My Neighbor Totoro Disney Dub Review

I consider myself to be well versed in the anime world I watch alot of anime shows per year and I have quite a bit of anime on DVD with some being on Blu-ray heck I even cried during When Marnie Was There but i've honestly never seen the film i'm about to review and until today I never even thought of watching it and so here is my review of My Neighbor Totoro and just to make things clear i'm reviewing the Disney dubbed version of the film.

I'm going to ask all of you die hard fans of this movie one simple question and in the comments I want you to give me your answer the question is What Is The Plot Of This Movie? I want to ask you fans that question because i've seen the movie and I couldn't find a single trace of a plot and that for me isn't good because it means a film has no reason for being in the first place but I will admit that the pacing for the film is pretty good I say pretty good because the opening titles goes on a bit to long for my liking.

Starring in this dubbed version of the film is The Fanning Sisters Dakota and Elle as sisters Satsuki and Mei , Tim Daly as Tatsuo , Lea Salonga as Yasuko , Frank Welker as both Totoro and Catbus and Disney legend Pat Carroll as Granny. I will admit that the acting wasn't what I expected don't get me wrong there's some bad performers in this movie but I was expecting everyone to be flat out bad in this movie but I was shocked to learn that the only bad actor was Elle Fanning who is just annoying as hell.

For some reason Disney really does like to produce two separate dubs for Studio Ghibli films i'm not joking because alot of the Gibli films they released have another English language dub to them take for example Arrietty that film had a UK dub but for some reason Disney chose to re-dub the film into American and to me that doesn't make sense since there is already an English dub out there so why not just use that dub instead of going through a process which will cost you more money think Disney think.

I don't think this needs saying since everyone and there freaking mother knows who animated this film and I will say that once again Studio Ghibli have done a wonderful job when it comes to the animation because the animation in this film is so freaking good heck I think that the animation is easily the best of the film and if i'm being really honest with myself the backgrounds were also really nice to look at.

Anything that's by Hayao Miyazaki you know right away is going to have great animation and great looking backgrounds because he has a great eye for detail heck i'll even go as far to say that he's the Walt Disney of Japan in that his films are for the whole family not just little kids but with that being said in my eyes this film is a kids film.

I'll be the first to admit that this film didn't grab me as much as other anime films have and that might be because i'm alot older when viewing this film for the first time and it's meant to be seen through the eyes of a little kid but it could also be because i've seen better anime films and no I don't just mean Your Name either i'm talking about films like A Silent Voice , When Marnie Was There , Mary And The Witches Flower and the original Ghost In The Shell all of these film in my opinion are better then this film because they make me care for the characters and they actually have a story.

The closet thing we get to a story happens near the end but by then it's two little two late because at that point I don't care for the characters and I don't care for them because the film hasn't given me a reason to care and if your making a feature film regardless of who your audience is you have to have characters that the audience care about and I know that the people who love this film are going to hate me even more then they do right now but the fact is the characters aren't that likable.

I know it seems like i'm hating on this film alot but there is alot that I do like about the film it's just that there's alot more that I don't like I really like all of the scenes between the two sisters and the Catbus moving so fast that no one can see it is a good idea altho how they can't feel the huge gust of wind that it leaves behind is another thing all together.

I'll admit i'm a little nervous about posting this review because of the fact that I know this film has a lot of die hard fans so I hope that they respect my opinions of the film and I know that i'm coming to this film really late in life but the fact is this film does have a lot of issues but at the same time I can see why people would like it since it's very child like in nature and that does allow the film to have a lot more fun scenes.

I cannot deny the fact that the films main character has become a pop culture icon in the world of anime heck he makes an appearance at the start of every Studio Ghibli movie as well as making cameos in other Ghibli films and I do have to respect the film because it helped get it's writer / director Hayao Miyazaki on the road to becoming one of the most respected animators in the world and what people might not know is that there is a sequel short film out there called Mei and the Kittenbus which has never been released in America or any English speaking language.

Overall while I do have a lot of respect for the film since it did help make anime more mainstream because of the fact that this film has been hyped up so much no matter how good I thought the film was nothing less then perfect would have been good and sadly it's not a perfect film so it gets a 7.5 out of 10 from me.