Talk:My Neighbor Totoro

Girls dead, movie references Sayama Incident
While it is true that Ghibli has denied the reading of the film that sees both girls dead by the end of the film, there are so many factors supporting that reading (Western trolls being particularly unpleasant; numerous parallels with the ill-fated girls of Sayama Incident which occurred in May (Jap: Satsuki) near the movie's setting; Mei seeing the spirits first, Satsuki next, Kanta never; Mei lost and resting under jizou statues, patrons of deceased children; the pair hiding from the rain at another shrine for dead children; the psychopompy catbus posting "Cemetary Way" as a default destination; the ghostly nature of the girls' ultimate visit to their mother's sanatorium; Miyazaki having allegedly originally glossed the movie as showing the girls' spirits finding peace; the original double-billing with Grave of the Fireflies; etc.) that the controversy should certainly be mentioned and the Sayama Incident linked from the page.

Similarly worth mentioning if it's true that Miyazaki's own mother was treated for tuberculosis and survived (producing a much happier read on the essentially ambiguous treatment of the girls' mom). — LlywelynII  22:15, 23 August 2012 (UTC)

Urban Legend
The reason it is a legend does not give support to just deleting every trace of the thing. Stop doing that, that IS vandalism. People are intelligent enough to see it's a legend and draw their conclusions. For reasons of completeness, this should definitely be in the page. Sunstarfire (talk) 09:02, 9 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It is not vandalism. Please familiarise yourself with Wikipedia guidelines.  A bizarre interpretation sourced to a single blog is not worthy of inclusion. Mezigue (talk) 11:26, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I don't see that "urban legend" has any part here. However other interpretations of Totoro are far from Snopes territory - particularly implications that the children may be dead. Whether this is definite or not doesn't really matter: the point is that there is a lot of cultural significance to small aspects within the film that pass Western viewers by. It is surely encyclopedic content to explain these types of reference. Whether the film comes to a conclusion or not doesn't matter (just think of the Bladerunner controversies, which WP handles pretty well), as it's quite possible that the film is deliberately ambiguous in its conclusions.
 * I don't see Sayama as relevant though. It has two girls, but it's also based on violence rather than illness. This isn't a simple case like the Shibuya incident and the film Shinjuku Incident. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:34, 9 January 2013 (UTC)


 * The urban legend does need to be included. This is widely associated with Totoro in Japan. And there are a number of sources. The fact it is not true does not mean that people don't associate these urban legends with totoro. Also, the various urban legends are discussed on the Japanese page. There are three sources for this. I agree with Sunstarfire (talk) Deathlibrarian (talk) 23:13, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * If you have any issues with this going back in, now that it has 3 references, please discuss here. Otherwise I will leave it a little bit to give people a chance to discuss, and re add. Thanks everyone. Deathlibrarian (talk) 23:56, 6 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Anyone have any issues? Bueller? :-) Deathlibrarian (talk) 03:34, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
 * As there are no objections to the issue, I have modified it and added the section in. Please feel free to discuss if there are any objections or issues Deathlibrarian (talk) 09:24, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree that this shouldn't be in the article. Wikipedia is based on reliable sources and should simply present factual information about the film. There is no place for fan theories or trolling. For example, the Japanese wikipedia article at no point claims that Totoro represents death. Drsmoo (talk) 19:21, 1 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Just because wikipedia is based on factual information doesn't mean it cannot have information about theories. In fact there are whole wikipedia pages dedicated to certain ideas or theories that have not been proven but that doesn't mean they cannot be represented in an unbiased way.  The urban legend about Totoro is widely associated with the movie and is worth noting when discussing possible meanings behind the film  Rachelleliu (talk) 02:30, 13 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I looked at the removed content, and it's difficult to verify the notability with all the offline Japanese sources. Are there any better sources out there? If it's just a relatively obscure fan theory, it's probably better left out. --Fru1tbat (talk) 19:12, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

Two Different KittenBus Paragraphs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_films_by_Studio_Ghibli#Mei_and_the_Kittenbus Can we find a way to combine or make them the same? They can both still exist, but all information should be uniform between them. xnamkcor (talk) 19:14, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

List of songs
These are listed with the Romanised version, the kanji, and an English gloss; fair enough, but then the whole thing is enclosed in quotes, as in this example:


 * "Gogatsu no Mura (五月の村, "The Village in May")"

This results in at least an ugly ")" ending, which would be neater without the outermost quotes. I cannot see any reason for them, but before I remove them, I would just like to check there is not some obscure Wikirule which compels them. Imaginatorium (talk) 05:20, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Wrong running time?
Most other sources cite a 86 minutes running time as is my DVD version of the movie. Is the infobox wrong? 10:57, 18 August 2018 (UTC)~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.150.110.169 (talk)

Netflix Sub/Dub
It may be worth adding to this article that the version of this movie on Netflix is a new sub/dub apparently. I would do it myself, but I'm terrible at Wikipedia editing. 99.252.158.137 (talk) 00:43, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Year set is unverifiable
This article has had "1958" given as the year the story is set for the past 13 years, this is based on an edit which sources a calendar — not in the movie — but in a real-life replica of the Kusakabe house in Moricoro Park, Japan.


 * https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=My_Neighbor_Totoro&oldid=206234115

There is contrary evidence given in an old entry on this talk page where a calendar in the movie shows an April set on a Monday, within the 50s this can only be 1957. I'm more inclined to believe this, but truth is, it's original research, and actually there's no way to verify what year it was set. JAYFAX (talk) 10:07, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Red links
Beauty School Dropout While there are times where redlinking is appropriate, this movie has come out decades ago, and it is unlikely that the red links you added back will become an article, because it is likely unnotable. See WP:REDYES for more info TheGEICOgecko (talk) 01:22, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

"Literal" translation
I removed this: (literally|Neighbour of Totoro) from the lead, because it is simply wrong. It is not clear that any more "literal" translation helps the reader in any way. We have an editor producing the clumsy "Next door's Totoro", but at least getting the grammar the right way around, and another getting the grammar completely wrong, with "Neighbour of Totoro". The relevant grammatical point is the Japanese is (everywhere) head-final, and particles like no (の) allow a noun on the left to qualify the noun on the right. So tonari ("next door") qualifies Totoro. It does not necessarily indicate possession, and cannot necessarily be translated with "of"; in this case it simply means "The Totoro who lives next door". The only part of the English title not directly mapping to anything in the Japanese is "My", and in some contexts the same expression could indeed refer to "Your neighbour Totoro", or "Mr Smith's neighbour Totoro". I suggest that no "literal" translation is needed. Imaginatorium (talk) 05:31, 25 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks
Thanks to for the c/e and adding the cn tags, which I've addressed.  VickKiang  (talk)  22:32, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

"One Rainy Night"/"One Rainy Evening" phrase
, thanks for your detailed review,, I thank you for correcting the incorrect tense here, which used to be present continuous but I accidentally changed it into past simple, inconsistent with the rest of the plot section.

However,, you've restored the line "One rainy evening". This is indeed long-standing text but I've removed as in the article's GAN review it was said that The "Plot" section could use some work to make sure it is written from a more neutral, out-of-universe point-of-view as per MOS:PLOT. In my opinion references to, for example, "one rainy night" and "one day", venture more into creative writing than an encyclopaedic plot summary by Sims2aholic8. TheBlinkster, I'd be interested if you have an opinion about the phrase (as in whether it builds upon additional context). Thanks.  VickKiang  (talk)  00:47, 26 March 2023 (UTC)

Alice in Wonderland
It has some striking similarities with Alice in Wonderland; I'm not sure if/where to include it, but some sources that may help:, , , ,

Gabriel Yuji (talk) 03:08, 14 August 2023 (UTC)


 * This information is certainly interesting, and I think a sentence mentioning it could be fit somewhere in the Reception section, though I'm not sure exactly where. Links 4 and 5 seem like WP:SELFPUB, by the way, so I might not include them. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 06:54, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

About "cult following"
Hey Poirot09, I don't think the phrase "cult following" should be used in the lead at the moment, as the phrase is never used later in the article. I also could not find a source that uses this specific phrase, which is why I let DBeyer2003's edit stand. Let me know what you think! —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 12:58, 17 September 2023 (UTC)


 * After re-reading the article, I think the phrase should be outright removed. There is no substantial information regarding the fandom, only about Totoro's impact as a character, which is already covered in the lead. Poirot09 (talk) 13:22, 17 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that makes sense. Lacking any significant discussion in the body, there's no reason for it to remain in the lead. I'll go ahead and remove it. —TechnoSquirrel69 (sigh) 15:18, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Dead link
I've noticed that one of the sources in the legacy section (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/film/news/e3i3338808b4eeae51f3a3a1b041eee3d7c/) has been tagged as dead since last year, is there a way we could deal with this? Blue Jay (talk) 10:35, 20 September 2023 (UTC)