Catbus (My Neighbor Totoro)
What is the film about? Satsuki and Mei are two sisters who move to the countryside with their father. Their mother is in the hospital recovering from an illness. In the nearby forest, the two children discover magical beings, including the friendly forest spirit Totoro.
Totoro supports the sisters in many moments. Towards the end of the film, the children secretly visit their sick mother while Totoro watches over them from a distance.
What role does the being play? When Mei gets lost on her way to her mother, Satsuki asks Totoro for help. He summons a magical Catbus that can run and float with 12 legs. The bus cannot be seen by adults, but is perceived by them only as a gust of wind.
In fact, there is a spin-off featuring the Catbus called Mei and the Baby Cat Bus
, which is only 14 minutes long. We would have liked to see the Catbus as an independent being more often in the film and not just as a means of transportation – even if that is primarily what he is there for.
To this day, the animation studio Ghibli has released 24 films – counting the films that Hayao Miyazaki was able to produce in other studios. The range of how well the films were received spans from flop to masterpiece. You can find the ranking of all films according to IMDb here: All Ghibli films ranked by IMDb
