MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO - cont...

The girls join in, whereupon the seeds sprout and then grow into an enormous tree. Totoro then takes his colleagues and the girls for a ride on a magical flying top. In the morning, the girls find that there is no tree in their yard, but that the seeds have indeed sprouted.
The final encounter with Totoro occurs when Mei, distraught after being shouted at by Satsuki, who was frustrated when she learns that their mother's visit home has been canceled due to an apparent worsening of her condition, (a suspicion which proves to be unfounded), sets off on foot to the hospital and gets lost. Desperate to find her sister, Satsuki returns to the camphor laurel tree and pleads for Totoro's help. Delighted to be of assistance, he summons the Catbus, which rescues Mei and whisks her and Satsuki over the countryside to see their mother in the hospital. The girls perch in a tree outside of a hospital to discover that their mother is doing well, deliver an ear of corn that Mei believes will make her mother better, and return home on the Catbus. When the Catbus departs, it fades away from the girls' sight.
Not long after, Satsuki and Mei are playing with other human children, with Totoro and his friends as unseen bystanders. The girls would never see Totoro again, but that the spirits would always be watching over them.

- Hiyao Miyazaki - 1988
Unknown "moneypenny" Sparkling - 18 years ago

MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO

In the 1950s, a Tokyo university professor and his two daughters, Satsuki and Mei, move into an old house in rural Japan, so as to be closer to the hospital where his wife is recovering from an illness. The daughters find that the house is inhabited by tiny animated dust creatures called soot sprites, which their father rationalizes as makkurokurosuke.
When Mei, the younger daughter, plays outside the house while her father works inside after Satsuki has left for school, she sees two white rabbit-like ears in the grass, and upon following this creature under the house, she eventually discovers two small magical creatures, which lead her through a brier patch and into the hollow of a large Camphor Laurel tree. There she meets and befriends a large version of the same kind of spirit, which identifies itself by a series of roars she interprets as "Totoro". Her father later tells her that this is the "keeper of the forest".
One rainy night, while the girls are waiting for their father's bus, Satsuki encounters Totoro herself for the first time. The girls are getting worried because their father has not come on the bus they expected, and it is getting late. Mei insists on waiting with Satsuki instead of going back to the house and staying with Granny, and falls asleep on Satsuki's back. While they wait, Totoro appears beside them. Since he is looking rather forlorn with only a leaf on his head for protection against the rain, Satsuki offers him the umbrella she had taken along for her father. Totoro is delighted at both the shelter and the sounds made upon it by falling raindrops. The girls receive in return a bundle of nuts and seeds. A bus-shaped giant cat halts at the stop, and Totoro boards it, taking the umbrella. Shortly after, their father’s bus arrives.
The girls plant the seeds, but they don't sprout for a few days. One night, they awaken at midnight to find Totoro and his two miniature colleagues engaged in a ritual dance around the planted nuts and seeds.
Unknown "moneypenny" Sparkling - 18 years ago