Question 1

True or false: The movie was a box office failure in Japan and only gained fame internationally years later.

Accepted Answer

False. It was a box office hit in Japan, earning over 1.1 billion yen in 1988 and becoming the third-highest-grossing film of the year there. International fame came quickly.

Question 2

True or false: The film was released in the US under the title 'My Friend Totoro' to avoid confusion.

Accepted Answer

False. It was released in the US as 'My Neighbor Totoro' from the start. The title change rumor stems from a mistranslation of the Japanese title 'Tonari no Totoro'.

Question 3

True or false: The two girls in 'My Neighbor Totoro' are actually named after the director's daughters.

Accepted Answer

False. Satsuki and Mei are named after characters from previous works and Japanese folklore, not Miyazaki's real children. He has two sons, not daughters.

Question 4

True or false: The soot sprites in 'Totoro' were recycled from a scrapped Ghibli film about coal miners.

Accepted Answer

False. The soot sprites (susuwatari) first appeared in a different Ghibli project, but it was a short film concept, not a scrapped feature. They later appeared in 'Spirited Away'.

Question 5

True or false: Studio Ghibli originally planned to set the story in post-war Japan, but changed it to the 1950s.

Accepted Answer

True. Early notes set the film in 1947, but Miyazaki shifted it to the early 1950s to avoid direct references to war trauma and focus on childhood wonder.

Question 6

True or false: Totoro was originally conceived as a single creature, not a trio, in early drafts.

Accepted Answer

True. Early concept art shows only one large Totoro. The smaller versions were added later to create a family dynamic and make the character more marketable.

Question 7

True or false: Miyazaki personally animated the scene where Totoro and the girls fly over the village at night.

Accepted Answer

True. Miyazaki animated that iconic flight sequence himself, as he felt it was the emotional core of the film and wanted precise control over the feeling of magic.

Question 8

True or false: The Catbus was inspired by a real cat that Miyazaki saw hitchhiking on a country road.

Accepted Answer

False. Miyazaki said the Catbus came from his childhood fantasy of a bus that could become a cat. No real cat hitchhiker story exists in interviews.

My Neighbor Totoro Trivia Questions