Question 1

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

Accepted Answer

False. My Neighbor Totoro was actually a major box office hit in Japan, earning over 1.1 billion yen in 1988 and ranking among the year's top-grossing films.

Question 2

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

Accepted Answer

False. Hayao Miyazaki has two sons, no daughters. The sisters' names Satsuki and Mei both relate to the month of May, not his family.

Question 3

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

Accepted Answer

False. The soot sprites first appeared in My Neighbor Totoro; they were inspired by Miyazaki's earlier unmade concept about a coal mine, not a scrapped Ghibli film.

Question 4

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

Accepted Answer

False. My Neighbor Totoro 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 5

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.

Question 6

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 7

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 8

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

Accepted Answer

False. The film was originally set in 1947, which is still post-war Japan. It was then shifted to the early 1950s. So they did not change from a post-war setting to the 1950s—both periods are post-war.

My Neighbor Totoro Trivia Questions