article is mentioning the May blues, which I never thought about, but kind of makes sense now that I think about it, which is just that business school and everything starts in April. So by May some people are getting suicidal. So that, that’s something. And, and I know like when I have new classes in April, I know I have to be like super disciplinarian for the first couple weeks in April if I want to have a year that doesn’t suck with that class.

Right. Then we have a week long holiday and when they come back, I kind of have to start over for a few weeks. So then by June we’re all chilling and the rest of the year is fine. But it’s kind of like do April, rinse, repeat, do May. So I can kind of see where there is something to May. And if you’re having a real bad time with your new job or school, you might get grind, you know, a month in and you just had a weak holiday, you’re gonna start getting a little more depressed, right? So you might be, you might personally be responsible for pushing some people over the edge if you don’t reel it back a little bit.

Well, mine’s mostly just sit down or something. Usually I mentioned ampamon earlier, right. Because everyone in Japan knows ampamon. So I’ll put okay, you get a warning. And then I often draw Baby ompamons. I draw this really ugly baby version of. Of Oppaman, which the kids think are funny, you know, but. Or what else have I. A few other. Just. Yeah, yeah, like a character they all know. And I’ll draw like this super ugly baby version of them. So, yeah, I rarely have to. To. To go there anyway. Usually. I mean, usually. Okay. Boy girl scene.

These are kids, you know, if you put them in boy girl seating, that’s the end of the world for them. You know, if. If the murder involved a four or a nine year old, I do think that this would have so much more legs to it. But yes, that’s where I mostly don’t follow it. I’m like, if they really wanted to do that, this movie would be about teenagers. But I’m gonna throw a little fire onto the Totoro is related with death thing. Are you aware that this was released as a double feature along with what? Grave of the Fireflies, which is not just the most depressing animated movie you’ll ever see, but just one of the most depressing movies you’ll ever see.

It’s a great movie, but it will not make you feel good. It’s about two kids, like, just like trawling through the ruins of World War II Tokyo and everything’s horrible. That’s the. That’s the short synopsis. I think I did see this one, and just the shortest story ever. But it was like. I think everyone had participated in some sort of psychedelics or something. And it was like, don’t watch Grave of the Fire. Cool. Ghibli. Someone was like, hey, you’ve seen, you know, Princess Mononoke, right? Well, this is by that same guy. We should check this out.

And it was a bad decision. Well, that one’s not a Miyazaki, by the way. That is. It is Ghibli, but Miyazaki did not direct that one. Who directed that? It’s. It’s in the notes here. Release. Okay. Oh, Isao Takahata. Yeah. Who also, he’s kind of number two Ghibli guy, right? But yeah, it’s just a harrowing movie. Now, on the Wiki, the dual billing was considered one of the most moving and remarkable double bills ever offered to a cinema audience, which could be considered a backhanded compliment, I guess. Now, now, if you were to just like throw a quarter at a group of kids that had all seen Totoro, how many of them do you think would have also seen Grave of Fireflies if you threw that quarter in the late 80s, maybe a few.

Now, nobody. You don’t. You wouldn’t show a kid Grave of the Fireflies now. Okay, is it like a Water Ship down kind of situation? More so. But yeah. I mean, watching those two in a theater, that would just give you like psychic whiplash, I think, you know. Oh, when you say double featured, do you also. Do you mean, like, if you went and saw in the theater, you would see both of those movies? Yes, the back to back, it was a. They were both. Which one did they end on? Did they end on Fireflies or Totoro? I’m not sure, but I think if you watch Totoro and then you watch Grave of the Fireflies, having watched both of those back to back, you would start putting death God theories on torture.

I bet that’s how this started, you know, because they put the movie so close to such a harrowing movie. It’s like, well, something’s up with Totoro. Right? And I think it was basically just market. It’s like, okay, we got both movies finished. They’re not that long. We need to get some product outlets. Why did they do that? Okay, that. That’s fascinating. So fine. Because of the financer. I don’t know. Anyway, it’s. It’s a totally bizarre double feature. I would never watch those movies back to back. Back. But it. It doesn’t seem completely out of left field to have all of these Totoro is like a God of death theories or that this correlates to the Sayama incident when these specific places from Sayama apparently do show up in the movie.

But yeah, the. The ones is that the 16 year old, the age difference, and also that folk rumor of the girl seeing cat ghosts. If both of those things were somehow massaged into fitting better, this would be absolutely uncanny. But I still. I still like the synchro mystic sort of interpretation that even if it weren’t. If the movie weren’t based on it. Right. That there is still a synchronicity here that’s worth talking about. Oh, and for people screaming at their phones or devices, the grave of the fireflies is Kobe, not Tokyo. Okay. It’s been a while since I watched it and I have to watch it in a few months for another podcast, so I’m, you know, saving it for that.

Not gonna take psychedelics for that one. Not that I get them in Japan anyway, but yeah, so fascinating theory. A few too many holes in this. The location thing tracks with the age thing just is a deal breaker for me. And the fact that sounds like, people have just, like, concocted, you know, pots of crap to. To explain some of it, but fascinating to think about. But there is. That is the thing. Is Totoro scary? Is he friendly? I. I don’t think either that. You know, I think Totoro is capable of whatever nature is capable of.

And I think Totoro can kill you if so inclined. Could kill you on accident. Yeah. Yeah. Or on purpose if you’re. You know, if we’re going Mononoke style, even. Even the cat bus seems like it could lead you to certain death. Right? You bus. You don’t know where that cat bus is gonna drop you off. True. Like, I almost, Like, I do think that the big black goo monster in Mononoke is the same thing as Totoro. Basically, just the situation is very different, you know, But I think Toto is capable of being, you know, like, damaging black goo as well.

But in this movie, we’re just meeting the nice side of nature. Well, Totoro definitely has some real, like, talon claws, so there’s. It’s got potential to be very dangerous. Right. So that. That is why. Another reason I think that that theory gets thrown on because as you watch, you’re like, this is all well and cute and nice and good, and the little Totoros are cute, but main Totoro, was he Oki? Totoro, I think, is the main one. Oki, being big Totoro, he has an element of danger. I mean, that smile, like you said, it’s a Cheshire cat grin.

Well, the cat has the Cheshire cat grin, but so does Totoro. That smile, you can’t quite tell what’s going on in there. It’s just dead behind those eyes, man. I mean, that’s right. It’s weird. The smile has more than the eyes. The smile is like, I’m gonna eat you and be happy about it, or, we’re having a good time right after I steal your umbrella and leave you in the middle of nowhere. He does steal an umbrella in a rainstorm. Yes. But. Yeah, I guess we’ll start winding this one down. Unless you have some more notes or.

Or want to dig that one deeper. But, no, I mean, this one, again, it’s. It’s hard to try and break it down and fit every single aspect of the story into some linear logic. You really do. I just have to watch it and get into the. The sort of feel for it. And that feel is basically child neglect. Right, Right. It is a Vibes film, and that might be the vibes you’re getting. Yes. Okay. But let’s see. I guess next time we were gonna do Perfect Blue, a movie that’s definitely disturbing if you want to put God of Death theories on that one.

There is no conspiracy about that, so I’m excited. I’ve heard a lot about it. But this one. But I have not seen it yet. Okay, well, I guess if you’re. If you’re listening, we’re talking to you in January. And if it’s on YouTube, probably a little later, but you can p. Pitch how you want to pitch it that way. What are we calling this month again? Anime Annuary. Anime Annuary. Okay, what is the pitch? Well, 2025, I’ve got a whole bunch of different projects I just posted on YouTube and on Patreon, but you can watch it on YouTube even without a membership.

I think about 20 projects that are coming in 2025. It’s got all the thing. It took me about a half hour to break down all the different things that are coming out, but the highlights are more paranoid American playsets, more conspiracy cards, and more comics. Big, big shocker there, but just more of all the things that you like to see from me. I’m doubling down on everything. And be sure to look out for Illuminati comic this year, too. It’ll actually start shipping in February or March, I’m hoping. And you’re gonna hear a lot more about that one because we got like 10,000 of those things made, so Papa’s gonna be pushing those.

I got the email yesterday. It was a very long list. And it was gonna be like the 33 projects of 2025. But at a certain point, I was like, I don’t know how many of these I need to release all at once. Yeah, you gotta pace yourself a little bit, right? Unless you’re podcasting or at the link below. Pocastio podcastius.org I do a lot of podcasting. We’ll be talking about Graves of the Fireflies sometime before too long on Films and Filth. Talk about the Twilight Zone and Time Enough Podcast. And we’re talking about Planet of the apes movies and TV series on podcast 1999.

I also put out an album just last week of electronic music. Short form this time, but it still has binaural sound, which is a psychic utopia. You can find that@rovingsagemedia.bandcamp.com it can be free if you want it. So, you know, blow your mind a bit with that. Okay, I am going to go start looking for Totoro. Actually, that’s what? That’s. You know, in Japan, when we go driving through the mountains before I realized that this was actually Saitama, I’d always, like, keep your eyes out for Totoro, you know, And I. I guess my daughter found him at least once or twice when she was young.

She’s still alive. Just don’t fall in a lake. Paranoid yo I scribbled my life away Driven the right to page Will it enlight your brain Give you the flight my plane paper the highs ablaze somewhat of an amazing thing when it’s real to real you will engage it your favorite of course the lord of an arrangement I gave you the proper results to hit the pavement if they get emotional, hate maybe your language a game how they playing it well without Lakers evade them whatever the cause they are to shapeshift snakes get decapitated met is the apex execution of flame you out nuclear bomb distributed at war rather gruesome for eyes to see Met max amount that I like my trees blow it off in the face you’re despising me for what though calculated and rather cutthroat paranoid American must be all the blood smoke for real Lord give me your day your way vacate they wait around to hate Whatever they say man it’s not in the least bit we get heavy rotate when a beat hits so thank us you’re welcome for real, you’re welcome they never had a deal you’re welcome man they lacking appeal you’re welcome yet they doing it still you’re welcome.
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