Home and Health

My Neighbor Totoro  was originally put out in Japan in August 1988, as part of a dual feature with Grave of the Fireflies. The motion picture won the Animage Anime Grand Prix award in 1988.

In 1993, 50th Street Films produced a dub of the anime movie, which was published on VHS and DVD by Fox Video. Both of these entities lost their rights to the anime movie in 2004, and Disney produced a new English dub with new voice actors. The new English dub made its introduction on October 23, 2005, and then it made an appearance at the Hollywood anime movie Festival. Turner Classic Movies was the first television network to air the motion picture during a salute to Miyazaki on January 19, 2006. Disney’s variation of the movie was issued on DVD on March 7, 2006.

The two-disk DVD set contains the motion picture and numerous extras on the first disk, and a storyboard version of the motion picture on the second disk. On the first disc, there’s a five-and-a-half minute documentary called, “Behind the Microphone,” which features interviews and footage from recording sessions with several of the voice actors (Dakota and Elle Fanning, Lea Salogna, Pat Carroll, and Tim Daly). There’s also textless versions of the opening and ending credits, as well as the original Japanese theatrical trailer. In the extras menu, you can also register your DVD. While there may not be a lot of extras, this has been the case with every Miyazaki movie that Disney has released on DVD. So while it’s a little disappointing, it’s not entirely unexpected.

While My Neighbor Totoro clocks in at under an hr and a half, it’s still an beautiful movie. In fact, the story probably would have been weakened if Miyazaki had tried to make the runtime longer. The look of the animation is perfect to accompany the story of the motion picture. This is emphatically a very family-friendly anime picture, and I would highly commend it.