History YMMV / MyNeighborTotoro

* RonTheDeathEater: In the film, Totoro is shown to be a harmless, if boisterous creature who is very friendly and helpful to Satsuki and Mei. However, there are plenty of fan theories and fan art that depict Totoro as a "death god" or as a monstrous creature that actively harms and eats people. Humorously enough, as a SecretTestOfCharacter, Hayao Miyazaki himself would [[https://www.crunchyroll.com/anime-news/2019/06/12/hayao-miyazaki-recounts-the-terrifying-true-nature-of-totoro play with the idea]] during a job interview with a group of job applicants by once describing Totoro as a "terrible creature" who was only nice to Mei and Satsuki due to being unhungry at the time.[[note]]As one job applicant (future Anime director Creator/KenjiItoso) states, Totoro's teeth are flat molars meant for grinding grass, making him a herbivore who couldn't eat Satsuki and Mei. According to him, he was the only one to pass that SecretTestOfCharacter (with the lesson being to think for yourself).[[/note]]

** The film is very popular in the United States thanks to Fox distributing the VHS tape in the United States and Roger Ebert giving it a glowing review. The film is so huge there that it's been referenced in everything from ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' to ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3''.

* {{Fanon}}: A common idea present in TimeSkip fanworks is the idea that Satsuki will eventually outgrow Totoro in her later years and dismiss her encounters with him as little more than a childhood fantasy, while Mei will still fully believe in Totoro's existence even as an adult. This, unsurprisingly, tends to cause friction between the two sisters in the fanworks that explore this idea.

* SignatureScene: The scene where Satsuki, Mei, and Totoro are waiting at the bus stop.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: ''My Neighbor Totoro'' was a very bold film back in 1988, to the point that distributors and Tokuma Shoten were initially unconfident in the film's success, as a grounded SliceOfLife animated film set in modern Japan with little conflict was an unusual and risky idea in the then-action obsessed Japanese film industry at the time. Nowadays, while the film is still regarded as a classic, it's easy to look at the film and its simplistic plot and characters as being quaint and lacking compared to Ghibli's later films and the plethora of SliceOfLife animated films that have come out since ''Totoro''.

* {{Moe}}: Both Mei and Satsuki.
* WMG/PoisonOakEpilepticTrees: The notorious "Death God Totoro" fan theory that Mei actually drowned in the pool and Satsuki lied about the sandal not being hers out of denial, meaning that Mei (and according to extreme versions, Satsuki and their mother as well) are ghosts in the final scenes and end credits. This reading was helped along by the film being shown after ''Anime/GraveOfTheFireflies'' and got enough traction that Ghibli specifically denied it, stating that the girls' lack of visible shadows in the final shot (which had been used to justify it) was an artistic choice and not meant to be meaningful. This is also refuted by ''Anime/MeiAndTheKittenbus'', which is explicitly an epilogue and takes place after the events of the main film itself. Of course, with it only being shown at the Ghibli Museum in Japan, it's not widely known.

* MemeticMutation: The [[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zNnfj4Cag5s/Tuvx18XYgYI/AAAAAAAAB2A/adHNZ6is-dM/s1600/AtTheBusStop.jpg visual]] of Satsuki with Mei on her back waiting at the bus stop with Totoro is one of the most popular and oft-parodied scenes in all of animated film.

* CommonKnowledge: Many viewers tend to assume the pre-Disney English dub was done by Fox, to the point that it is often referred to as "the Fox dub" by fans. However, the dub was actually done by Creator/StreamlinePictures. Fox only distributed its home video release in North America (the 1993 theatrical release was handled by Creator/{{Troma}} through their 50th St. Films division).

** The film is very popular in the United States thanks to FOX distributing the VHS tape in the United States and Roger Ebert giving it a glowing review. The film is so huge there that it's been referenced in everything from ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' to ''WesternAnimation/ToyStory3''.

* HilariousInHindsight: The original release of the film was by Creator/{{Troma}}'s 50th St. Films imprint, who would contract out the film's home video release to [[Creator/20thCenturyFox Fox Video]] before Disney picked up the film and redubbed it, [[ScrewedByTheLawyers though they had to wait for Troma and Fox's rights to expire]]. Interestingly, Disney would purchase pretty much all of 20th Century Fox many years later. After Disney already lost the distribution rights to the film (outside of Japan and China).

* CommonKnowledge: Many viewers tend to assume the pre-Disney English dub was done by Fox, to the point that it is often referred to as "the Fox dub" by fans. However, the dub was actually done by Creator/StreamlinePictures. Fox only distributed its home video release in North America (the 1993 theatrical release was handled by Creator/{{Troma}} through their 50th Street Films division).

* HilariousInHindsight: The original release of the film was from Creator/FoxSearchlightPictures before Disney picked up the film and redubbed it, [[ScrewedByTheLawyers though they had to wait for Fox Searchlight's rights to expire]]. Interestingly, Disney would purchase pretty much all of Creator/TwentiethCenturyFox, including Fox Searchlight Pictures, many years later. After Disney already lost the distribution rights to the film (outside of Japan and China).

* WMG/PoisonOakEpilepticTrees: The notorious "Death God Totoro" fan theory that Mei actually drowned in the pool and Satsuki lied about the sandal not being hers out of denial, meaning that Mei (and according to extreme versions, Satsuki and their mother as well) are ghosts in the final scenes and end credits. This reading was helped along by the film being shown after ''Anime/GraveOfTheFireflies'' and got enough traction that Ghibli specifically denied it, stating that the girls' lack of visible shadows in the final shot (which had been used to justify it) was an artistic choice and not meant to be meaningful.
** This may also be refuted by the ''Anime/MeiAndTheKittenbus'' short, which is explicitly an epilogue and takes place after the events of the main film itself. Of course, with it only being shown at the Ghibli Museum in Japan, it's not widely known.

* FriendlyFandoms: While the Ghibli fanbase is pretty interconnected overall, there tends to be a particularly close bond between fans of ''Totoro'' and fans of ''Anime/KikisDeliveryService'' due to their similar grounded and SliceOfLife tones and both being amongst the first Ghibli films to be released and dubbed outside of Japan, leading to a bit of shared nostalgia between the two fanbases.