Why Watch Totoro?

This month, the Anti-Racist Film Club screened the classic children’s film, My Neighbor Totoro (1988) from the legendary Japanese director, Hayao Miyazaki. While not our first exposure to the works of Studio Ghibli, I was told our audience appreciated the cozy adventure into softer themes than we normally discuss in this club. There were no racist stereotypes, lynchings, horrifying statistics, or harrowing struggles of immigration. Instead, immersed in the beautiful Japanese countryside, we were quietly treated to the magical innocence of children. 

The movie of course is not without conflict. We follow two young sisters, Satsuki and Mei who move with their father out into a rural area to be closer to their hospitalized mother. During the climax of the film, Mei runs off by herself and throws the entire town into a desperate search before she’s hurt or lost forever. This slice-of-life story is not devoid of stakes but, at any given moment, the characters are less in danger than the films we typically highlight through the Anti-Racist Film Club. Not to mention that it was difficult to point to a single case of obvious “racism” throughout the entire runtime. In some ways this made our discussion more difficult—how do we have an anti-racist conversation about a film where race is not a major theme? We’re certainly exposing our audience to more filmmakers of color, but is diversity the only reason we screened the film in the first place? 

Well… yes and no. 

Yes, we chose to screen this movie as a path to discussion of “foreign” films and how American audiences interact with the rest of the world’s film industries. Did you know that Japanese production companies produced roughly $4 billion worth of films in 2025? Or that India not only hosts the famous “Bollywood” studios, but also “Tollywood” and “Kollywood” for Telugu and Tamil language productions respectively? Two different Studio Ghibli films have won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature and at least two more have been honored with a nomination. Our discussion included reflections on the narrative differences between “dubs” and “subs” and how translation can change the textual meaning of a film when it’s brought to a culture outside its initial audience. An important degree of media-literacy is the ability to consume content for which you were not considered the “target audience” and there is immense value in practicing this skill. 

However, while highlighting voices of color is a primary goal of our club, we’re also dedicated to exploring the ways in which race is intrinsically tied to the context in which these films are made. My Neighbor Totoro may feature only Japanese characters, but it’s set in a rural area during the mid-1950’s—only a couple years after American troops were removed from occupying the country after WWII. Diseases like Tuberculosis and other epidemics still ravaged the population after decades of poverty and rapid urbanization. While her disease is not specified, Satsuki and Mei’s mother is a likely victim of one of these 20th century health crises. The two girls instinctively hide from what they assume is a uniformed police officer in the opening minutes of the film. And, while the countryside here is depicted as lush and full of life, every adult in the film would remember the end of the war and the two devastating atomic bombs dropped on their land less than ten years ago. 

I think it’s important to remember that this film takes place during a time of overwhelming transition. Not only are our main characters adjusting to their new home, the land itself is undergoing a process of transformation as urbanization creeps in from the city. The girls’ house has no power… but their father takes the bus home from work. In terms of government, Japan was restructuring itself out of a military empire under the occupation of Western forces and new social patterns would continue to emerge as the political climate was reestablished. Totoro himself, a forest spirit, is tied to the traditional practice of Shintoism (an indigenous religion in the region). Yet, in the early 20th century, the Japanese government sought further control from its people by regulating the temples and tying traditional Shinto beliefs to the ideology of nationalism in support of the Japanese Empire. The shrines Satsuki and Mei visit would be the ones that survived the government’s destruction. 

The plot of My Neighbor Totoro has very little to do with the themes our club normally discusses. But all movies exist within the context in which they were made. Hayao Miyazaki was influenced by his own childhood—shaped by the reconstruction of his country post-WWII. And the very fact that we’re a predominantly American audience peaking into a culture that’s not our own is a practice of cultural competency. And it is our job, as intentional viewers, to approach “foreign” films with curiosity and a willingness to discover nuance.