My Neighbor Totoro: The Healing of Nature, the Nature of

Healing
Kosuke Fujiki

Resilience: A Journal of the Environmental Humanities, Volume 2,

Number 3, Fall 2015, pp. 152-157 (Article)

Published by University of Nebraska Press

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5250/resilience.2.3.0152

For additional information about this article

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/614508

[217.178.105.239] Project MUSE (2024-12-01 04:50 GMT)

 My Neighbor Totoro
The Healing of Nature, the Nature of Healing

Kosuke Fujiki

Originally released in 1988, Hayao Miyazaki’s fourth feature film, My

Neighbor Totoro, could, in retrospect, be viewed as heralding the prom-
inence of healing in the popular culture of Japan in the 1990s. During
that decade, healing charms and incenses that would purportedly
soothe one’s weary spirit were popular among younger generations;
racks of new age and easy-­listening cds were recategorized as “healing
music”; and vhs rental shops offered an assembly of “healing movies”—­
films that were set against bucolic provincial backdrops and carried an
emotional storyline capable of producing a cathartic effect. Such films
would include Powder (directed by Victor Salva in 1995) and Phenome-
non (directed by John Turteltaub in 1996)—­both set in US small towns
surrounded by woods and pastures—­as well as Nabbie’s Love (directed
by Yuji Nakae in 1999), a Japanese film that showcased the lavish nat-
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ural beauty of an island in Okinawa, the southernmost archipelago in

Japan. Those who could afford to do so also escaped from urban areas
in order to indulge in the healing practices available at a growing for-
est of resort hotels overlooking gleaming subtropical seas that year by
year are being depleted of their sustainable resources. Appearing at the
zenith of Japanese people’s satisfaction and complacency with the coun-
try’s economic achievements and just prior to the collapsing of the bub-
ble economy, My Neighbor Totoro offered a utopian portrayal of 1950s
rural scenes that stirred the viewers’ imagination through the beauty,
the power, and the simplicity of its representation of nature. The film
appealed both to the young, who were unfamiliar with the film’s setting,
and to their parents and grandparents, who felt nostalgia for what Japan
had lost during the past few decades in the quest of a prosperous future.
As with Miyazaki’s other works, My Neighbor Totoro is notable for
portraying the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature by draw-
ing effectively on the imagery of Japan’s animistic religious traditions
as well as by inventing adorable fictional creatures living in the dark
forests and the cobwebbed corners of abandoned homes. Most signif-
icant, however, is that the characters gain spiritual comfort and heal-
ing through their encounters with nature and its nonhuman inhabi-
tants. This is a theme that the filmmaker would explore and develop
in his later works. In Princess Mononoke (1997) the Forest Spirit heals
the wounds of the protagonist, Ashitaka, even though the forest itself is
under threat of human deforestation. In The Wind Rises (2013) the char-
acters seek in nature the healing of physical illness and psychological
traumas. The airplane designer Jiro, who had been mentally trauma-
tized by an unsuccessful test flight, retreats to a verdant country resort
where the film’s heroine, Naoko, a tubercular patient, sojourns to main-
tain her precarious health.
In My Neighbor Totoro the theme of the healing powers of nature is
played out through the illness of the mother of the film’s two protago-
nists, Satsuki and her younger sister, Mei. As one critic points out, the
mother plays a central role in the narrative, despite her few on-­screen
appearances, by being the motivation for the actions of the main char-
acters.1 The story opens with the family’s relocating to the countryside
to be near the mother, who is hospitalized in a rural village, apparently
for recuperation from tuberculosis. Rural areas surrounded by nature
are often considered supportive to convalescence from long-­term ill-
nesses because of the slower pace of life, the clean air and water, the
availability of fresh local produce, and the peaceful and tranquil atmo-
sphere. As the film progresses, nature is recognized as offering not only
physical healing but also the healing of psychological ailments. The
seemingly jovial behavior of the sisters during the first half of the film is
later revealed to have been their coping behavior in face of their moth-
er’s absence; news of deterioration of their mother’s condition visibly
exposes their repressed anxieties. Little Mei, who had often been de-
pendent on her sister, responds by attempting to provide help on her
own through delivering an ear of corn to her mother at the hospital,
believing wholeheartedly that it would magically cure her disease. The

Review Cluster 153

 corn is from the garden of Granny, a local woman who has told the sis-
ters that her vegetables will “do [their mother] wonders,” for “they’ve
soaked up lots of vitamins and sunshine.”2 Both Granny and Mei clearly
exhibit faith in the healing power of nature.
Although Granny looks after the two girls in the absence of their
parents, it is nature in the guise of the supernatural creatures that is
able to enchant and excite the two sisters, delivering joy and wonder at
moments wherein stress and anxiety might normally threaten children.
For example, when the family arrive at their new residence, the sisters’
discovery of soot sprites in the dark corners of the old house dispels
the anxiety of moving into a strange house and replaces it with the ex-
citement of exploring a “haunted house.”3 Moreover, critics have noted
that, in the film, the large Totoro serves as a substitute for the absent
mother, as the tactile comfort of the monster’s soft and cuddly fur pro-
vides the sisters with the sense of lying against their mother’s bosom.4
Satsuki’s first encounter with the large Totoro occurs one night when
the two girls are waiting for their father’s return at a lonesome bus stop.
Carrying sleepy Mei piggyback and standing for hours in the rain must
be exhausting, yet Satsuki brightens up as soon as the big monster ap-
pears beside her and keeps her company. Later, at the film’s most unset-
tling moment when Mei becomes lost while on her way to the hospital,
Satsuki goes to the lair of the Totoros in the woods to ask their help in
finding her. The large Totoro summons Catbus, which takes her to Mei
and then gives the two girls a thrilling ride to the hospital. These exam-
ples of comfort and help that Miyazaki’s friendly supernatural creatures
offer to the protagonists epitomize the human characters’ peaceful co-
existence within their natural surroundings.
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Nevertheless, the film subtly conveys the understanding that this

idea of coexistence with nature is not solely Miyazaki’s creation but
derives substantially from the Japanese spiritual tradition. Religious
iconography—­including Torii, Buddhist statues of Jizo (Ksitigarbha),
and statues of the Shinto fox-­god Inari—­can be found throughout the
film, and the fact that the Totoros reside inside a sacred camphor tree
suggests that these fictional beings should be regarded as a new addi-
tion to this religious constellation. The film’s allusion to Japan’s Shinto
beliefs, which are merged indistinguishably with Buddhism, is not for
promoting a state religion that divinizes the imperial family as descen-
dants of the sun-­goddess Amaterasu but for embedding into everyday

154 Resilience Vol. 2, No. 3

practice the value of the ancient folk animism that shows reverence
for nature, predicating that humans are living under the protection of
deities in nature. Repeatedly, the characters often seek help from and
show their gratitude to divinities: Satsuki asks a statue of Jizo if she and
her sister may take shelter from the rain in the roofed shrine; the fa-
ther takes the sisters to the camphor tree to express gratitude for their
smooth settlement in the village; Granny says a Buddhist chant to pray
for Mei’s safety when the child sets out for the hospital on her own; and
Mei rests by the side of six statues of Jizo when she realizes that she is
completely lost. By identifying divinity in every aspect of nature, the
Shinto tradition advocates both respect and discretion toward nature,
and it encourages people to be grateful for the blessings bestowed by
the natural environment.
Significantly, however, Miyazaki does more than simply allude to
Japan’s spiritual tradition; he reconfigures that tradition in the con-
text of modern environmental concerns. As Antonia Levi maintains
in reference to Princess Mononoke, Shinto’s animist view of nature dif-
fers considerably from the philosophy behind today’s environmental
movements.5 Shinto positions humans as having little control over na-
ture. With human life at the mercy of the will of the gods, the most that
humans can do is to appease them with rituals and prayers in order
to avoid the wrath of gods appearing in the form of natural disasters.
Modern environmental concerns, by contrast, stem from the notion
that humans have foolishly exercised too much control over nature, so
much so that nature is now endangered. In contrast to Shinto’s awe of
nature, Levi argues, “environmentalism fears humanity, not nature.”6
While continuing to present nature as a site of healing, Miyazaki has,
increasingly in his later films, such as Princess Mononoke, been putting
focus on how humans have estranged themselves from their natural en-
vironment or have endangered the ecological harmony, especially as a
consequence of their wars and their desire for development.
Yet in the case of My Neighbor Totoro, the idea of estrangement from
nature is not so much inscribed in the film text as in its context. Japan’s
economic bubble at the end of the 1980s was the tipping point of the
country’s steady economic growth since the end of World War II, with
people beginning to question their devotion to work and economic
prosperity. According to Tatsuya Yumiyama, this reconsideration of so-
cial values was what paved the way for Japan’s healing fad in the 1990s.7

Review Cluster 155

Having achieved unprecedented material affluence, many Japanese
started to realize the value of what they had left behind during their
struggles to support the country’s relentless pursuit of modernity. As a
result, people came to have a “longing . . . for the state prior to [their]
confrontation with nature, a state of repose in Mother Nature’s bosom.”8
In light of the past decades of development and urbanization, the film’s
portrayal of 1950s village life in harmony with nature was therefore nos-
talgic or even utopian for many people who were no longer in contact
with natural landscapes in everyday life. The expansive, furry belly of
Totoro was a reminder of the comforts that may have been lost.
What was crucially lacking in the healing fad of 1990s Japan was a
perspective of what we can give to nature, not simply what we can take
from it. The commercial hype for physical and spiritual healing can
therefore be seen as another form of exploitation of the natural envi-
ronment. In order to go one step beyond nostalgia and a longing for
utopian harmony with nature, My Neighbor Totoro should be seen with
its historical contexts taken into account. The popularity of the film
symptomatically reveals the bleakness of modern human life with its
estrangement from the gifts of nature, thereby making us aware that
the peaceful rural life presented in the film is in fact under threat of
disappearance.

About the Author

Kosuke Fujiki is a PhD candidate in film studies at King’s College London,
currently completing his thesis on the Okinawan cinema of the 1980s and the
1990s. With his research interests ranging from East Asian cinema to memory
and history in film, he has presented his work at international conferences and
has published three articles in the Japanese film journal Cinema Studies, one of
which received in 2011 an annual award from the Japanese Society for Cinema
Studies. He also works as an English-­Japanese translator, specializing in film
subtitling.

Notes
1. Cavallaro, Animé Art of Hayao Miyazaki, 73.
2. My Neighbor Totoro.
3. My Neighbor Totoro.
4. For example, see Okuhara, “Walking Along with Nature.”
5. Levi, “New Myths for the Millennium,” 41.
6. Levi, “New Myths for the Millennium,” 41.

156 Resilience Vol. 2, No. 3

 7. Yumiyama, “Varieties of Healing in Present-­Day Japan,” 279.
8. Yumiyama, “Varieties of Healing in Present-­Day Japan,” 277.

Bibliography
Cavallaro, Dani. The Animé Art of Hayao Miyazaki. Jefferson, nc: McFarland, 2006.
Levi, Antonia. “New Myths for the Millennium: Japanese Animation.” In Animation in Asia
and the Pacific, edited by John A. Lent, 33–­50. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
2001.
My Neighbor Totoro. Directed by Hayao Miyazaki. 1988. Paris: Studiocanal, 2006. dvd.
Okuhara, Rieko. “Walking Along with Nature: A Psychological Interpretation of My Neigh-
bor Totoro.” Looking Glass 10, no. 2 (2006). http://www.the-looking-glass.net/index.php/
tlg/article/view/104/100.
Yumiyama, Tatsuya. “Varieties of Healing in Present-­Day Japan.” Japanese Journal of Reli-
gious Studies 22, nos. 3–­4 (1995): 267–­82.

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