Discovering and connecting the golden acorns of cultural capital with My Neighbour Totoro

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s stage production of Studio Ghibli’s anime masterpiece, My Neighbour Totoro (dir. Miyazaki, 1988), has received 5-star reviews (Akbar, 2022). However, for children and educators unable to experience the magic of this theatrical performance due to location and cost, they may feel a sense of disappointment. In my view, a close reading of the film as a classroom learning experience would act as a complementary alternative to theatre attendance in the discovery and connection of the golden acorns of cultural capital.

What is so special about this film?

My Neighbour Totoro is ranked 72nd in British Film Institute’s 2022 critics’ The Greatest Films of All Time poll (British Film Institute, 2022). Anime scholar, Helen McCarthy, describes the film as “perfect” because it has “the courage to tell a child’s story from a child’s viewpoint at a child’s pace” (McCarthy, 2020).

Set in a time before television

“It is a story set in a time before television” asserts the film’s director, Hayao Miyazaki (2009). Not, as others may claim, the 1950s. Miyazaki’s ‘time before television’ temporal framing hints at a concern about the limiting effect electronic technology, such as television, has on children’s curiosity and sensory learning of the natural world. 

A simple story

The premise of the story is simple: two young girls, Mei and Satsuki, with their father, leave the city and move to the countryside to be closer to their mother, convalescing in hospital. Within vistas of rural landscapes, the children, particularly the youngest child, Mei, enjoy their new-found freedom, both physically and imaginatively, and sublimate themselves with nature, bringing about emotional healing. As film critic, Roger Ebert (2001) puts it:

“Here is a children's film made for the world we should live in, rather than the one we occupy. A film with no villains. No fight scenes. No evil adults. No fighting between the two kids. No scary monsters. No darkness before the dawn. A world that is benign. A world where if you meet a strange towering creature in the forest, you curl up on its tummy and have a nap.”

Moments of 'ma'

The film’s approach differs in pace when compared with American animation, which tends to skew toward “frantic cheerful action” (Ebert, 2002). “If you have constant tension at 80 degrees all the time, you just get numb,” opines Miyazaki (Ebert, 2002). Totoro, on the other hand, seeks to absorb the viewer, rather than numb them with non-stop action. Totoro’s balance between fast and slow moments are achieved by Miyazaki through his inclusion of moments of ma, the Japanese concept of emptiness, within the film. Ma is understood to be the space between things – like the space between handclaps.

Experiencing moments of ma is thought to engender time in which to breath, think and reflect. We experience Totoro’s moments of ma when our attention is deftly guided by Miyazaki toward the visual and audio rhythms of the natural world. For example, the sound of slow drips of water or a leaf carried along a babbling brook. Like Mei and Satsuki, we benefit from the restorative power of nature through these moments of ma. This is why the film delights, rather than numbs.

Romantic ideals

The film’s childlike perspective, suffused with a sense of childhood innocence and reverence for and affinity with nature, chimes with Romantic ideals. From my close reading of the film, I am reminded of both Romantic poetry and art produced in Britain during the late 1700s and early 1800s. Here, I give three examples from the film that can be used with children in the discovery and collection of the film’s cultural capital golden acorns.

1. Mei and Satsuki are transported from the city into nature

The film begins with Mei and Satsuki being transported into the countryside. As they journey toward their new home, we share their wide-eyed wonderment of the rural landscape they find themselves in. This opening scene from Totoro reminds me of William Wordsworth’s ([1805] 2014) introduction to his poem, The Prelude, which charts his joy on returning to the Lake District as he bids “farewell to the city left behind”.

The poem opens with:

“Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze

That blows from the green fields and from the clouds

And from the sky: it beats against my cheek

And seems half conscious of the joys it gives”

As The Prelude progresses, Wordsworth details his various growing-up adventures as he explored the rural idyll offered by ‘The Lakes’, leading him to conclude this of his childhood experiences: 

“Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up

Fostered alike by beauty and by fear”

As Totoro progresses, we notice that both Mei and Satsuki are fostered by the natural world, too. For example, their reverence for the Camphor tree or learning to overcome their fear of a storm through laughter.

2. Mei collects golden acorns

Second, Mei’s collecting of golden acorns, dropped by the translucent totoro (wood spirits), reminds me of Thomas Gainsborough’s 1787 painting, The Marsham Children. Through the use of flowing brushstrokes with translucent qualities, Gainsborough crafts a Rousseau inspired image of children merging with nature as they harvest hazelnuts from their arcadia.

Similarly, Miyazaki details the totoro with translucent qualities, hinting at their connection with nature. Using the power of her imagination, something that the Romantics thought waned in adulthood, Mei is able to make visible the unseen world of the totoros: thus, harmonise with nature.   

3. Mei brings her imagination to the classroom

Third, Mei’s unannounced visit to her sister’s school reminds me of William Blake’s ([1794] 2004) poem The School Boy: 

“Ah! then at times I drooping sit

And spend many an anxious hour.

Nor in any book can I take delight,

Nor sit in learnings bower.

Worn thro’ with the dreary shower”

In this scene, we see a classroom environment familiar to us. The children, placed in rows, are under the firm surveillance of the teacher as they silently droop over their books. Mei’s imaginative depiction of the woodland spirit brings nature into the classroom, disrupting its silenced monotony. Interestingly, the older children are drawn to Mei’s colourful depiction of totoro. Possibly, the older children are reminded of their own imaginative creations which no longer have place in the classroom. As Brendan Cooper (2017) points out, “The School Boy, exemplifies Blake’s scepticism about formal education at the same as it celebrates the natural freedoms of childhood.” We sense that the world of Miyazaki’s Totoro would agree, also.

Final thoughts

I recognise that the use of film in the classroom can invite intense pedagogical debate. However, I feel this film successfully challenges the view that there is no room for film in the classroom (briefly outlined above). If you are still not convinced as to the film’s cultural capital value, perhaps Miyazaki’s reasoning for the film’s creation may persuade: “I made it hoping that children would see it and then go out to run around the fields or pick-up acorns” (Miyazaki, 2009). I think that includes educators, as well.