Analysis of My Neighbor Totoro from the Dark Side

Looking for a fun family film parents will enjoy as much as their kids? My Neighbor Totoro is the inspirational horror story of two young girls who move into an isolated, shithole house infested with soot demons, while their sick mother slowly dies. All their fears are soon left among the living when they knock on death’s door and awaken the morbidly obese grim reaper, Totoro!

I for one have adored Miyazaki's animated film My Neighbor Totoro ever since I was a child. Those who have seen it know that the above description is a twisted version designed to be a satirical advertisement. However, anyone familiar with the internet cannot simply ignore long-standing rumors about this animated work of art. Therefore, I shall analyze the film from the perspective of its darker interpretations. 

Many fans, particularly Mami—known for a variety of blog posts pertaining to Japanese anime—believe My Neighbor Totoro is an allegory for a murder case known as the Sayama Incident and that Totoro is the god (or some representation) of death. In her blog post “My Conspiracy Theory Nut Neighbor, Totoro,” Mami explains that the Sayama Incident occurred on May 1, 1963 in Sayama City, while My Neighbor Totoro takes place not long before in the 1950s and not far away in a town based on Tokorozawa-city; the house in the movie is modelled after a house located in Sayama Kyuryo (“Sayama Hills”). Another strange coincidence lies in the names of the protagonists: Satsuki means “May,” and Mei is pronounced like the English word “May” (Mami). In the Sayama Incident, a sixteen-year-old girl was raped and killed by a man who may or may not have gotten away, as the arrested suspect might have been wrongfully convicted. Not long after the girl died, her older sister committed suicide. Fans of Miyazaki suggest that Mei’s disappearance in the film is meant to mirror the Sayama murder, and that Satsuki takes her own life when she sets out to find her. Since Totoro sends Satsuki on a mystical bus to her “dead” sister, he is presumed to be a god of death.

Figure 1: Satsuki (left) and Mei (right) wait by an Ojizou-sama statue.

Figure 2: Satsuki and Mei (left) wait at bus stop next to Totoro (right).

Symbols and background details throughout the film suggest the protagonists of My Neighbor Totoro die at the end, and that Totoro serves as the god of death who guides them into the underworld. From the very beginning, Mei and Satsuki are able to see soot sprites in their house, sprites which in Japanese folklore only appear to those about to die (Mami). While watching My Neighbor Totoro, I notice other motifs evocative of the “other side.” Take for instance the parallel scenes depicted in Figures 1 and 2, in which the protagonists are waiting in the rain beside an Ojizou-sama shrine in one, beside Totoro in the other. Described by Pablo Kjosleth, a critic for the Turner Classic Movie website, Ojizou-sama is a Buddhist patron deity of children; to honor the memory of deceased children, statues of Ojizou-sama are often perched alongside roads in Japan. Rain itself is a symbol of cleansing and rebirth; in order for rebirth to occur, death must precede it. Thus, Totoro stands in as an Ojizou-sama—not exactly a god of death, but one associated with the death of children nonetheless. In relation to the Totoro-God-of-Death theory, the statues seem to adumbrate the passing of the protagonists. Each time an Ojizou-sama appears, it appears with either symbols of death or motifs associated with Totoro—rain and nightfall. 

Figure 3: Lost while searching for the hospital, Mei sits beside Ojizou-sama statues.

Ojizou-sama statues appear later in the film well (see Figure 3), when Mei is utterly lost after wandering off to find the hospital in which her mother is being treated. Symbolism aside, the sight alone of the ominous cloaked statues resembles a funeral procession for the distraught and abject child. Furthermore, the statues stand on the darker side of the frame, facing away from the remnants of sunset and towards the falling night. Coincident or not, the appearances of Totoro himself are predominately at night or dusk, fitting for a lethargic spirit who spends most of his time napping (which suggests he is nocturnal). Even when Mei first meets the spirit during the day, she ends up falling asleep on his belly; sleep is but death’s counterfeit. 

Above all, the irony of the situation surrounding Figure 3 is unavoidable—Mei seeks to heal her dying mother, to prevent death, only to go knocking on the door of presumably her own tomb. When Mei goes missing, Satsuki literally seeks out Totoro underground through a tunnel lined with soot sprites which, as mentioned earlier, foreshadow death. As she rides on the Neko bus to find her little sister, one of the destinations listed on the bus reads “Grave Road” (Mami).

Once Mei and Satsuki finally arrive at the hospital where their mother resides, they watch from outside her window, under the cover of darkness. One wonders why they never reveal themselves; perhaps they are physically incapable of doing so. After they leave an ear of corn by the window, their mother comments to their father, “I thought I saw Satsuki and Mei smiling at us from up in that tree” (Miyazaki, My Neighbor Totoro). Without context, this situation is quite eerie, suggesting that the daughters are practically ghosts, especially since only their mother, who is bordering death, catches a glimpse of them. Their presence is questioned yet impossible under the current reality, so their parents discuss them as though they are absent, almost as though they are dead.
(See next post: Loss of Innocence in My Neighbor Totoro)