Family
One of the most significant things in My Neighbor Totoro is that the mother is absent from the home. According to Takie Sugiyama Lebra, “the [Japanese] mother is characterized as having suffered hardships” . This is true in Totoro, as Mei and Satsuki's mother is hospitalized with an unnamed illness. The mother's absence is significant because “at home, the husband depends upon the wife for domestic care. The husband is helpless in housekeeping tasks, such as doing the laundry, cooking, cleaning, and child rearing” (52). In the absence of her mother, it is then Satsuki's job to take over household tasks with Nanny's help. This is illustrated several times throughout the movie.
When Satsuki prepares breakfast and lunch for her father and Mei before she leaves for school this is a task that would normally fall to the mother. Also, the various cleaning and garden tasks that Satsuki and Mei often had the help of Nanny to complete would have also normally been the main responsibility of the mother to complete.
Mei and Satsuki's father demonstrates both typical and atypical characteristics of a traditional Japanese father. According to Peter Tasker, “Japanese children are accustomed to never seeing their father on the weekdays, and only for short periods at weekends. A husband’s proper field of endeavor is the company” (101). This is only somewhat accurate in Mei and Satsuki's relationship with their father. Although their father is often away working at the university or visiting their mother in the hospital, he is by no means an absentee father. He is seen working at a desk while Mei plays outside and spending time with his daughters before their bedtime. Many scholarly critiques of Japanese culture would lead one to believe that this is not the norm.
Setting
My Neighbor Totoro exhibits several important cultural points through the setting and passive details.
The house into which the Kusakabe family moves is an accurate portrayal of a typical, rural, Japanese home. The sliding doors that the father opens when they first move into the house are common architectural features. These doors are meant to be opened during the day, weather permitting, and closed at night. Another feature to point out about the house itself is the way the foundation is constructed. “Japanese houses do not have cellars but are built with a foundation of shallow concrete, or a single row of cement blocks. On top of this type of foundation is placed a row of heavy timbers” (33). This can be seen clearly when Mei crawls under the house in pursuit of one of the smaller totoros.
As for Totoro, he lives in a tree demarcated by a shimenawa (braided straw rope for shinto). The tree is called shinboku (sacred tree). Shinto is the traditional religion of Japan and some consider many of Hayao Miyazaki's movies—including Totoro—to have Shintoist themes,. and interpret Totoro as a kami spirit of the Shinto religion. But Miyazaki says "this movie [Totoro] has nothing to do with that [Shinto] or any other religion."
The community in which Satsuki and her family have moved is a typical agricultural town. The rice paddies are visible throughout the movie. Rice cultivation is one of the most important industries in Japan, as rice is a staple of the Japanese diet. The home that Satsuki and Mei live in is more spacious than what would be available in a city. Also, the scene where Nanny, Mei, and Satsuki are washing vegetables shows the near self-sufficiency of these farming communities.
The bath scene is also demonstrative of archetypal Japanese life. “The bathtub is more like a small swimming pool than a tub” (38). As seen in the movie, several people bathe together at once. It is considered rude to enter the tub without first washing, as shown by Satsuki before she enters the tub with her father and Mei. These bathtubs are heated usually by small, well-tended coal burners under the tub.
Another cultural manifestation is the scene that shows the family sleeping. Often, the living room is converted into a bedroom where the whole family sleeps together on mats called futon. This sleeping arrangement is space-efficient for smaller housing in a country where living space is severely limited. Mei is sleeping between Satsuki and her father, which is the usual arrangement—with the youngest in the middle.
In one scene, Satsuki is shown preparing the family's lunch in traditional bento style. A bento is a compartmentalized lunch box usually with only one or two tiers. Food is arranged to be aesthetically pleasing. Bentos are extremely common as lunch boxes for children, adults, and even those who stay at home, as Mei does when Satsuki goes to school.
Other passive cultural references include:
- The food that Satsuki prepared for breakfast and lunch.
- The fact that no one wore shoes inside of the house.
- The way the girls cleaned the floors.
- The school.
April 16, 1988 
1993
