“My Neighbor Totoro” is a sweet movie about two sisters growing up in the country. They live next to a beautiful, peaceful forest ruled by the forest spirit, Totoro.

The forest spirit helps watch over and protect the girls from harm while their mother is in the hospital with Tuberculosis and their father works to support them. The girls live in such an innocent, magical world and learn how to plant trees and make them grow from the forest spirits.

They live in an old, enchanted house, enjoy playing in the fresh air, and enjoy eating fresh vegetables from the garden. 

This film has excellent art work, great lessons about caring for loved ones and looking out for one another, and some adorable characters. It also has some of my favorite characters from another one of Miyazaki’s films, the wandering soot or the soot gremlins as they are called in the English dubbed version of the film.

I was not sure as to what these little things were until I watched this movie because their existence was not really explained in “Spirited Away”. However, I have always liked them once made little, sparkling toys based on the characters. I used to decorate my apartment with them a long time ago. Now, I know that Japanese lore says that they are little spirits that live in old houses and leave soot or dust everywhere. They are harmless and will move out if a nice family moves into the house. They are cute little things that could be mistaken for small animals.