Families See a Friend in ‘Totoro’

In the animated Japanese import “My Neighbor Totoro,” two sisters, Satsuki and May, move into a country house haunted by dust bunnies and meet a giant animal ghost who helps them when May gets lost. (Rated G)

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Here is a movie that parents might wish their children liked as much as they did themselves.

As Shawn’s mother explained it, it has respect for elders, respect for nature, respect for quality animation. No violence. A community that gets along together. Safe neighborhoods. Public transportation that works. Family members that clearly love one another even through all their trials.

It can get to you.

“I thought she was going to cry,” 9-year-old Shawn said of his mother. “I said, ‘Don’t cry.’ ”

Almost all kids in Japan love this movie, said Yuka, 12, who grew up there. “I have the video.” For others who might wonder, Yuka explained that totoro is the Japanese word for an animal ghost that only children can see.

And Shawn said he liked it too. Maybe not as much as his mother. And, of course, for different reasons.

“In all the cartoons I’ve seen, I’ve never seen a cat bus,” he said. “And I liked it when Totoro roared loud!”

He said his mother explained at the outset that this movie was about Japan, which was a good thing. “I thought it was China,” he said. “I get those two mixed up.”

He noticed that the daily life of the Japanese girls differed from his own. “They eat with chopsticks, and we eat with forks and knives and spoons. They take a bath in a circle bath. Ours is a line bath.”

The movie might seem a little long, he said, but he’d “recommend it to the whole world.”

The humor was universal, he said. “The funny part I liked was when the raindrops kept going on Totoro’s nose and they gave him an umbrella and he looked funny. He was so big with that little umbrella.”

And Shawn could relate to the fears of the girls as they first explored their new dark attic.

“I used to think there’s monsters in the dark, but then I said to myself, ‘There’s no monsters,’ and ever since that happened, I wasn’t scared of the dark.

“I’m not even scared walking in the dark.”