My Neighbour Totoro

<p><i>My Neighbour Totoro</i> (1988) is one of the best-loved films created by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Nearly forty years after its first release, <i>Totoro</i> remains beloved in Japan and abroad, a child’s-eye vision of the sublime and a celebration of the magical richness of the Japanese countryside. Everything feels placed at a child’s level, from the implicit spiritual environmentalism to the characters’ fears of death. Totoro has no fighting, no villains. The film’s artistry is as unassuming as it is extraordinary.<br><br>Andrew Osmond’s study places Totoro in the context of Miyazaki’s and Studio Ghibli’s films, and considers what makes it so exceptional and seemingly inimitable.</p>