Two little girls, Satsuki (voice:
Dakota Fanning in the 2005 Disney dub), who's 8 or 9, and Mei (voice:
Elle Fanning), 4, move to a ramshackle house in the country with their father (voice:
Tim Daly). Occasionally they visit their mother (voice:
Lea Salonga), who is hospitalized with an unspecified illness, but they spend most of their time playing and exploring their new home and its environs. Among their first discoveries are a swarm of soot sprites -- shy, ghostly creatures resembling sea urchins that get your hands dirty if you catch them; a huge camphor tree in the forest behind the house; and some acorns, which appear to be falling from the ceiling of the main room. Granny (voice:
Pat Carroll), the neighbor who's been caring for the house, explains that soot sprites are the source of dust and dirt in empty buildings. Adults can't see them, she says, and they'll probably leave soon, now that there are people in the house again. Later, they learn that Granny's grandson Kanta (voice:
Paul Butcher) thinks their house is haunted.
One day while Satsuki is at school, Mei spots an odd little rabbit-eared creature who disappears under the house and emerges with a companion and a bag of acorns. She follows the two of them into the forest and down a hole among the roots of the camphor tree, where she meets their large friend Totoro (voice:
Frank Welker). "Totoro," a corruption of the word "troll," is Mei's name for him; the creature himself, furry, owlish, and friendly, does not speak (though he sometimes roars). When Mei tells her dad and Satsuki about Totoro, they don't believe her at first because the path she followed to the camphor tree doesn't lead there any more. Dad says that you can't find a forest spirit unless the forest spirit wants to be found, and Totoro must be a forest spirit; Mei is lucky to have met him. That makes Satsuki a little jealous. The three of them find their way to the base of the camphor tree, but Totoro's hole is gone. They speak respectfully to the old tree and bow before going home.
Satsuki gets her chance to meet Totoro when she and Mei walk to the bus stop to meet their father. Dad is late, Mei falls asleep as it gets dark, and Totoro comes along to wait for the bus. Feeling sorry for him because the leaf he's wearing on his head doesn't do much to keep off the rain, Satsuki gives Totoro her father's umbrella. He's enchanted once she shows him what it's for. Before getting on his bus, he gives Satsuki a little leaf-wrapped package.
Totoro's bus is nothing like the ordinary one on which Dad is traveling; it's a giant, twelve-legged cat. With its wide mouth and face, striped body, and ability to disappear, the Cat Bus bears more than a passing resemblance to the John Tenniel illustration of Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat -- see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cheshire_Cat_Tenniel.jpg. (This isn't the movie's first
Alice in Wonderland reference -- consider Mei's adventure following Totoro's rabbit-eared sidekicks down the hole under the camphor tree.)
The little package from Totoro contains acorns and other nuts, which Satsuki and Mei plant in their garden. A few nights later, they wake up to see Totoro (still carrying Dad's umbrella, though it's not raining) and his two friends dancing in the garden. The girls join the dance, and up sprout little trees, to everyone's delight. They all keep dancing and the trees keep growing until they fuse together to form a huge camphor tree like the one in which Totoro lives. Then, with Mei and Satsuki clinging to his fur, Totoro steps aboard a spinning top and flies into the air. (Here are more references to older children's stories: the nuts that grow into a gigantic tree recall "Jack and the Beanstalk," while Totoro's flight, with the children and the umbrella, suggests
Mary Poppins.)
In the morning the big tree in the garden is gone, but the little sprouts remain to show that Totoro was there.
One day when they're looking forward to having Mom home from the hospital, Satsuki and Mei are helping Granny pick vegetables. Granny assures them that the vegetables she grows will help their mother get better. When a telegram arrives saying Mom can't come home yet, Mei is distraught and sets out to see her mother in the hospital, carrying an ear of corn from Granny's garden. But it would be much too far for a little girl to walk even if she knew the way. The whole neighborhood turns out to look for her. After running all over the place looking in vain for her sister, Satsuki goes to Totoro for help. Totoro calls the Cat Bus, which finds Mei handily (changing the destination sign on its forehead to read "Mei"). Then it carries the girls to a tree outside Mom's hospital room, where they take comfort in seeing that she's really OK. They drop the ear of corn on Mom's windowsill and the Cat Bus carries them home.
