For many years, the Internet has been distributed that one of the most cute films of the Ghibli studio has an ominous subtext. We checked whether there is reason under this statement.
Most often, the theory of the hidden sense of “Totoro” is told with reference to a conversation with a resident of Japan, who assures the interlocutor that this cartoon is very terrible. Next, the storyteller’s monologue is transmitted, in which he says: “In the area about which the cartoon, long before the filming of the film, was a terrible story - the maniac killed children in the forest.”
According to the narrator, many details testify to the fact that this happened with the heroines of Totoro: “Remember when grandmother from Satsuki found sandaling in a pond? May died, understand? And Satsuki went to look for her and died herself. <...> Then, when Satsuki sits in the catobus, the inscription changes on his forehead. Everything happens there very quickly, and at the end “Destination: May” is obtained, and before that the destination was a cemetery. <...> And yet, when May is found, she sits in a holy place where the Buddhas are stone. Religious Japanese believe that a person, when he dies, becomes a Buddha. And the Buddhas in a holy place should be seven. And there are six, and May is sitting. She is already a Buddha, you see. " And finally, the main sign is that the last ten minutes of the film, the girls do not discard the shadows.
This story is found at various entertainment sites And forums, she Popular in "VKontakte" Livejournal And Facebook. In some sources, the film is not associated with an abstract maniac that killed children in the forest, but with a specific murder that occurred in the 1960s, known as the Sami incident. The video on YouTube With the discussion of this theory, I gained 480,000 views.
The full -length animated film “My neighbor Totoro” director Hayao Miyazaki was released in 1988. He tells the story of two sisters: Satsuki and May, who, together with his father, moved to the old house in the village near the hospital, where their mother is treated for tuberculosis. Girls accidentally get acquainted with the Guardian of the Forest, a fluffy greens-a-hearted spirit of Totoro, and other supernatural creatures that often come to their aid. At the same time, adults do not see and do not hear Totoro and other spirits - they can only sometimes feel their presence nearby or remember how they saw something similar in childhood.
As Miyazaki himself writes in artbook on the creation of Totoro, the anime action takes place in the 1950s in the city of Tokorodzava Prefecture Saitama, not far from Tokyo. There, the director lived in childhood, and Totoro is largely based on his memoirs. It was the scene that became the basis for speculation. Internet users connected the cartoon with the so-called Sami incident - The brutal murder of a schoolgirl, which occurred in May 1963 in the city of Sayama (about 9 km from the scene of Totoro). This business went down in history, but not at all as an example of an unusually bloodthirsty murder, but due to the fact that the person who was charged, for decades, insists on his innocence. The arrested name is CAZUO ISIKAVA, he Burakumin, that is, a native of the caste of untouchables. The caste system in Japan was canceled in 1871, but the Burakumins are still undergoing discrimination. An example of such an attitude to this social group counts And the Sami incident. Ishikawa first pleaded guilty, but later claimed that the police forced him to do this. There was no convincing evidence of his guilt to the court. Nevertheless, Isikav was sentenced to life imprisonment. He was released ahead of schedule, in 1994, and Continued Fight for your honest name. At the time of writing this analysis, another revision of the case is still He was not completed.
Geography is the only thing that somehow unites the film and the Sami incident. The crime occurred much later than the events in Totoro. The 16-year-old victim was the fourth child in the family, while in the film Miyazaki sisters are only two and ten years and four years old. Moreover, initially Miyazaki planned that the heroine would be one at all, but later decided that two characters of different ages would be more interesting to the audience - they will see two different perceptions of the world. In addition, this gave the director the opportunity to recall his own relationship with his brother. He also took the story with the disease of his mother Satsuki and May from his own biography: Miyazaki's mother suffered from tuberculosis during his childhood and spent a long time in hospitals for several years (as a result, she recovered and lived a long life).
Totoro himself is in no way connected with Japanese mythology, this is a completely fictitious character. In 1980, Miyazaki came up with the idea of the film "Princess Mononoka" - the story of the princess, who had to marry an evil spirit (this is how it is translated from the Japanese" Mononoka "). The studio decided not to realize this idea (later anime "Princess Mononoka"Still removed, but the plot in it is different), but in 1983, Miyazaki published a story in the form of a short illustrated children's book. The appearance of Mononoka Mononoka invented then Miyazaki later used to create the image of Totoro.
The forest spirit borrowed his character and habits from another brainchild of the Ghibli studio-papa ponds from anime "Panda is big and small". Gael Berton in the book "Universe Hayao Miyazaki"He calls" Panda "a draft" Totoro ":" Outwardly, Papa Panda looks like a Totoro - they even have a smile and a gait the same! Pan clings to the stomach of his dad at the beginning of the film as girls and little Totoro cling to their patron. Mimico is very similar to May, although the behavior resembles, rather, Satsuki. <...> Many episodes in two films echoes each other, for example, the one where the pan accompanies mimico to school - May also escorts Satsuki to study. But the most striking intersection is a policeman who is traveling on a bicycle in the first part of Pandy - on the same bicycle in a ridiculous similar pose as at the very beginning of my neighbor Totoro. ”
Other details that Internet users pay attention to, in fact, there is also no sinister subtext either. So, the statues next to which the lost May sits, and really have a symbolic meaning, but different. This is not the Buddha, as the viral text says, but Bodhisattva Dzizo. Bodhisatvs In Buddhism, they call monks who have reached enlightenment, but not left for Nirvana, to continue to help all living things. Their role is something similar to the role of saints in Christianity. Dzizzo is really known as the conductor of the souls of the dead, but its role is no less important the patron saint of children - And in this case, they show us that May is under his defense. By the way, Dzizzo also appears in the first part of the film, when the girls, escaping from the rain, hide in a small Buddhist church. The sandual, which is pulled out of the pond, does not belong to May (and Satsuki talks about it). And on the Kotobus board there is not only a cemetery - there are many different directions there, until the right one is displayed.
Nevertheless, there is a share of truth in the viral text - the story of the gloomy subtext of Totoro really Japanese origin. Suzan Neupir in the book "Magic worlds Hayao Miyazaki"Assumes that the legend is based on the idea voiced by the researcher of the work of Miyazaki Masashi Simizu in 2001. “Simizu claims that the classic fantasy novel“ The Night Train to Stars ”Kenji Miyazawa, one of the favorite writers of Miyazaki,” was a real inspiration for the film, Nipir writes. “In this exciting work, two little boys, Giovanni and Campanella, go on a surrealist adventure by train through the galaxy, and in the end it turns out that Campanella drowned before the start of the trip and all this time Giovanni accompanied his ghost.” The earliest preserved discussion of theory on the Internet You can find On the 2Channel forum, it is dated November 2006. But this is clearly not the very first mention - on the forum, history is discussed as quite famous by that time. One of the users writes: “Sometimes they say that May has a shadow, or that their father’s detached gaze serves a clue, or that they moved there because the children died, there are many similar stories. They also say that one of the friends of friends once contacted Ghibli and they answered them: "How did you guess?" "
However, in fact, Ghibli was not so answered. May 1, 2007 on the official blog of the studio appeared fast, which stated that they received many calls with the question: "Is it true that Totoro is the god of death?" “We want to assure everyone: about any god of death, nor about the fact that May is dead, in the film“ My neighbor Totoro ”is not about. This is just one of modern city legends. Someone-apparently, for the sake of fun-came up with this story, and it instantly scattered on the Internet. For example, the assertion that at the end of the film Satsuki and May does not have shadows, is explained solely by the fact that from the point of view of the animation it was decided not to draw them as an unnecessary detail. We ask everyone not to believe such rumors. ”
Despite this, rumors continued to spread - not only in Japan, but also for her limits. Gael Burton writes that in 2015, the co -founder and producer Ghibli Tosio Suzuki, in an interview with the Tokyo FM radio station, was again asked about the hidden sense of Totoro. He once again stated that this was not true, and sent all those who doubt the refutation of 2007.
Thus, Ghibli officially refutes the theory that the heroines of the anime “My neighbor Totoro” are actually dead. This is just an interpretation of one of the researchers of the work of Hayao Miyazaki, which has spread on the Internet and overgrown with numerous details.
Photo on the cover: frame from the cartoon "My neighbor Totoro"
Read on the topic:
- Arzamas. "Hayao Miyazaki: How to start watching his films"
- Is it true that in the Tokyo metro station they launched a train in the form of a Kotobus from the anime “My neighbor Totoro”?
- Is it true that the photo shows the real prototype of the sailor.
- Is it true that viewing cartoons has a negative impact on the psyche of preschool children?
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