Studio Ghibli's My Neighbor Totoro is a timeless classic that even non-anime fans are familiar with. A story about two little girls who move to the countryside with their father while their mother recovers from an unnamed illness, Satsuke and Mei Kusakabe find themselves in the company of forest spirits, including the powerful Totoro. With Satsuke away at school, little Mei comes face to face with Totoro after following the forest spirits into his hideaway among the camphor trees.

One of the great things about My Neighbor Totoro is the bond the children form with the natural world around them. As a common theme in Hayao Miyazaki's films, a love and appreciation for nature is certainly at the story's core, demonstrating a level of comfort from nature during an uncertain and frightening time for the sisters. Totoro and the girls develop a close bond, with the Guardian of the Forest even lending a hand in finding Mei when she goes missing. While the movie is cute and heartwarming, affirming that sometimes keeping one's childlike wonder is a surefire way to find comfort and hope when life gets tough. Although Totoro is easily considered to be one of Studio Ghibli's best films, there are times, both intentional and unintentional, when the film makes no sense at all.

Updated on March 26, 2024 by Jenny Melzer: One of the fun things about My Neighbor Totoro is how easily children accept the senseless things most adults would roll their eyes at. There is an innocence about the film that is almost certainly one of the reasons it remains one of Studio Ghibli's most memorable films, but sometimes things make little to no sense at all. This list has been updated to further explore some of Totoro's strangest and most nonsensical moments, as well as to adhere to CBR's most current standards in formatting.

10 Satsuki and Mei Think Rotting Wood Is Really Cool

There's a Reason Something So Simple Peaks Their Interest: They've Never Seen It Before

When the children arrive at their new house, they seem excited about everything. They run around and eventually come across rotting wood on the patio. Miraculously, it is still standing, and the children decide to test their luck by playing with a piece of the rotting wood. This was a dangerous move, as the wood above them could have easily come crashing down on top of them, but it's also odd that anyone would consider a gross piece of wood to be a source of entertainment.

On the other hand, with their father being a professor, it can easily be assumed that neither of them have ever been to the countryside before, much less lived there. It's possible they've spent their short lives amid the concrete forest of high-rise buildings and bustling sidewalks. The excitement of a lush, green world all around them, including, the natural decay of wood, fosters their imagination in ways it's probably never been stimulated before.

9 There Is Almost No Parental Supervision

An Alarming Fact That Makes No Sense Is That There's No One Watching the Four-Year-Old

Satsuki and Mei are ten and four years old, and when they're together, it obviously falls to the big sister to play the role of babysitter. When Satsuki heads to school, however, Mei is pretty much on her own. Though the girls' father is physically there, he's mentally and emotionally distracted by his work and his wife's illness. He has Granny on standby to help him look after Mei, but Granny is an old woman and she has difficulty controlling the hyperactive four-year-old.

Mei has a tendency to wander off or get moody when her family isn't around to pay attention to her. While it isn't unheard of, especially in the countryside, to let children play unsupervised outdoors, especially during the 1980s and early '90s. The unfortunate thing about that, however, is that when Mei runs off by herself, no one even notices she's gone until Satsuki comes home from school. It's understandable that their father is distracted, but inexcusable that he was so wrapped up in his work he didn't even realize his child was gone. It makes no sense at all that this happened, especially considering it happened more than once.

8 Spirits Can Only Be Seen When They Want To Be

This Concept Is Highly Debatable When Broken Down and Examined More Thoroughly

Satsuki and Mei's, Tatsuo, tells them that spirits can only be seen when they want to be seen. However, this statement doesn't hold up. Mei notices a smaller version of Totoro and gives chase to it. The spirit doesn't seem to like being followed, yet it decides to disappear for a few seconds before reappearing again briefly. The father's logic made no sense, considering Mei could see Totoro and the other forest spirits. It's likely Totoro didn't want to be seen, as he was busy napping within the camphor tree.

On the other hand, it's a common belief in many cultures that, because of their ability to imagine, children are an exception to such rules. They can often see things adults can't, like spirits, because adults are too consumed by reality. It can also be examined from another perspective entirely, assuming the forest spirits actually wanted to draw her in and were simply playing a game to invited her to chase them.

7 There Is No Explanation for My Neighbor Totoro's Cat Bus

The Cat Bus Is Weird, but It's a Work of Imagination that Serves the Story

The existence of the Cat Bus raises a lot of questions. Logically, its body is so bizarre that it shouldn't work. With ten legs instead of wheels, it can obviously move very quickly, but it defies logic. Where does such a thing come from, and how does it even work as a means of transportation? It shouldn't make sense at all, and to a logical mind, it absolutely doesn't. For a child, however, it's one of the most reasonable things in the world.

Stretching open the side of its body to create a door sounds horrific, and its creepy yellow eyes and cheshire grin are the stuff of a Lewis Carroll nightmare, but its willingness to help get Satsuki to Mei and then transport them to see their mother negates its creepiness. The Cat Bus is absolutely the kind of friend a spirit like Totoro would have on his side. It's a creature of pure imagination, and in a world where powerful forest spirits extend themselves to comfort and aid young children, odd things like a Cat Bus become perfectly plausible.

6 Totoro Can Fly On a Top Smaller than the Children He's Transporting

Tops May Not Fly In the Real World, But With a Little Imagination, Anything is Possible

There are a lot of things about Totoro that don't make sense. He has a big body and tiny feet, but he can balance on a small top with ease. Not only that, the top--which is smaller than the children--can hold the weight of the massive Totoro, Satsuki and Mei, combined. Everyone knows how tops work. Wind them up and spin them, but the top in My Neighbor Totoro can actually fly, and it carries the three of them through the skies.

It's a whimsical scene, soaring so high above the houses below that they look small as ants, but it makes very little sense. Because viewers are following this story through a child's lens, it doesn't have to make sense, though.

5 The Father Doesn't See The Tree Growing Right Next To Him

Given Tatsuo's History of Getting Lost In His Work, This Shouldn't Be Surprising

After planting the acorns that they received from Totoro, Satsuki and Mei wake up in the middle of the night to see him and two smaller spirits dancing around the area the acorns were planted in. They join in on the dancing, and the plants start to grow into one big tree that towers over their house rapidly. While the tree is growing, the father is too busy working to notice. Even though the children are loud, he doesn't bother to look to the side until long after the tree has finished growing.

This seems like it doesn't make sense, but there's an ongoing theme that's been obvious since the start. Mei and Satsuki's father is very wrapped up in his work and his worries. Digging even deeper, it's very likely that he spent the entirety of his life in the city, consumed by responsibility and logic. When considering how distracted he was from the start, it shouldn't be surprising that he didn't notice his children dancing with forest spirits around a massive tree as it grew right outside his window.

4 Stepping In Front Of A Moving Vehicle Could Have Gotten Satsuki Killed

The Difference Between City and Country Drivers Is an Unknown for Her

When frantically searching for her missing sister, Satsuki decides to run to the hospital on foot. On the way there, she intentionally moves directly in front of a vehicle, forcing the driver to stomp on the breaks to avoid hitting her. This was severely irresponsible of her, regardless of the circumstances, as she could have easily waved or called for their attention on the side of the road. Even though it was a close call, Satsuki doesn't seem worried about what could have happened at all.

This is potentially another strange habit carried over from bustling city life. While it is dangerous to rush into a busy street, sometimes hailing a car involves such daring acts of foolishness. City and country drivers are two entirely different types of drivers, and Satsuki had no way of knowing that she was putting herself in danger because no one explained the difference to her. Drivers in the country don't expect people to rush into the road to try and stop them, and because there is less traffic on country roads, they tend to drive much faster.

3 Satsuki Doesn't Immediately Ask Totoro For Help

Totoro Could Have Saved a Lot of Time In the Search for Mei, but No One Asked for His Help

Upon realizing that her sister ran off by herself to visit their mother at the hospital, she doesn't stop to consider asking the magical forest spirit for help. By this point, Totoro has already shown off his ability to fly and grow plants rapidly, and Satsuki watched him step onto the Cat Bus while waiting for her father at the bus stop. It would make sense that he had ways to find Mei faster than ordinary humans could.

Instead, Satsuki spends the entire day searching for Mei with the help of the people who lived in the area, but she could have saved so much precious time if she'd gone to Totoro sooner. When trying to make sense of this, one could almost see the invisible threshold between childhood and adulthood - a line Satsuki is toeing. She is trying to be responsible, falling back on what would be expected as a means to finding her little sister. It's almost as if, in her panic, Satsuki didn't believe in magic for a moment.

2 Granny Was Accused Of Getting Carried Away

Her Response to the Situation Was Perfectly Logical

When Granny saw a child's slipper in the middle of the lake, she assumes immediately that it could be Mei's. She gathers many people who start searching the water for any sign of her, and while it's a grim assumption, it's not unreasonable. A four-year-old is missing, and in many cases a big body of water is the first place logical people would search.

When Satsuki confirms the slipper doesn't belong to Mei, everyone relaxes a little. Some even note that Granny got carried away, but she didn't. Given the situation, her response was reasonable, and searching the lake was a smart move. On an entirely different note, that slipper belonged to someone. Reflecting back on that scene, one can't help but wonder who, and if that child was missing as well.

1 The Father Believes Everything His Children Tell Him

Is This Unbelievable, or a Sign That, Despite His Absentee Parenting, He's Fostering His Kids' Imaginations?

Whenever Satsuki and Mei tell their father about something or someplace fantastical that they saw, their father immediately believes them. Even when there is no proof of what they've told him, he accepts their words without batting an eye. Despite his distraction and all-consuming dedication to his work, he's a very loving and attentive father. He encourages their imaginative stories, accepting them at face value and without question, which suggests a supportive nature.

When his wife tells him she saw their children in the tree outside of her hospital room, the pair share a quaint laugh and don't seem fazed by the information at all. It's possible that, given the nature of her illness, they choose to not only believe in miracles, but find hope for the future in a desperate time. It may seem unbelievable, a father taking stock in even the wildest of stories from his children, but it's an encouraging sign that, in some way, he's not just fostering their imagination, but encouraging them to appreciate nature and all the gifts it offers.