The younger sister follows a trail of acorns into the woods, where she befriends a massive, bear-like wood spirit who likes to sleep a lot.
Far and away the humblest movie that Hayao Miyazaki has ever made (and likely also the most beloved), “My Neighbor Totoro” is an 86-minute fable about two small girls adjusting to their rickety new house in rural mid-century Japan while their mother convalesces from an unspecified illness at a nearby hospital. The younger sister follows a trail of acorns into the woods, where she befriends a massive, bear-like wood spirit who likes to sleep a lot. One night the girls show Totoro how to use an umbrella as they wait for their father’s bus in the rain. Later, the locals grow concerned over an urgent corn delivery gone wrong, but the crisis is averted with appropriate sweetness. The end.