My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro) (Studio Ghibli Collection) (1988)

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General		Extras
Category	Animation	Main Menu Audio & Animation Theatrical Trailer Multiple Angles-Storyboards Credits-Textless Opening And Closing
Rating
Year Of Production	1988
Running Time	86:48
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Hayao Miyazaki
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Hitoshi Takagi Noriko Hidaka Chika Sakamoto Shigesato Itoi Sumi Shimamoto Toshiyuki Amagasa Tanie Kitabayashi Yûko Maruyama Masashi Hirose Machiko Washio
Case	Amaray-Opaque-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Jô Hisaishi Kazutoshi Satou Shigeharu Shiba

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    My Neighbor Totoro or Tonari no Totoro as it is known in Japan, is a delightful story detailing the life of two young sisters, Satsuki and Mei. For some unexplained reason the father and daughters move to the Japanese countryside. They move into a simple country home that has obviously been deserted for some time. Immediately the girls fall in love with the home and are intrigued by strange creatures they find that apparently live in the surrounding mystical forests. There is turmoil in their young lives, though - the girls' mother is ill and has been in hospital for some time.

    Hayao Miyazaki's masterpiece is a wonderful story of childhood innocence, fantasy and spending summertime outside in nature. The film spends much time showing how Satsuki and Mei adjust to life in their new surroundings, cleaning their new home, meeting the neighbours and exploring the countryside. Although it might sound mundane, Miyazaki has the ability to translate the girl's bright-eyed wonder, excitement and innocence to the screen in a way that entrances the audience, no matter how young or old.

    Whilst playing outside one day, Mei sees an animal spirit that she decides to follow into the woods. It's here that she meets Totoro, a giant, fluffy creature that is a cross between a cat, rabbit, badger, koala and essentially any cute stuffed animal that a kid would love. Totoro doesn't talk, he growls, but he has the ability to turn up just when the girls seem to need him. Interestingly enough, the adults in the film encourage the girls to follow these 'imaginary' friends that the adults themselves cannot see. It's a refreshing change from the stereotypical sceptical adult that discourages children.

    Tonari no Totoro is a rare children's film that actually respects its audience. It doesn't feel the need to explain every little detail or dumb down the message. It's a film that belongs in every DVD library, a classic that the whole family can enjoy over and over again.

    Highly recommended.

Video

    This film is presented in all its PAL glory at the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The disc is 16x9 enhanced.

    Some of Madman's previous releases have suffered pretty lacklustre NTSC to PAL transfers but I'm happy to report that this transfer looks pretty good. Thankfully it is a native PAL transfer.

    Overall, the transfer is pretty sharp.

    The colours are great - the lush green Japanese countryside looks like you could walk right into it. There's a full range of colours on display that look vivid: dark storms, flowing water and furry Totoro.

    My main complaint is that there can be some slight edge enhancement which pops up occasionally. It wasn't too distracting though.

    There were no film artefacts.

    The subtitles were easy to read and unlike some other Madman releases there were two subtitle options. Subtitles that matched the English dub with cultural tweaks, as well as translations of the Japanese dialogue that were a bit more of a literal interpretation. Both sets seemed quite accurate and suitable to me.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are two tracks available, the Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 (224kb/s) track and the English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224kb/s) track.

    I listened to both and I recommend the Japanese track (it was hard for my kids to keep up with the subtitles though!).

    The tracks are good, but being 2.0 it doesn't have the dynamic range most viewers would be used to, but the audio is good nevertheless. The tracks are full and clean.

    The dialogue comes through clearly and some effects, especially the rainfall, sound surprisingly good for a 2.0 track.

    The soundtrack by Joe Hisaishi is a classic and sounds wonderful. It adds a lot to the film.

    One thing I didn't like was that the English dub had the opening and closing songs in English. The songs sound ridiculous with English lyrics and the track would be much better suited with the original Japanese songs.

    Also, the English track is a new dub. Disney did this one after Fox lost the US rights. The sisters are played by Dakota Fanning and her younger sister, Elle. This new dub and the Fanning sisters have copped criticism in various publications for not being as good as the old one. Personally, I enjoyed this track. I don't think I ever saw the film with the old English dub, I had only ever seen it in its native Japanese, so I can't comment on whether it's an improvement or a step backwards.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio & Animation

Theatrical Trailer

    The original Japanese trailers are shown with English subtitles.

Multiple Angles

    The whole film with soundtrack is shown in storyboard mode. Interesting to see how closely they matched each other.

Credits

    Textless opening and closing credits.

    R1 edges out R4 here because it has an extra featurette (even if it is just a 5 minute video on the Fanning sisters.) Interestingly the US gets a two disc release with almost the identical content to the R4 single disc release. Unless you're a huge Dakota fan I'd recommend the R4 PAL version.

    Overall, this is a great film and a worthy DVD release.

    The video is very good.

    The audio is great.

    The special features are decent. Personally, a Miyazaki commentary would be ichiban.

    A great movie for the entire family - beats Disney at its own G rated game.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall