A few weeks back I saw this random movie in a DVD store, and after reading the back I thought “When I have some money I’ll get this”, and this week I had money, and I wasn’t disappointed by my purchase.
The Movie is another Hayao Miyazaki animated movie (he’s the guy who made Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke and Howls moving castle) called My Neighbor Totoro, and chronicles the adventures of two young girls who move to the country with their father so that they can be near the hospital that their mother is in while she recovers from an unspecified malady.
In the forest near their house there lives a forest spirit who the youngest girl decides is called Totoro, who looks like an enormous gray rabbit with small ears and human teeth. Together Totoro and the girls have various adventures, but the bit that I thought was the coolest was how Totoro gets around: which is in a giant cat with 8 or 10 legs, and windows and seats inside (ie, he’s a cat bus).
It’s so ridiculously absurd that it’s hard not to love the concept.
Anyway, it left me wanting to wander around singing little ditties of my own devising about Totoro and the cat bus (Jack got briefly subjected to one of them), and excitedly anticipating the next visit to see my nephew and niece, who I will show the movie to as I feel that they will love it too.