# [Anime] My Neighbor Totoro



## nyck (Jun 16, 2006)

I've been on an anime trip lately, so I acquired this cute little movie.

I have to say, the story was pretty linear and 'childish' I guess the word would be. I think the best way to describe it would be cute. 

It's basically about this family consisting of a dad, a little girl age 6-8, her sister age 10-12, and their hospitalized mother. They move into a house in the country and find a neighbor named Totoro. From what the movie tells, Totoro is a big spirit bear looking thing that takes care of the local land. There isn't much else to the story, but it's a cute movie overall.

I'd recommend it, especially if you aren't in a good mood, as it'll prolly put a few smiles on your face.



Next up: Photon and Wolf's Rain


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## distressed_romeo (Jun 16, 2006)

Nah! If I wanted a smile put on my face I'd watch Urutsukidoji!


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## Metal Ken (Jun 16, 2006)

is that the one with the cat thats a bus or the organic catbus or what have you?


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## nyck (Jun 16, 2006)

Metal Ken said:


> is that the one with the cat thats a bus or the organic catbus or what have you?


 yup


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## Desecrated (Jun 16, 2006)

wonderfull movie

I like the early gihbli movies.


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## Loomer (Jun 16, 2006)

I really need to get my hands on this. After having seen "Spirited Away" and "Howl's Moving Castle", I have made it a mission in my life to watch everything Studio Ghibli has put out. I am completely mesmerised by "Spirited Away", and even more lost in "Howl's Moving Castle", even if I've only seen it once.


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## Toshiro (Jun 16, 2006)

Nausicaa is still my favorite Miyazaki film.


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## Loomer (Jun 16, 2006)

Toshiro said:


> Nausicaa is still my favorite Miyazaki film.



Please do elaborate


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 16, 2006)

I still have to watch all this stuff...I don't think I've 'acquired' totoro just yet...


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## nyck (Jun 16, 2006)

Loomer said:


> I really need to get my hands on this. After having seen "Spirited Away" and "Howl's Moving Castle", I have made it a mission in my life to watch everything Studio Ghibli has put out. I am completely mesmerised by "Spirited Away", and even more lost in "Howl's Moving Castle", even if I've only seen it once.


Adicting aren't they?


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## Toshiro (Jun 16, 2006)

Loomer said:


> Please do elaborate



Just go watch it.


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## Loomer (Jun 16, 2006)

nyck said:


> Adicting aren't they?



Highly addictive, yes. 

The visuals are just so incredibly beautiful and original, I get totally spellbound by them.



Toshiro said:


> Just go watch it.



Sounds like a good idea.


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 16, 2006)

I put Nausicaa in my "need to acquire" list 

I still haven't watched Whisper of the Heart or Howl's Moving Castle but I've got both...I need to get Totoro.


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## Loomer (Jun 16, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> I put Nausicaa in my "need to acquire" list
> 
> I still haven't watched Whisper of the Heart or Howl's Moving Castle but I've got both...I need to get Totoro.



"Howl's..." is simply mesmerising, really. Watch it, NOW!


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 16, 2006)

I've only had it for like 4 months, I think I'll wait longer...

I've had advent children since august and haven't watched it.


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## nyck (Jun 16, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> I've only had it for like 4 months, I think I'll wait longer...
> 
> I've had advent children since august and haven't watched it.


Advent Children was damn good.


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 19, 2006)

I finally watched this today, WOW, the girls' voices were superb, the crying was ridiculously awesome \m/ I'm very impressed indeed, the father's voice was good but it sounded older than how he looked, that was the only thing which bothered me.

As for the movie itself, it kept me entertained and I really liked how it worked out and pretty much ran like some kid would recollect events/explore things.

That being said, Totoro is the freaking cutest most metal spirit of the forest, EVER \m/ oh yeah, he owns the SotF from Princess Mononoke into the ground for awesomeness, and he can play the ocarina! how awesome is that.

The Nekobasu creeps my sister out, btw.

Totoro =* \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/*


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## Naren (Jun 19, 2006)

Toshiro said:


> Nausicaa is still my favorite Miyazaki film.



Yeah, Nausicaa is probably my favorite Miyazaki film, followed by Princess Mononoke and Laputa.


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 19, 2006)

Oh My God, I must have this:


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## Naren (Jun 19, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> Oh My God, I must have this:



An X?


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 19, 2006)

lol, what's up with your internet? haha *hosts it on photobucket since Naren can't see geocities japan for some reason*


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## Naren (Jun 19, 2006)

Ha ha ha. That's a funny pic.


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 19, 2006)

You know you want one, although I'd want mine to say "WHEEE" instead of mei on it.


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## nyck (Jun 19, 2006)

HAHA That's so awesome.


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## Naren (Jun 19, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> You know you want one, although I'd want mine to say "WHEEE" instead of mei chan on it.



Or the Nintendo Wiiii.

Take another look, dude. It doesn't say "meichan." It just says "Mei", whoever the hell that is. Mei the huge cat that sucks the life out of you? I'd want one that says something like "DeathCat" or "Demon Cat From Hell."


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 19, 2006)

Naren said:


> Or the Nintendo Wiiii.
> 
> Take another look, dude. It doesn't say "meichan." It just says "Mei", whoever the hell that is. Mei the huge cat that sucks the life out of you? I'd want one that says something like "DeathCat" or "Demon Cat From Hell."


Ooops, lol.

Mei's the little girl in Totoro btw...*pokes Naren* o___O you alive? XDDD


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## Naren (Jun 19, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> Ooops, lol.
> 
> Mei's the little girl in Totoro btw...*pokes Naren* o___O you alive? XDDD



I saw Totoro once like 4 years ago. There's no way I could remember any of the characters names other than Totoro.

That's weird. Why would the CAT say "Mei" if Mei is the name of a little girl...?


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 19, 2006)

It's from the movie, in it Mei wanders off and gets lost, Satsuki goes to Totoro and asks him to help, he calls up the cat bus and it changes the destination sign to "mei."

I guess I can't say anything about remembering peoples' names from animes, I can't remember any of the peoples' names from the stuff I've watched this past year.


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## Naren (Jun 19, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> It's from the movie, in it Mei wanders off and gets lost, Satsuki goes to Totoro and asks him to help, he calls up the cat bus and it changes the destination sign to "mei."
> 
> I guess I can't say anything about remembering peoples' names from animes, I can't remember any of the peoples' names from the stuff I've watched this past year.



If it's an animation I really really like (such as DBZ, Ranma, Hokuto no Ken, Akira, etc.), I generally remember all the names. If it's a movie I only saw once, I probably don't remember the names. I mean, I've seen hundreds and hundreds of Japanimation movies and TV series by now. I can't possibly remember all the names.


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## Metal Ken (Jun 19, 2006)

Naren said:


> Ranma,


/Hijack

Ranma, For the Win
/Hijack


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 19, 2006)

Metal Ken said:


> /Hijack
> 
> Ranma, For the Win
> /Hijack


Dude, Ranma owns, I have the OVA*, all 7 seasons and the movies...now I just need the Manga...


*OVA = OAV ...whatever you want to call it, it's the same thing Original Animated Video or Original Video Animation


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## Metal Ken (Jun 20, 2006)

I just never got how Rumiko Takashi could go from doing badass series like Mermaid Flesh, Ranma & Maison Ikkoku to Inuyasha - something that stoops to the level of DragonBall or yuyu hakusho. Did she TRY to write it for 12 year olds?


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## Naren (Jun 20, 2006)

Metal Ken said:


> /Hijack
> 
> Ranma, For the Win
> /Hijack



Definitely. You forget to mention the glories of Hokuto no ken (I'm almost at the end of the series by now. I have a huge stack of the comics in my apartment now).



Metal Ken said:


> I just never got how Rumiko Takashi could go from doing badass series like Mermaid Flesh, Ranma & Maison Ikkoku to Inuyasha - something that stoops to the level of DragonBall or yuyu hakusho. Did she TRY to write it for 12 year olds?



Have you ever even seen Dragonball? Dragonball is my alltime favorite animation and comic series. I've read all 42 volumes of the comics, seen all 291 episodes of the TV series, and about 50 of the other TV series. The English version sucks (the dubbing is horrible, all the violence, blood, nudity, swearing has been cut out).

The Japanese Dragonball series was actually aimed primarily at high school students and college students, which was the main fanbase. Nowadays, being a fan of Ranma is considered really nerdy, but being a fan of Dragonball is just normal and cool. Being a fan of Hokuto no ken is also cool.

I hate how so many people bash on Dragonball because of the idiots who turned it into a kiddie animation. The original animation is one of the most hardcore cool animations out there.

That said, Inuyasha is an "okay" animation/comic. Not one of her better ones, but not that bad. Compared to Dragonball, it sucks, though. Dragonball pawns all other animations.


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## Metal Ken (Jun 20, 2006)

I have in other threads mentioned how awesome Hokuto No Ken is. I remember watching the newer animated movies... and thinking "Holy crap, he fucked that dude's shit UP!" I loved that. I want to get the manga and read it (Always liked Manga better than anime).


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## Naren (Jun 20, 2006)

Metal Ken said:


> I have in other threads mentioned how awesome Hokuto No Ken is. I remember watching the newer animated movies... and thinking "Holy crap, he fucked that dude's shit UP!" I loved that. I want to get the manga and read it (Always liked Manga better than anime).



That manga is 1000x better than the animation. It's also much much much gorier.


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 20, 2006)

@Naren: Dragonball actually had a story, Dragonball Z and GT are what most people bash, which they basically have no story. Basically once you get to Freeza it's just ridiculous and beyond there it's just "WHOA HUGE POWER LEVEL!!!!" and they're like 100 times more powerful than freeza could think of being and then go around searching the universe for dragonballs and finally beat evil shenron...I mean...uhhh...that's a great story...lol.


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## bulb (Jun 20, 2006)

i dont really like the pace of the dbz show, but the manga was a great and addictive read fo sho!
though in that "genre" i would say that both naruto and bleach are a lot better! (manga wise especially)


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 20, 2006)

My only problem with Manga is that I read it fast as crap (obviously translated stuff) and I get through like a whole book in like less than 20 minutes...that kinda pisses me off, lol. I never "Imagine the scenes" but I laugh quite a bit.



bulb said:


> i dont really like the pace of the dbz show, but the manga was a great and addictive read fo sho!
> though in that "genre" i would say that both naruto and bleach are a lot better! (manga wise especially)


Even the animations for Naruto and Bleach are pretty awesome. Naruto got into mad filler episodes but it was still enjoyable...I just lost interest. Bleach was sick too, not much filler imo but when they went back to the human world I just completely stopped watching or paying attention.

I think I got up to Naruto episode 170 or so and up to Bleach 67, I think I have up to like 72 but I haven't watched them.


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## Metal Ken (Jun 20, 2006)

Naren said:


> Have you ever even seen Dragonball? Dragonball is my alltime favorite animation and comic series. I've read all 42 volumes of the comics, seen all 291 episodes of the TV series, and about 50 of the other TV series. The English version sucks (the dubbing is horrible, all the violence, blood, nudity, swearing has been cut out).
> 
> The Japanese Dragonball series was actually aimed primarily at high school students and college students, which was the main fanbase. Nowadays, being a fan of Ranma is considered really nerdy, but being a fan of Dragonball is just normal and cool. Being a fan of Hokuto no ken is also cool.
> 
> ...




I watched about 3 seasons of the Americanized DBZ. Its the most repititve thing ever.. "Oh no, we cant defeat this guy, we're getting our asses kicked.. we must go train! Now we've trained-- and we owned him! Oh no! here comes someone else more powerful then us!" /wash rinse repeat. 

My relationship with DBZ was a love hate one. At first, i saw it in a Viz catalog and thought it looked lame. Then i read some DB and DBZ manga. then i thought it wasn't too bad. then i remember seeing coming to cartoon network (circa 1997) and thinking "this should be cool" then watching it and thinking "This Blows"... so i kinda cant make up my mind on it. 

Also, as an aside, i could care less if ranma is/was nerdy - I have never cared about that kind of thing. it was the first anime/manga thing i read so i think its great. I've never read the manga for inu yasha, but i've watched about 10 or so episodes at friend's place and thinking "now this is just bad."


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## nyck (Jun 20, 2006)

The original Dragonball was awesome. I watched all 100 or so episodes...


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## Naren (Jun 20, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> @Naren: Dragonball actually had a story, Dragonball Z and GT are what most people bash, which they basically have no story. Basically once you get to Freeza it's just ridiculous and beyond there it's just "WHOA HUGE POWER LEVEL!!!!" and they're like 100 times more powerful than freeza could think of being and then go around searching the universe for dragonballs and finally beat evil shenron...I mean...uhhh...that's a great story...lol.



Power levels was something stupid made up for the American version. Power levels do not appear once in the actual Japanese version. 

Also, I think Naruto is the slowest moving animation ever. If you think DBZ is slow moving, you should watch Naruto. I've seen the first 100 episodes of Naruto and what happens in those 100 episodes? Pretty much nothing. 

And what are you talking about? Evil Shenron? I don't remember any evil Shenron. There were a few really stupid TV specials that had idiotic plots to them, but the storyline for the main story was pretty damn good until about the Buu saga, which just went on for too long and, although I watched the entire thing, I had started to lose interest by then.

I will agree that Dragonball GT is really stupid. That was an animation that had nothing to do with Toriyama and was only made, based off of the popularity of the previous series.

Anyway, although I think a lot of people would really like DBZ if they saw it the original way and not the watered-down idiotic Cartoon Network version, but, of course, there is personal taste. I will say that it is one of the top 5 most popular animations in Japan's history (primarily among high schoolers and young adults) and I doubt it would get to that status in Japan if it were as insipid and stupid as the US one. One thing I would change, though, is make the animation move at a speed closer to the comics (which actually move pretty fast). Saying that the series has "no story" means that you've never actually watched much of the series.


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 20, 2006)

Nah, I've watched the whole DBZ series and it really doesn't have a story, really. It has a base-plot but there's no real story to be told.


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## Naren (Jun 20, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> Nah, I've watched the whole DBZ series and it really doesn't have a story, really. It has a base-plot but there's no real story to be told.



It has a story. It just has a fuck of a lot of fighting, which makes it have not as much of a plot as - say - a "shojo" animation. I mean, you get into the Buu saga and you get like 5 episodes just fighting some dude. It's the same thing with Naruto, only Naruto is worse in that regard (dragging things out without really anything happening).

Even though I'm not a fan of the Buu saga, one of my favorite DBZ fights is the fight between Gokuu and Majin Bejiita (which happens during that point). That was a pretty cool fight. I also really like the whole "Cell" part of the series. When Gokuu fights Piccolo at the Budoukai was pretty cool, too.

I prefer the comic series to the animation, though (although I do like them both).


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 20, 2006)

The manga's probably a thousand times better.

I'd have to say, the spirit bomb part in the frieza saga is the most drawn-out thing ever, seriously, it's like 3 episodes to power up the spirit bomb.

And the Ginyuu squad had the eye things which had "power level" meters, what were those used for in the Japanese version if not for "power levels?"


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## Naren (Jun 20, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> The manga's probably a thousand times better.
> 
> I'd have to say, the spirit bomb part in the frieza saga is the most drawn-out thing ever, seriously, it's like 3 episodes to power up the spirit bomb.
> 
> And the Ginyuu squad had the eye things which had "power level" meters, what were those used for in the Japanese version if not for "power levels?"



The comic is a lot better. It gets immediately to the point with no screwing around. The drawing quality is obviously much better (which is the same for any comic compared to the animation). And some of the jokes come across better in the comic.

No, they weren't. There were no power levels in the comic series (I own every single volume of the comic in Japanese) or in the animation (I own every single episode of the animation in Japanese with stupid Chinese subtitles. Yeah, it's one of those pirated ones. I wasn't about to pay 100,000 yen for the full DBZ series). I think it's weird how in the US version, they exageratted and created this numerical system for power. In Japanese, you just see that they're getting more powerful. There are a few times where there is a number like 500 or 700 given, but the only way to read that was with "scanners."

The Saiyajin do have those scanners that can read someone's power, but they can only go up to like 10,000 before they break. In fact, the only times I remember any numerical mention of power in the whole series was after Gokuu came back from the afterworld to fight Bejiita and his scanner broke.

I didn't care for the Freezer part of the animation that much (It was okay). The Cell/Androids part was pretty awesome. 

One thing that the US really screwed up about the series is that the whole thing is a comedy. They gave Gokuu like a surfer "cool guy" voice when, in Japanese, he is voiced by a girl and he sounds very unintelligent (he's pure-hearted). I was watching this show in college with my girlfriend of the time and they started showing clips from American dubs of famous Japanese animations and making fun of them. They showed DBZ and my girlfriend was like "That's not Gokuu... right? He doesn't sound anything like Gokuu. Is that a joke?" She couldn't believe that the show had been done that way.


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 20, 2006)

HAHAHAHA, lol...a female voice actress, that's just too much.

In the movies for the US they used a guy who had this scrawny voice which was completely different than the TV series' one, so it probably sounds more like the Japanese one.

Well, the power levels didn't go all the way through the series, that was just a fan thing that was going on, it went the same way as what you said, I just was like "they didn't mention it at all?"


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## Naren (Jun 20, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> HAHAHAHA, lol...a female voice actress, that's just too much.
> 
> In the movies for the US they used a guy who had this scrawny voice which was completely different than the TV series' one, so it probably sounds more like the Japanese one.
> 
> Well, the power levels didn't go all the way through the series, that was just a fan thing that was going on, it went the same way as what you said, I just was like "they didn't mention it at all?"



Have you seen Onepiece in Japanese? Roofy is voiced by a female voice actress in that one too. In fact, it's actually very very common in Japanese animation to voice male characters like that with females.

In the Japanese one, Gokuu, Gohan, and Goten are all voiced by the same voice actress and she does a damn good job. She doesn't sound "scrawny." Gokuu sounds badass in the Japanese one when he gets pissed off. I guess he sounds pretty harmless when he's being scolded by Chichi and he's just laughing and saying stupid stuff. But he doesn't sound like some So Cal surfer dude like that crappy US TV show shit. The voice actor for Bejiita has one of the coolest voices in the history of Japanimation. I can't even think of a cooler voice than his. And the way he talks is so hardcore that I used to talk to regular people I knew like Bejiita when I was in college. I was inspired by Dragon Ball Z to write "How To Sound Like An Idiot In Japanese: Volume 2: Animation Japanese" which I had on my website for a year or so (I took that website offline over a year ago).


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 20, 2006)

I'll have to try to D/L one of the japanese ones just to check out what they sound like, lol.

I haven't seen One Piece in japanese, only the US one with the REALLY annoying guy doing the stretchy-kid main character...I've seen like 5 eps of that show because it pisses me off it's so retarded.


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## Naren (Jun 20, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> I'll have to try to D/L one of the japanese ones just to check out what they sound like, lol.
> 
> I haven't seen One Piece in japanese, only the US one with the REALLY annoying guy doing the stretchy-kid main character...I've seen like 5 eps of that show because it pisses me off it's so retarded.



Onepiece is pretty hilarious in Japanese. I've seen the first 60 episodes. Pretty cool show. Never seen it in English.

I swear. I saw 5 minutes of Ranma in English and I wanted to kill myself. It was the worst animation I had ever seen. If I had seen Ranma in English first (actually I read the comic series before I ever saw the animation), I would have never seen any more or read anymore. I would have been sure in my mind that it was the worst show ever made. I'm glad that never happened to me.

From what I've personally seen and what I've heard from other people, I've deducted that dubs suck ass and that Japanimation dubs in English are the worst dubs on the planet.

I recommend downloading "The Tree Of Might" movie or whatever its called in English (I don't remember) in Japanese. That one is pretty awesome. Or Brolly (the first Brolly movie. The sequels are kind of stupid. Like Bio-Brolly. That movie was idiotic.). Or you could just watch the Cell Saga in Japanese. That part of the series is just badass. I can't even stand watching 1 minute of DBZ in English. It just pissed the hell out of me. "Hokuto No Ken" (The First of The North Star) is one of the greatest animations in history. A Japanese I work with told me that it is like "the bible" for most Japanese males. I read a review of the American dub that is available in the US that said it was one of the worst movies the guy had ever seen. I read later that the US version of the movie had over 40 minutes cut out of it and had been cheesily translated to a Hong Kong Kung Foo movie and horribly dubbed. I almost cried. The "Hokuto no Ken" movie (from 1986 if I remember correctly) is seriously the coolest thing ever.


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## D-EJ915 (Jun 20, 2006)

Most dubs are absolutely horrid and that's why you don't see 'hardcore otaku' as they call themselves *rolls eyes* the stuff on TV and only buy imported stuff.

lol, actually I kinda thought the ranma dub was decent, haha. The one dub which is too prolific to ever change is the Transformers, those voices are just ingrained in everyone's memory XD. <3

Anyway, thanks for the tips on the DBZ, I'll check it out. I actually have the world's strongest on LD.


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## Vegetta (Jun 25, 2006)

Toshiro said:


> Nausicaa is still my favorite Miyazaki film.


+1 

Tho I liked Mononoke a lot Nausicaa kicks ass


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## Pauly (Jun 29, 2006)

Dragonball = Yay
Dragonball Z = Yay up to/including Cell
Dragonball GT = Nay
Gihbli films = Yay
Naruto = Yay
Bleach = Yay
Cowboy Beebop = Yay

At college we've been watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex and 2nd Gig... mostly yay material, and this new one I can't remember the name of, it has andriods and stuff and is pretty cool.


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## God Hand Apostle (Jul 2, 2006)

BERSERK


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## D-EJ915 (Jul 2, 2006)

^ just for the record, there is a general anime thread here: http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/showthread.php?t=10981


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