This was not the first of Miyazaki’s films I saw, but it is the cutest, and the most family and friendly and very very Japanese. I watched this with my girlfriend and her best friend, and am not sure how much they liked it, they enjoyed it and laughed, but balked at the strangeness a bit I think. Still I think this is one of the greatest children’s films of all time. It shows the amazement and the ability of youth to see the magic of the world, and just makes me smile, and how many films can you say that about today?

Actually listened to the English Dub this time, which is pretty good with Dakota Fannin and her younger sister Elle playing the 2 sisters, but what disturbed me was the English dubs of the songs, which didn’t seem the same, but at the same time must make them more accessible for you American kids.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…/p>

2 Young sisters Satsuki (Hidaki Noriko, and Dakota Fanning) and Mei (Sakamoto Chika) move with their father to an old run down and seemingly haunted house in the country in the early 20th Century. The girls can see soot spirits, and get very excited about the house. Their mother is sick and in the hospital, so Satsuki goes to school while Mei plays around the house, while their father reads and writes. Mei goes through some brush and meets some tree spirits including the giant Totoro. She is doubted, but then when it is raining and Satsuki wants to take their father’s umbrella to the bus stop she sees Totoro as well, and he takes them on some magical journeys and gives them acorns to plant. Eventually they get a call that their mother can’t come home, and Satsuki gets mad at Mei who ends up running away from home to give her mother some fresh corn to make her better. The whole village searches, but Totoro helps Satsuki catch the cat bus and find Mei and take the Corn to their mother though unseen,

What a beautiful and incredible Kids film. Such a good movie, and really captures the wonder of being a child, if a little off for Americans not used to tree spirits and the like.