Hayao Miyazaki

I really sensed the existence of people who still do physical labor for a living.

I saw photos of miners giving up, but I could sense that they tried to maintain their solidarity even though they had lost.

Satsuki and Mei are saved just by Totoro’s existence. Just by his being.

There’s no purpose to it; Treasure Island exists and Totoro exists. Because of his existence, Satsuki and Mei aren’t isolated and helpless. I think that is sufficient.

Her mother was ill and she couldn’t do anything for her child. But on her sickbed she did brush her child’s hair as she talked to her. And the daughter felt her mother’s love with this gesture. It wouldn’t be natural for the mother to give her daughter expansive hugs, like it would be for Americans. It would be even more unlikely when the girl is a fourth grader. So for Satsuki, the ritual of having her hair brushed is very meaningful. Mei, on the other hand, can crawl into her mother’s lap and feel the warmth of her body. Mei is still young enough to hug her mother.

This is why I intentionally didn’t show the sisters together with Totoro at the end.

If they had stayed in that place with Totoro, those girls wouldn’t have been able to return to the world of human reality. I think it’s fine if they never see Totoro again.

This sort of thing happens. Suddenly, ordinary life just flies out the window.

I talked it over with Tsugiko Kubota-san, the children’s literature author who wrote the novelization of My Neighbor Totoro. When we asked, “What do you think children do at those times?” she, too, said she thought they would fall asleep. And when I drew Satsuki lying down and falling asleep, it made perfect sense to me.

I thought, Mei wouldn’t go to sleep right away, and she would have finished crying by the time she returned home. She plays with a toy from habit, but she isn’t fully engaged with it. Then she gets tired and falls asleep …

When I resolved that scene, I suddenly realized what I must have done in my own childhood.

In reality, the children are not without care—they are so upset they can’t stay standing up, so they go to sleep as a self-defense mechanism. It’s when they are the most troubled that they fall asleep. Children who hate school and refuse to go, come home and fall asleep; it’s when they are so troubled and full of stress that they sleep … When I finally understood this behavior, I felt I was able to comprehend a lot of things a bit better than before.

Moreover, Mei sleeps holding an ear of corn. At that angle, we can’t see the corn, but it wouldn’t have worked to draw her facing us. If we saw her face, and it was a dejected face, it would become false. I loved being able to overcome some of my misconceptions and create that scene.