Studio Ghibli + Conspiracy Theories
I'd just gotten into watching Studio Ghibli's feature films after reading that the studio decided to disband their animation department. The two movies that I'd watched were Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro, two very good films from two different eras but dealing with the mystical magical spiritual world.
I started with Spirited Away, and I can see why the movie is on every serious movie buff's bucket list. It is a beautiful tale of a girl moving away from a familiar place into an unknown future and how she finds the courage within herself to deal with the challenges that are thrown at her. Chihiro is not your typical heroine, she isn't very brave and she can get petulant when things do not go her way. But she is also a polite child who is loyal and compassionate. When she loses her name/identity and becomes Sen, she is reminded of her true self via a farewell card that was kept safe along with her clothes by a saviour from her past. Through him, she finds the solution to her problem but in turn saves him from having lost himself as well as her parents who seem not to pay much attention to her worries and concerns.
Although the internet is rife with theories about the movie, I choose to look at Spirited Away as a movie about growth and the transition period from child to adult that every person has to deal with. We all have to grow up and discard our childish was, but it helps if there is someone to remind us to never forget ourselves and that we are stronger and braver than we think. Spirited Away embodied those values for me and though sad at times, the movie left me feeling good as, in my mind, Chihiro came away from that experience a better person, ready to tackle the unknown.
After Spirited Away, I continued with My Neighbour Totoro, a movie about two sisters, Satsuki and Mei, moving into the countryside with their father while waiting for their mother to come back from the hospital. My Neighbour Totoro presents a child's wonder in their new surroundings. Whereas Chihiro of Spirited Away was upset about moving from her old home, Satsuki and Mei were very excited to move into a dusty, creaky and possibly haunted old house. They saw everything as an adventure to be explored and the surrounding trees and paddy fields as wonderful things to be around. It helped that their father and the granny next door were very understanding about the girls curiosity and did not discourage the girls when they said that they saw little black puffs and furry acorn loving creatures around the house, instead offered up explanations to what the girls had seen.
My Neighbour Totoro is both famous and notorious for the many theories surrounding the plot of the movie. Many people believe that the movie has a connection with the Sayama Incident and cite the reasons being; 1)both the girls are named May and the Sayama Incident took place in May, 2)the elder sister who committed suicide after her beloved sister was murdered was stated to have been hallucinating about a big cat/ raccoon, 3)My Neighbour Totoro was said to take place in Sayama Hills, 4)the girls did not cast shadows in the final scene, and 4)allegedly one of the destinations CatBus goes to is Grave Hill.
Personally, I disagree with the theory that the movie is connected to the Sayama Incident. Miyazaki himself had stated that the movie wasn't about the Incident and further more, the setting for the village was supposed to be an amalgamation of Akita Prefecture and the Kanto Region. It is helpful to remember that My Neighbour Totoro was created in 1988 and animation techniques were not very advanced, so it can be expected that the colour palates may change from scene to scene and the animated characters look detached from the background. As for both the sisters being given names that are similar to May, it is true that the traditional Japanese name for the month of May is Satsuki, but the name can also carry the meaning of happiness/hope/blossom. As for Mei, the name can mean bright/reliant. I suppose it was a coincident that both names became a word-play on the name May.
Some theories ran that Mei had drowned in the river and Satsuki died in order to find her, and that Totoro was actually a god of death and whoever saw him was close to death, which was also why the girls' mother was able to see them when their father could not. Throughout the whole movie, there was no mention why their mother was in the hospital. The audience is only told that she had to remain in the hospital for a while longer as she had developed a cold. I've read that some people assumed she had tuberculosis and the reason why the whole family moved to the countryside was so that she could pass away in a quiet place. However, tuberculosis is contagious and the girls are shown hugging and touching her without a mask to protect them, furthermore, the mother is shown to be in a ward full of other patients with the windows and doors wide open. Another person theorised that she had actually given birth to the girls' baby sibling as Mei is shown to be holding hands and playing with a toddler in the ending credits after their mother is shown to have returned home. I much prefer the latter theory as it makes more sense and could also explain why both parents were so calm about her being in the hospital.
All in all, I found My Neighbour Totoro to be a sweet film on the wonders of childhood and the love between sisters/siblings. The girls were allowed to explore their surroundings and the adults in no way discouraged the girls' active imagination. Whether or not Totoro was really a forest troll or merely a figment of the girls' imagination, it matters not as the movie is truly up to the interpretation of whomever watches it. It should be noted that My Neighbour Totoro was part of a double feature together with Grave of the Fireflies, and was meant to be a light-hearted watch after the sombre tones of Grave of the Fireflies.
I started with Spirited Away, and I can see why the movie is on every serious movie buff's bucket list. It is a beautiful tale of a girl moving away from a familiar place into an unknown future and how she finds the courage within herself to deal with the challenges that are thrown at her. Chihiro is not your typical heroine, she isn't very brave and she can get petulant when things do not go her way. But she is also a polite child who is loyal and compassionate. When she loses her name/identity and becomes Sen, she is reminded of her true self via a farewell card that was kept safe along with her clothes by a saviour from her past. Through him, she finds the solution to her problem but in turn saves him from having lost himself as well as her parents who seem not to pay much attention to her worries and concerns.
Although the internet is rife with theories about the movie, I choose to look at Spirited Away as a movie about growth and the transition period from child to adult that every person has to deal with. We all have to grow up and discard our childish was, but it helps if there is someone to remind us to never forget ourselves and that we are stronger and braver than we think. Spirited Away embodied those values for me and though sad at times, the movie left me feeling good as, in my mind, Chihiro came away from that experience a better person, ready to tackle the unknown.
After Spirited Away, I continued with My Neighbour Totoro, a movie about two sisters, Satsuki and Mei, moving into the countryside with their father while waiting for their mother to come back from the hospital. My Neighbour Totoro presents a child's wonder in their new surroundings. Whereas Chihiro of Spirited Away was upset about moving from her old home, Satsuki and Mei were very excited to move into a dusty, creaky and possibly haunted old house. They saw everything as an adventure to be explored and the surrounding trees and paddy fields as wonderful things to be around. It helped that their father and the granny next door were very understanding about the girls curiosity and did not discourage the girls when they said that they saw little black puffs and furry acorn loving creatures around the house, instead offered up explanations to what the girls had seen.
My Neighbour Totoro is both famous and notorious for the many theories surrounding the plot of the movie. Many people believe that the movie has a connection with the Sayama Incident and cite the reasons being; 1)both the girls are named May and the Sayama Incident took place in May, 2)the elder sister who committed suicide after her beloved sister was murdered was stated to have been hallucinating about a big cat/ raccoon, 3)My Neighbour Totoro was said to take place in Sayama Hills, 4)the girls did not cast shadows in the final scene, and 4)allegedly one of the destinations CatBus goes to is Grave Hill.
Personally, I disagree with the theory that the movie is connected to the Sayama Incident. Miyazaki himself had stated that the movie wasn't about the Incident and further more, the setting for the village was supposed to be an amalgamation of Akita Prefecture and the Kanto Region. It is helpful to remember that My Neighbour Totoro was created in 1988 and animation techniques were not very advanced, so it can be expected that the colour palates may change from scene to scene and the animated characters look detached from the background. As for both the sisters being given names that are similar to May, it is true that the traditional Japanese name for the month of May is Satsuki, but the name can also carry the meaning of happiness/hope/blossom. As for Mei, the name can mean bright/reliant. I suppose it was a coincident that both names became a word-play on the name May.
Some theories ran that Mei had drowned in the river and Satsuki died in order to find her, and that Totoro was actually a god of death and whoever saw him was close to death, which was also why the girls' mother was able to see them when their father could not. Throughout the whole movie, there was no mention why their mother was in the hospital. The audience is only told that she had to remain in the hospital for a while longer as she had developed a cold. I've read that some people assumed she had tuberculosis and the reason why the whole family moved to the countryside was so that she could pass away in a quiet place. However, tuberculosis is contagious and the girls are shown hugging and touching her without a mask to protect them, furthermore, the mother is shown to be in a ward full of other patients with the windows and doors wide open. Another person theorised that she had actually given birth to the girls' baby sibling as Mei is shown to be holding hands and playing with a toddler in the ending credits after their mother is shown to have returned home. I much prefer the latter theory as it makes more sense and could also explain why both parents were so calm about her being in the hospital.
All in all, I found My Neighbour Totoro to be a sweet film on the wonders of childhood and the love between sisters/siblings. The girls were allowed to explore their surroundings and the adults in no way discouraged the girls' active imagination. Whether or not Totoro was really a forest troll or merely a figment of the girls' imagination, it matters not as the movie is truly up to the interpretation of whomever watches it. It should be noted that My Neighbour Totoro was part of a double feature together with Grave of the Fireflies, and was meant to be a light-hearted watch after the sombre tones of Grave of the Fireflies.