If you travel to Japan, it’s impossible to return without a souvenir from My Neighbor Totoro , because it’s everywhere, almost like an emblem of the country. There are figurines, posters, lunchboxes… you name it, featuring the now-iconic characters from Studio Ghibli . In fact, after my last trip, I even bought a poster to put in my living room. And, despite looking at it every day, I’d never noticed that the little girl next to Totoro isn’t Chika or Noriko. And there’s an explanation for that.
Totoro, Totoro
Originally, Hayao Miyazaki wanted to make the film with only the little girl, Mei, based on his niece. In fact, he initially only had four characters: Totoro, Mei, Tatsuo (the father), and Kanta (the village boy). Indeed, in the first watercolor sketches, Miyazaki only drew one girl, though he eventually conceded : he needed two child characters to tell the story.
Even so, the image of that girl with Totoro survived, even appearing on the poster itself, which is now the one used internationally . And if you look closely, that girl has features of both Mei and Satsuki, suggesting that the director split her into two sisters but somehow maintained the same designs.
That wasn’t the only change Miyazaki made to the story: initially, he was convinced it would only last an hour, but he had to give so many explanations in the film as he added more characters that it stretched to an hour and a half. Thank goodness:
the more Totoro we have in our lives, the happier we’ll be . And no, the poster in my living room isn’t going anywhere.
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