Line #14 Trivia/MyNeighborTotoro


1	* AllStarCast: The Creator/{{Disney}} dub is known for this, with Creator/DakotaFanning and her sister Creator/{{Elle\|Fanning}} in the lead roles, also starring Creator/TimDaly, Creator/LeaSalonga, Creator/PatCarroll, and in the title role of Totoro, Creator/FrankWelker!
2	* BabyNameTrendStarter: Mei has become a top ten baby name in UsefulNotes/{{Japan}} thanks to it being the name of one of the girls in the movie. In 2014, [[https://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2014/12/02/haruto-mei-top-list-of-most-popular-names-in-japan/ it was the most popular girl name]].
3	* CastIncest: Gregory Snegoff and his late wife Lisa Michelson played Tatsuo Kusakabe and his eldest daughter Satsuki, respectively, in the Streamline dub.
4	* CashCowFranchise: Well, okay, "franchise" is a stretch, given that the only works in the franchise consist of the original feature film, a novel adaptation of that film, a short film sequel exclusive to the Ghibli Museum, and a live-show adaptation. However, there is no denying that ''My Neighbor Totoro'' is Ghibli's biggest moneymaker, with ''Totoro'' having made $1.46 billion dollars as of 2019 thanks to its box office gross ($41 million), home video sales ($277 million) and merchandise sales ($1.142 billion). After all, he is Ghibli's mascot for a reason.
5	* TheDanza: The London stage production has Mei Mac as Mei Kusakabe.
6	* DawsonCasting: The 2022 stage adaptation in London has adult actors playing all the child characters. This is similar to the ''Anime/SpiritedAway'' stage play, which also cast adults as the adolescent leads.
7	* DuelingWorks: The American theatrical release was this with ''WesternAnimation/ATrollInCentralPark'', another movie with the same premise. Since ''A Troll in Central Park'' was released opposite ''Film/PulpFiction'' and was only shown in very few theaters (not to mention being the biggest box office bomb by percentage of budget lost), ''Totoro'' was the winner.
8	* EarlyDraftTieIn: The film's original theatrical poster features the original sole protagonist, instead of Satsuki and Mei, as is the case in the final film. The poster was later reused by Disney and GKIDS for their North American DVD/Blu-Ray releases of the film. While this was popularly assumed to be the result of miscommunication, according to [[https://www.spoon-tamago.com/2021/04/16/totoro-poster-mystery-girl/ Miyazaki]], the inclusion of the original protagonist was actually ''deliberate'' on his part, as he couldn't find a way to include both Satsuki and Mei on the poster without ruining the poster's composition.
9	* HeAlsoDid: The initial US release was handled by 50th Street Films, a general-interest division of Creator/{{Troma}}. Yes, [[Film/TheToxicAvenger that]] Troma.
10	** In the Japanese version, Mei and Satsuki's father — Tatsuo — is voiced by Creator/ShigesatoItoi, who is a well-known essayist and copywriter in the region. Westerners probably know him best as the creator of the ''VideoGame/{{Mother}}'' trilogy.
11	* IncestuousCasting: Gregory Snegoff and his mother Alexandra Kenworthy played Tatsuo Kusakabe and his wife Yasuko Kusakabe, respectively, in the Streamline dub.
12	* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: Thanks to the Disney dub becoming the primary English dub, the Creator/{{Streamline\|Pictures}} dub licensed by Troma and [[Creator/TwentiethCenturyStudios FoxVideo]] in the United States has been out of print since 2004, leading some to go so far as to distribute it on file sharing sites, extending its reach to new viewers. The Streamline dub was included on the 1996 Japanese "Ghibli ga Ippai" laserdisc set and the 2001 Japanese DVD release, but not many know that the dub was released that way as well.
13	* MidDevelopmentGenreShift: ''My Neighbor Totoro'' was originally developed to be a children's picture book in the mid-1970s, before Miyazaki decided to turn it into a film in the early eighties shortly before founding Studio Ghibli. Miyazaki's original plan would eventually come to fruition a couple of decades later, however, as ''My Neighbor Totoro'' would be adapted into a novel by Tsugiko Kubo in 2001.
14	* PosthumousCredit: Lisa Michelson is given a credit in the Streamline dub, since she finished all of her dialogue two years before her fatal car crash on September 14, 1991.
15	* RealitySubtext: Miyazaki's father was an academic and his mother was treated for tuberculosis in a rural sanitarium. In an interview published in ''Starting Point: 1979-1996'', Miyazaki mentioned he made the main characters girls so it wouldn't be too close to his own life.
16	* RealLifeRelative: Real life siblings Creator/{{Dakota\|Fanning}} and Creator/ElleFanning voice Satsuki and Mei in the Creator/{{Disney}} dub.
17	* ScienceImitatesArt: Totoro has an minor asteroid named after him.
18	* ScrewedByTheLawyers: When Disney acquired ''Totoro'', they had to wait for Streamline's rights to expire before releasing their own dub in 2006.
19	* SleeperHit: The film wasn't very successful in its initial release and even took two years to become profitable. It’s technically only ever made $45 million at the box office as of the end of 2019. However, once it hit home release and started producing merchandise, it took on a new life. Between the initial release, various home releases, and merchandise, it’s made about $1.5 billion in 2019 dollars in lifetime revenue.
20	* VindicatedByCable: ''My Neighbor Totoro'' initially wasn't a theatrical success in Japan and had the worst opening box office among Ghibli's output. The film wouldn't start to become as successful as it is now until it started airing on TV via Creator/NipponTelevision a year later. Every summer, two or three Ghibli films are broadcast as part of the "Friday Roadshow," and ''Totoro'' always pulls a large audience.
21	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
22	** Early posters for the film included the Creator/{{Daiei}} (of ''Film/{{Rashomon}}'' and ''Film/{{Gamera}}'' fame) logo, as Tokuma Shoten owned both Daiei and Creator/StudioGhibli at the time, indicating the film was supposed to have been distributed by the struggling Daiei. The film would eventually be distributed by Creator/{{Toho}} as a double feature with ''Anime/GraveOfTheFireflies'', which would later become Studio Ghibli's regular distributor.
23	** The film was originally developed as one of the first drafts of ''Anime/PrincessMononoke'' way back in 1981, featuring a little girl and a large cat-like creature in ancient Japan. At some point, these plans were revisited as a starting point for ''My Neighbor Totoro'', while the concept for ''Mononoke'' would continue being revised over the years until eventually being released as the infamously DarkerAndEdgier final product in 1997. The original concept art for the draft would later be compiled into a children's book by Miyazaki in 1993, which was later translated into English a [[LateExportForYou decade later in 2014]] by Creator/VizMedia, under the title, ''Princess Mononoke: The First Story''.
24	** In the original post-proto-''Mononoke'' drafts, Mei and Satsuki were one person, who had visual traits of both, but Miyazaki later realized that a four-year-old wouldn't realistically be independent enough for the plot to work. This single character is featured in the original [[http://www.animationmagazine.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/poster_totoro.jpg release poster]] due to [[https://www.spoon-tamago.com/2021/04/16/totoro-poster-mystery-girl/ Miyazaki struggling to include both girls on the poster and make the composition feel right]].
25	** [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FJaAowkWYAUDJPF?format=jpg&name=large Early concept art for the film]] shows that there were originally meant to be multiple giant Totoros. However, the final film keeps it to just one. The idea would be revisited in the film's short film sequel, ''Anime/MeiAndTheKittenbus''.
26	** [[https://www.unseen64.net/2020/02/21/neighbor-totoro-videogame-cancelled/ An adventure game based on the film]] was originally pitched for the Platform/SuperFamicom back in 1992. However, the game was immediately disliked and rejected by Creator/HayaoMiyazaki after it was pitched to him, causing it to be scrapped.[[note]]Hayao Miyazaki reportedly hated video games and he has a history of [[NoAdaptationsAllowed rejecting pitches for video games based on his work]] after the release of [[TheProblemWithLicensedGames the infamous video games]] based on ''Manga/NausicaaOfTheValleyOfTheWind'' on Japanese [=PCs=] back in the mid-80s.[[/note]]
27	* WriteWhatYouKnow: This film was based on Creator/HayaoMiyazaki and his three brothers' childhoods in post-UsefulNotes/WorldWarII Japan. Their father, Katsuji Miyazaki, was an academic like Tatsuo Kusakabe, while their mother, Yoshiko Miyazaki, was chronically ill with spinal tuberculosis and spent a lot of time at a rural sanitarium like Yasuko Kusakabe. Further paralleling the film, the Miyazakis moved from the city to be closer to Yoshiko, who was eventually able to be cured and got to come home [[note]]Though she was rendered bedridden and wheelchairbound because of the disease's spinal damage, something that would inspire the characters in [[Anime/{{Ponyo}} a later work]][[/note]]. Miyazaki cut down the number of siblings from four to two to save time and made them sisters instead of brothers to keep the film from hitting too close to home.
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29	!!Miscellaneous trivia:
30	* This film is on Creator/RogerEbert's Great Movies List.

Context Trivia / MyNeighborTotoro